Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844

by Various

A FRAGMENT FROM THE JOURNAL OF AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

"A capital place this for our bivouac!" cried I, swinging myself off my mule, and stretching my arms and legs, which were stiffened by a long ride.

It was a fairish place, to all appearances—a snug ravine, well shaded by mahogany-trees, the ground covered with the luxuriant vegetation of that tropical region, a little stream bubbling and leaping and dashing down one of the high rocks that flanked the hollow, and rippling away through the tall fern towards the rear of the spot where we had halted, at the distance of a hundred yards from which the ground was low and shelving.

"A capital place this for our bivouac!"

My companion nodded. As to our lazy Mexican arrieros and servants, they said nothing, but began making arrangements for passing the night. Curse the fellows! If they had seen us preparing to lie down in a swamp, cheek by jowl with an alligator, I believe they would not have offered a word of remonstrance. Those Mexican half-breeds, half Indian half Spaniard, with sometimes a dash of the Negro, are themselves so little pervious to the dangers and evils of their soil and climate, that they never seem to remember that Yankee flesh and blood may be rather more susceptible; that niguas[¹] and musquittoes, and vomito prieto, as they call their infernal fever, are no trifles to encounter; without mentioning the snakes, and scorpions, and alligators, and other creatures of the kind, which infest their strange, wild, unnatural, and yet beautiful country.

I had come to Mexico in company with Jonathan Rowley, a youth of Virginian raising, six and twenty years of age, six feet two in his stockings, with the limbs of a Hercules and shoulders like the side of a house. It was towards the close of 1824; and the recent emancipation of Mexico from the Spanish yoke, and its self-formation into a republic, had given it a new and strong interest to us Americans. We had been told much, too, of the beauty of the country—but in this we were at first rather disappointed; and we reached the capital without having seen any thing, except some parts of the province of Vera Cruz, that could justify the extravagant encomiums we had heard bestowed in the States upon the splendid scenery of Mexico. We had not, however, to go far southward from the chief city, before the character of the country altered, and became such as to satisfy our most sanguine expectations. Forests of palms, of oranges, citrons, and bananas, filled the valleys: the marshes and low grounds were crowded with mahogany-trees, and with immense fern plants, in height equal to trees. All nature was on a gigantic scale—the mountains of an enormous height, the face of the country seamed and split by barrancas or ravines, hundreds, ay, thousands of feet deep, and filled with the most abundant and varied vegetation. The sky, too, was of the deep glowing blue of the tropics, the sort of blue which seems varnished or clouded with gold. But this ardent climate and teeming soil are not without their disadvantages. Vermin and reptiles of all kinds, and the deadly fever of these latitudes, render the low lands uninhabitable for eight months out of the twelve. At the same time there are large districts which are comparatively free from these plagues—perfect gardens of Eden, of such extreme beauty that the mere act of living and breathing amongst their enchanting scenes, becomes a positive and real enjoyment. The heart seems to leap with delight, and the soul to be elevated, by the contemplation of those regions of fairy-like magnificence.

The most celebrated among these favoured provinces is the valley of Oaxaca, in which two mountainous districts, the Mistecca and Tzapoteca, bear off the palm of beauty. It was through this immense valley, nearly three hundred leagues in length, and surrounded by the highest mountains in Mexico, that we were now journeying. The kind attention of our chargé-d'affaires at the Mexican capital, had procured us every possible facility in travelling through a country, of which the soil was at that time rarely trodden by any but native feet. We had numerous letters to the alcaldes and authorities of the towns and villages which are sparingly sprinkled over the southern provinces of Mexico; we were to have escorts when necessary; every assistance, protection, and facility, were to be afforded us. But as neither the authorities nor his excellency, Uncle Sam's envoy, could make inns and houses where none existed, it followed that we were often obliged to sleep à la belle étoile, with the sky for a covering. And a right splendid roof it was to our bedchamber, that tropical sky, with its constellations, all new to us northerns, and every star magnified by the effect of the atmosphere to an incredible size. Mars and Saturn, Venus and Jupiter, had all disappeared; the great and little Bear were still to be seen; in the far distance the ship Argo and the glowing Centaur; and, beautiful above all, the glorious sign of Christianity the colossal Southern Cross, in all its brightness and sublimity, glittering in silvery magnificence out of its setting of dark blue crystal.

