A CONSOLATORY ADDRESS TO HIS GUN-BOATS.
BY CITIZEN MUSKEIN.
O navis! referent in mare te novi fluctus.
O gentle Gun-Boats, whom the Seine
Discharged from Havre to the main;
Now leaky, creaking, blood-bespattered,
With rudders broken, canvas shattered—
O tempt the treacherous sea no more,
But gallantly regain the shore.
Scarce could our guardian goddess, Reason,
Ensure your timbers through the season.
Though built of wood from famed Marseilles,
Well-manned from galleys, and from jails,
Though with Lepaux’s and Rewbell’s aid,
By Pleville’s[[256]] skill your keel was laid;
Though lovely Stael, and lovelier Stone,[[256]]
Have worked their fingers to the bone,
And cut their petticoats to rags
To make your bright three-coloured flags;
Yet sacrilegious grape and ball
Deform the works of Stone and Stael,
And trembling, without food or breeches,
Our sailors curse the painted ——.[[257]]
Children of Muskein’s anxious care,
Source of my hope and my despair,
Gun-Boats—unless you mean hereafter
To furnish food for British laughter—
Sweet Gun-Boats, with your gallant crew,
Tempt not the rocks of Saint Marcou;
Beware the Badger’s bloody pennant,
And that d——d invalid Lieutenant!
LYRICS OF HORACE. ODE XIV., BOOK I.
TRANSLATED BY ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM.
O Ship, fresh billows soon again
Shall bear thee to the boisterous main!
Firm, keep the port. See, see thy side,
Without a single oar to guide!
Wounded by tempests is thy mast;
Thy sail-yards groan beneath the blast;
Nor can thy keel, uncabled, brave
The swelling of th’ imperious wave.
Torn are thy sails! nor Gods hast thou,
When danger threats, to hear thy vow.
Though born of noblest wood, ’twas thine
To tower a vigorous Pontic pine;
’Tis vain thy race, thy name, to prize:
Nought on his painted stern relies
The trembling seaman. Storms afar
Thicken to mock thy strength: beware.
Thou, who wast late my anxious fear,
Thou now my fondest, tenderest care:
O shun, dear Ship, those tossing seas
Which part the white-cliff’d Cyclades!
[Muskein was an inhabitant of Antwerp, whom the Directory not only appointed to superintend the construction of the flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of Great Britain (usually called by the French sailors “bateaux à la Muskein”), but made a “capitaine de vaisseau”. An attack was ordered to be made upon the two small islands of Saint Marcouf (each not more than 200 yards in length), of which, in July, 1795, Sir Sidney Smith, with the Diamond frigate, had taken unobstructed possession, and which were considered to give to the English great facility in intercepting between the ports of Havre and Cherbourg. The islands are situated off the river Isigny, on the coast of Normandy, and about four miles distant from the French shore. After being garrisoned with about 500 seamen and marines, including a great proportion of invalids, these small islands were placed under the command of Lieut. Charles Papps Price, of The Badger, a cruiser-converted Dutch hoy, mounting four, or at most six, guns.
On the 8th April, 1798, Muskein, with 33 flat-bottomed boats, with a body of troops on board, and a few gun-brigs, was about to make a combined attack on the two islands, but was driven off by two British frigates, The Diamond, Capt. Sir R. J. Strachan, and The Hydra, Capt. Sir Francis Laforey, and stood into Caen river. While there for three weeks, repairing damages, he was joined by seven heavy gun-brigs, and about 40 flat-boats and armed fishing vessels, bringing with them additional troops.
On the 6th May, Lieut. Price received information that an attack was meditated during the night. By 10 p.m., owing to the prevailing calm, the small naval force on the station, consisting of the 50–gun ship, Adamant, Capt. Wm. Hotham, 24–gun ship, Eurydice, Capt. John Talbot, and 18–gun brig-sloop, Orestes, Capt. W. Haggitt, had not been able to approach nearer to the islands than six miles—precisely what the assailants wanted. The attacking force consisted of 52–gun brigs and flat-bottomed boats, having on board, as was reported, about 6000 men. At day-break, on the 7th, the flotilla was seen drawn up in a line opposite to the south-west front of the western redoubt; and instantly was opened, upon the brigs and flats composing it, a fire from 17 pieces of cannon, consisting of four 4, two 6, and six 24 pounder long guns, and three 24 and two 32–pounder carronades, being all the guns that would bear. The brigs remained at a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, in order to batter the redoubt with their heavy long guns, while the boats, with great resolution, rowed up until within musket-shot of the battery. But the guns of the latter, loaded with round, grape, and canister, soon poured destruction amongst these, cutting several of the boats “into chips,” and compelling all that could keep afloat to seek their safety in flight. Six or seven boats were seen to go down, and one small flat, No. 13, was afterwards towed in, bottom upwards. She appeared, by some pieces of paper found in her, to have had 144 persons on board, including 129 of the second company of the Boulogne battalion.