We were travelling with a state and a degree of luxury that would have excited the contempt of our backwoodsmen; but in a strange country we thought it best to do as the natives did; and accordingly, instead of mounting our horses and setting forth alone, with our rifles slung over our shoulders, and a few handfuls of parched corn and dried flesh in our hunting pouches, we journeyed Mexican fashion, with a whole string of mules, a topith or guide, a couple of arrieros or muleteers, a cook, and one or two other attendants. While the latter were slinging our hammocks to the lowermost branches of a tree—for in that part of Mexico it is not very safe to sleep upon the ground, on account of the snakes and vermin—our cocinero lit a fire against the rock, and in a very few minutes an iguana which we had shot that day was spitted and roasting before it. It looked strange to see this hideous creature, in shape between a lizard and a dragon, twisting and turning in the light of the fire; and its disgusting appearance might have taken away some people's appetites; but we knew by experience that there is no better eating than a roasted iguana. We made a hearty meal off this one, concluding it with a pull at the rum flask, and then clambered into our hammocks; the Mexicans stretched themselves on the ground with their heads upon the saddles of the mules, and both masters and men were soon asleep.

It was somewhere about midnight when I was awakened by an indescribable sensation of oppression from the surrounding atmosphere. The air seemed to be no longer air, but some poisonous exhalation that had suddenly arisen and enveloped us. From the rear of the ravine in which we lay, billows of dark mephitic mist were rolling forward, surrounding us with their baleful influence. It was the vomito prieto, the fever itself, embodied in the shape of a fog. At the same moment, and while I was gasping for breath, a sort of cloud seemed to settle upon me, and a thousand stings, like redhot needles, were run into my hands, face, neck—into every part of my limbs and body that was not triply guarded by clothing. I instinctively stretched forth my hands and closed them, clutching by the action hundreds of enormous musquittoes, whose droning, singing noise how almost deafened me. The air was literally filled by a dense swarm of these insects; and the agony caused by their repeated and venomous stings was indescribable. It was a perfect plague of Egypt.

Rowley, whose hammock was slung some ten yards from mine, soon gave tongue: I heard him kicking and plunging, spluttering and swearing, with a vigour and energy that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances; but matters were just then too serious for a laugh. With the torture, for such it was, of the musquitto bites, and the effect of the insidious and poisonous vapours that were each moment thickening around me, I was already in a high state of fever, alternately glowing with heat and shivering with cold, my tongue parched, my eyelids throbbing, my brain seemingly on fire.

There was a heavy thump upon the ground. It was Rowley jumping out of his hammock. "Damnation" roared he, "Where are we? On the earth, or under the earth?—We must be—we are—in their Mexican purgatory. We are, or there's no snakes in Virginny. Hallo, arrieros! Pablo! Matteo!"

At that moment a scream—but a scream of such terror and anguish as I never heard before or since—a scream as of women in their hour of agony and extreme peril, sounded within a few paces of us. I sprang out of my hammock; and as I did so, two white and graceful female figures darted or rather flew by me, shrieking—and oh! in what heart-rending tones—for "Socorro! Socorro! Por Dios! Help! Help!" Close upon the heels of the fugitives, bounding and leaping along with enormous strides and springs, came three or four dark objects which resembled nothing earthly. The human form they certainly possessed; but so hideous and horrible, so unnatural and spectre-like was their aspect, that their sudden encounter in that gloomy ravine, and in the almost darkness that surrounded us, might well have shaken the strongest nerves. We stood for a second, Rowley and myself, paralysed with astonishment at these strange appearances; but another piercing scream restored to us our presence of mind. One of the women had either tripped or fallen from fatigue, and she lay a white heap, upon the ground. The drapery of the other was in the clutch of one of the spectres, or devils, or whatever they were, when Rowley, with a cry of horror, rushed forward and struck a furious blow at the monster with his machetto. At the same time, and almost without knowing how, I found myself engaged with another of the creatures. But the contest was no equal one. In vain did we stab and strike with our machettos; our antagonists were covered and defended with a hard bristly hide, which our knives, although keen and pointed, had great difficulty in penetrating; and on the other hand we found ourselves clutched in long sinewy arms, terminating in hands and fingers, of which the nails were as sharp and strong as an eagle's talons. I felt these horrible claws strike into my shoulders as the creature seized me, and, drawing me towards him, pressed me as in the hug of a bear; while his hideous half man half brute visage was grinning and snarling at me, and his long keen white teeth were snapping and gnashing within six inches of my face.

"God of heaven! This is horrible! Rowley! Help me!"

But Rowley, in spite of his gigantic strength, was powerless as an infant in the grasp of these terrible opponents. He was within a few paces of me, struggling with two of them, and making superhuman efforts to regain possession of his knife, which had dropped or been wrenched from his hand. And all this time, where were our arrieros? Were they attacked likewise? Why didn't they come and help us? All this time!—pshaw! it was no time: it all passed in the space of a few seconds, in the circumference of a few yards, and in the feeble glimmering light of the stars, and of the smouldering embers of our fire, which was at some distance from us.

"Ha! That has told!" A stab, dealt with all the energy of despair, had entered my antagonist's side. But I was like to pay dearly for it. Uttering a deafening yell of pain and fury, the monster clasped me closer to his foul and loathsome body; his sharp claws, dug deeper into my back, seemed to tear up my flesh: the agony was insupportable—my eyes began to swim, and my senses to leave me. Just then—Crack! crack! Two—four—a dozen musket and pistol shots, followed by such a chorus of yellings and howlings and unearthly laughter! The creature that held me seemed startled—relaxed his grasp slightly. At that moment a dark arm was passed before my face, there was a blinding flash, a yell, and I fell to the ground released from the clutch of my opponent. I remember nothing more. Overcome by pain, fatigue, terror, and the noxious vapors of that vile ravine, my senses abandoned me, and I swooned away.

When consciousness returned, I found myself lying upon some blankets, under a sort of arbour of foliage and flowers. It was broad day; the sun shone brightly, the blossoms smelled sweet, the gay-plumaged hummingbirds were darting and shooting about in the sunbeams like so many animated fragments of a prism. A Mexican Indian, standing beside my couch, and whose face was unknown to me, held out a cocoa-nutshell containing some liquid, which I eagerly seized, and drank off the contents. The draught (it was a mixture of citron juice and water) revived me greatly; and raising myself on my elbow, although with much pain and difficulty, I looked around, and beheld a scene of bustle and life which to me was quite unintelligible. Upon the shelving hillside on which I was lying, a sort of encampment was established. A number of mules and horses were wandering about at liberty, or fastened to trees and bushes, and eating the forage that had been collected and laid before them. Some were provided with handsome and commodious saddles, while others had pack-saddles, intended apparently for the conveyance of numerous sacks, cases, and wallets, that were scattered about on the ground. Several muskets and rifles were leaning here and there against the trees; and a dozen or fifteen men were occupied in various ways—some filling up saddle-bags or fastening luggage on the mules, others lying on the ground smoking, one party surrounding a fire at which cooking was going on. At a short distance from my bed was another similarly composed couch, occupied by a man muffled up in blankets, and having his back turned towards me, so that I was unable to obtain a view of his features.

"What is all this? Where am I? Where is Rowley—our guide—where are they all?"

"Non entiendo," answered my brown-visaged Ganymede, shaking his head, and with a good-humoured smile.

"Adonde estamos?"

"In el valle de Chihuatan, in el gran valle de Oaxaca y Guatimala; diez leguas de Tarifa. In the valley of Chihuatan; ten leagues from Tarifa."

The figure lying on the bed near me now made a movement, and turned round. What could it be? Its face was like a lump of raw flesh streaked and stained with blood. No features were distinguishable.

"Who are you? What are you?" cried I.

"Rowley," it answered: "Rowley I was, at least, if those devils haven't changed me."

"Then changed you they have," cried I, with a wild laugh. "Good God! have they scalped him alive, or what? That is not Rowley."