The loss sustained by the British garrison amounted to one private-marine killed, and two private-marines and two seamen wounded. According to one French account, the invaders lost about 900 in killed or drowned, and between 300 and 400 wounded. As a reward for their conduct on this occasion, Lieutenants Price and Bourne were each promoted to the rank of Commander. The former died a Post Captain, at Hereford, in 1813, aged 62.—James’s Naval History, vol. ii., pp. 128–131: ed. 1886.—Ed.]
[M. Pléville was Minister of Marine, and, shortly after this unsuccessful début of the famous flotilla, was succeeded by Rear-Adm. Bruix, who directed Rear-Adm. La Crosse to take the command, and to make a second attack upon the islands. This, however, the French Government declined to make.—Ed.]
HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.
Helen Maria Williams.—[“Among the literary celebrities of the French Revolution was Helen Maria Williams, at whose house were wont to assemble the most distinguished of the liberal writers of France, her own reputation giving considerable éclat to these meetings. She wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in our language, was a prisoner under the reign of terror, and published a work on the French Revolution which is full of the most touching incidents, and adorned with specimens of the ardent and pathetic poetry, the product of French genius under the excitement of those most mysterious days. A. Humboldt was much attached to her, and committed to her care the translation and publication of some of his most elaborate works.
“She had two nephews, Athanas and Charles Coquerel, whom she educated, and who both attained considerable fame, one in the theological and the other in the political field. Athanas was for some time the preacher in the Protestant Church at Amsterdam, and married the daughter of a Swiss gentleman, the only person I have ever known on the Continent to adopt the dress and profess the opinions of an English Quaker. Miss Williams maintained intimate relations with her English friends, was familiar with the great lights of the Revolution, and her conversation was most instructive, entertaining, and varied. All her sympathies were on the side of freedom, and though she was not so prominent as to be persecuted by the Emperor, like Madame de Staël, she was the object of a good deal of suspicion and narrowly watched by the police.”—Autobr. Recollections by Sir John Bowring, pp. 353–4.—Ed.]
[Miss Williams, for some years, wrote that portion of the New Annual Register which relates to France. Among many other productions she was the author of the song Evan Banks (to the tune of Savourna Delish), which has often been attributed to Burns; a novel called Julia, and a Tour in Switzerland. Horace Walpole called her in his Correspondence a “scribbling trollop”.
She lived for many years, and until the death of that gentleman—in Paris, 1818—under the protection of John Hurford Stone, a man of letters, who in the early part of the French Revolution had removed with his wife to Paris, where he formed an intimacy with Miss Williams. She was born about 1762, and died in Paris in 1827 as a friend to the Bourbons, and the enemy of the Revolution!
This Mr. Stone was born at Tiverton in 1763. While in Paris he was in the confidence of the Directory, and became one of the chief printers there. In 1805, he brought out an edition of the Geneva Bible, and published several English reprints; also Miss Williams’s translation of Humboldt’s Travels. His brother, Wm. Stone, was tried in 1796 for High Treason, for holding treasonable correspondence with him.—Ed.]
ELEGY
ON THE DEATH OF JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ.
The following exquisite tribute to the memory of an unfortunate republican is written with such a touching sensibility, that those who can command salt tears must prepare to shed them. The narrative is simple and unaffected; the event in itself interesting; the moral obvious and awful.—We have only to observe, that as this account of the transaction is taken from the French papers, it may possibly be somewhat partial.—The Dey’s own statement of the affair has not yet been received. Every friend of humanity will join with us in expressing a candid and benevolent hope, that this business may not tend to kindle the flames of war between these two unchristian powers; but that, by mutual concession and accommodation, they may come to some point (short of the restoration of Jean Bon’s head on his shoulders, which in this stage of the discussion is hardly practicable) by which the peace of the Pagan world may be preserved. For our part, we pretend not to decide from which quarter the concessions ought principally to be made. It is but candid to allow that there are probably faults on both sides, in this, as in most other cases. For the character of the Dey we profess a sincere respect on the one hand; and on the other, we naturally wish that the head of Jean Bon St. André should be reserved for his own guillotine.