The Mexican, who had gone to give some drink to the creature claiming to be Rowley, now opened a valise that lay on the ground a short distance off, and took out a small looking-glass, which he brought and held before my face. It was then only that I began to call to mind all that had occurred, and understood how it was that the mask of human flesh lying near me might indeed be Rowley. He was, if any thing, less altered than myself. My eyes were almost closed; my lips, nose, and whole face swollen to an immense size, and perfectly unrecognisable. I involuntarily recoiled in dismay and disgust at my own appearance. The horrible night passed in the ravine, the foul and suffocating vapours, the furious attack of the musquittoes—the bites of which, and the consequent fever and inflammation, had thus disfigured us—all recurred to our memory. But the women, the fight with the monsters—beasts—Indians—whatever they were, that was still incomprehensible. It was no dream: my back and shoulders were still smarting from the wounds that had been inflicted on them by the claws of those creatures, and I now felt that various parts of my limbs and body were swathed in wet bandages. I was mustering my Spanish to ask the Mexican who still stood by me for an explanation of all this, when I suddenly became aware of a great bustle in the encampment, and saw every body crowding to meet a number of persons who just then emerged from the high fern, and amongst whom I recognized our arrieros and servants. The new-comers were grouped around something which they seemed to be dragging along the ground; several women—for the most part young and graceful creatures, their slender supple forms muffled in the flowing picturesque reboxos and frazadas—preceded the party, looking back occasionally with an expression of mingled horror and triumph; all with rosaries in their hands, the beads of which ran rapidly through their fingers, while they occasionally kissed the cross, or made the sign on their breasts or in the air.

"Un Zambo muerto! Un Zambo Muerto!" shouted they as they drew near.

"Han matado un Zambo! They have killed a Zambo!" repeated my attendant in a tone of exultation.

The party came close up to where Rowley and I were lying; the women stood aside, jumping and laughing, and crossing themselves, and crying out "Un Zambo! Un Zambo Muerto!" the group opened, and we saw, lying dead upon the ground, one of our horrible antagonists of the preceding night.

"Good God, what is that?" cried Rowley and I, with one breath. "Un demonio! a devil!"

"Perdonen vos, Senores—Un Zambo mono—muy terribles los Zambos. Terrible monkeys these Zambos."

"Monkeys!" cried I.

"Monkeys!" repeated poor Rowley, raising himself up into a sitting posture by the help of his hands. "Monkeys—apes—by Jove! We've been fighting with monkeys, and it's they who have mauled us in this way. Well, Jonathan Rowley, think of your coming from old Virginny to Mexico to be whipped by a monkey. It's gone goose with your character. You can never show your face in the States again. Whipped by an ape!—an ape, with a tail and a hairy—O Lord! Whipped by a monkey!"

And the ludicrousness of the notion overcoming his mortification, and the pain of his wounds and bites, he sank back upon the bed of blankets and banana leaves, laughing as well as his swollen face and sausage-looking lips would allow him.

It was as much as I could do to persuade myself, that the carcass lying before me had never been inhabited by a human soul. It was humiliating to behold the close affinity between this huge ape and our own species. Had it not been for the tail, I could have fancied I saw the dead body of some prairie hunter dressed in skins. It was exactly like a powerful, well-grown man; and even the expression of the face had more of bad human passions than of animal instinct. The feet and thighs were those of a muscular man: the legs rather too curved and calfless, though I have seen Negroes who had scarcely better ones; the tendons of the hands stood out like whipcords; the nails were as long as a tiger's claws. No wonder that we had been overmatched in our struggle with the brutes. No man could have withstood them. The arms of this one were like packets of cordage, all muscle, nerve, and sinew; and the hands were clasped together with such force, that the efforts of eight or ten Mexicans and Indians were insufficient to disunite them.

Whatever remained to be cleared up in our night's adventures was now soon explained. Our guide, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, had allowed us to take up our bivouac within a very unsafe distance of one of the most pestiferous swamps in the whole province. Shortly after we had fallen asleep, a party of Mexican travellers had arrived, and established themselves within a few hundred yards of us, but on a rising ground, where they avoided the mephitic vapours and the musquittoes which had so tortured Rowley and myself. In the night two of the women, having ventured a short distance from the encampment, were surprised by the zambos, or huge man-apes, common in some parts of Southern Mexico; and finding themselves cut off from their friends, had fled they knew not whither, fortunately for them taking the direction of our bivouac. Their screams, our shouts, and the yellings and diabolical laughter of the zambos, had brought the Mexicans to our assistance. The monkeys showed no fight after the first volley; several of then must have been wounded, but only the one now lying before us had remained upon the field.

The Mexicans we had fallen amongst were on the Tzapoteca, principally cochineal gatherers, and kinder-hearted people there could not well be. They seemed to think they never could do enough for us; the women especially, and more particularly the two whom we had endeavoured to rescue from the power of the apes. These latter certainly had cause to be grateful. It made us shudder to think of their fate had they not met with us. It was the delay caused by our attacking the brutes that had given the Mexicans time to come up.

Every attention was shown to us. We were fanned with palm leaves, refreshed with cooling drinks, our wounds carefully dressed and bandaged, our heated, irritated, musquitto-bitten limbs and faces washed with balsam and the juice of herbs: more tender and careful nurses it would be impossible to find. We soon began to feel better, and were able to sit up and look about us; carefully avoiding, however, to look at each other, for we could not get reconciled to the horrible appearance of our swollen, bloody, and disgusting features. From our position on the rising ground, we had a full view over the frightful swamp at the entrance of which all our misfortunes had happened. There it lay, steaming like a great kettle; endless mists rising from it, out of which appeared here and there the crown of some mighty tree towering above the banks of vapour. To the left, cliffs and crags were to be seen which had the appearance of being baseless, and of swimming on the top of the mist. The vultures and carrion-birds circled screaming above the huge caldron, or perched on the tops of the tall palms, which looked like enormous umbrellas, or like the roofs of Chinese summer-houses. Out of the swamp itself proceeded the yellings, snarlings, and growlings of the alligators, bull-frogs, and myriads of unclean beasts that it harboured.

The air was unusually sultry and oppressive: from time to time the rolling of distant thunder was audible. We could hear the Mexicans consulting amongst themselves as to the propriety of continuing their journey, to which our suffering state seemed to be the chief obstacle. From what we could collect of their discourse, they were unwilling to leave us in this dangerous district, and in our helpless condition, with a guide and attendants who were either untrustworthy or totally incompetent to lead us aright. Yet there seemed to be some pressing necessity for continuing the march; and presently some of the older Mexicans, who appeared to have the direction of the caravan, came up to us and enquired how we felt, and if we thought we were able to travel; adding, that from the signs on the earth and in the air, they feared a storm, and that the nearest habitation or shelter was at many leagues' distance. Thanks to the remedies that had been applied, our sufferings were much diminished. We felt weak and hungry, and telling the Mexicans we should be ready to proceed in half an hour, we desired our servants to get us something to eat. But our new friends forestalled them, and brought us a large piece of iguana, with roasted bananas, and cocoa-nutshell cups full of coffee, to all of which Rowley and I applied ourselves with much gusto. Meanwhile our muleteers and the Tzapotecans were busy packing their beasts and making ready for the start.

We had not eaten a dozen mouthfuls when we say a man running down the hill with a branch in each hand. As soon as he appeared, a number of the Mexicans left their occupations and hurried to meet him.

"Siete horas!" shouted the man. "Seven hours, and no more!"

"No more than seven hours!" echoed the Tzapotecans, in tones of the wildest terror and alarm. "La Santissima nos guarde! It will take more than ten to reach the village."

"What's all that about?" said I with my mouth full, to Rowley.

"Don't know—some of their Indian tricks, I suppose."

"Que es esto?" asked I carelessly. "What's the matter?"

"Que es esto!" repeated an old Tzapotecan, with long grey hair curling from under his sombrero, and a withered but finely marked countenance. "Las aguas! El ouracan! In seven hours the deluge and the hurricane!"

"Vamos, por la Santissima! For the blessed Virgin's sake let us be gone!" cried a dozen of the Mexicans, pushing two green boughs into our very faces.

"What are those branches?"

"From the tempest-tree—the prophet of the storm," was the reply.

And Tzapotecans and women, arrieros and servants, ran about in the utmost terror and confusion, with cries of "Vamos, paso redoblado! Off with us, or we are all lost, man and beast," and saddling, packing, and scrambling on their mules. And before Rowley and I knew where we were, they tore us away from our iguana and coffee, and hoisted and pushed us into our saddles. Such a scene of bustle and desperate hurry I never beheld. The place where the encampment had been was alive with men and women, horses and mules, shouting, shrieking and talking, neighing and kicking; but with all the confusion there was little time lost, and in less than three minutes from the first alarm being given, we were scampering away over stock and stone, in a long, wild, irregular sort of train.

The rapidity and excitement of our ride seemed to have the effect of calming our various sufferings, or of making us forget them; and we soon thought no more of the fever, or of stings or musquitto bites. It was a ride for life or death, and our horses stepped out as if they knew how much depended on their exertions.

In the hurry and confusion we had been mounted on horses instead of our our own mules; and splendid animals they were. I doubt if our Virginians could beat them, and that is saying a great deal. There was no effort or straining in their movements; it seemed mere play to them to surmount the numerous difficulties we encountered on our road. Over mountain and valley, swamp and barranca, always the same steady surefootedness—crawling like cats over the soft places, gliding like snakes up the steep rocky ascents, and stretching out with prodigious energy when the ground was favourable; yet with such easy action that we scarcely felt the motion. We should have sat in the roomy Spanish saddles as comfortably as in arm-chairs, had it not been for the numerous obstacles in our path, which was strewed with fallen trees and masses of rock. We were obliged to be perpetually stooping and bowing our heads to avoid the creeping plants that swung and twined and twisted across the track, intermingled often with huge thorns as long as a man's arm. These latter stuck out from the trees on which they grew like so many brown bayonets; and a man who had run up against one of them, would have been transfixed by it as surely as though it had been of steel. We pushed on, however, in Indian file, following the two guides, who kept at the head of the party, and making our way through places where a wild-cat would have difficulty in passing; through thickets of mangroves, mimosas, and tall fern, and cactuses with their thorny leaves full twenty feet long; the path turning and winding all the while. Now and then a momentary improvement in the nature of the ground enabled us to catch a glimpse of the whole column of march. We were struck by its picturesque appearance, the guides in front acting as pioneers, and looking out on all sides as cautiously and anxiously as though they had been soldiers expecting an ambuscade; the graceful forms of the women bowing and bending over their horses' manes, and often leaving fragments of their mantillas and rebozas on the branches and thorns of the labyrinth through which we were struggling. But it was no time to indulge in contemplation of the picturesque, and of this we were constantly made aware by the anxious vociferations of the Mexicans. "Vamos! Por Dios, vamos!" cried they, if the slightest symptom of flagging became visible in the movements of any one of the party; and at the words, our horses, as though gifted with understanding, pushed forward with renewed vigour and alacrity.

On we went—up hill and down, in the depths of the valley and over the soft fetid swamp. That valley of Oaxaca has just as much right to be called a valley as our Alleghanies would have to be called bottoms. In the States we should call it a chain of mountains. Out of it rise at every step hills a good two thousand feet above the level of the valley, and four or five thousand above that of the sea; but these are lost sight of, and become flat ground by the force of comparison; that is, when compared with the gigantic mountains that surround the valley on all sides like a frame. And what a splendid frame they do compose, those colossal mountains, in their rich variety of form and colouring! here shining out like molten gold, there changing to a dark bronze; covered lower down with various shades of green, and with the crimson and purple, and violet and bright yellow, and azure and dazzling white, of the millions of paulinias and convolvoluses and other flowering plants, from amongst which rise the stately palm-trees, full a hundred feet high, their majestic green turbans towering like sultans' heads above the luxuriance of the surrounding flower and vegetable world. Then the mahogany-trees, the chicozapotes, and again in the barrancas the candelabra-like cactuses, and higher up the knotted and majestic live oak. An incessant change of plants, trees, and climate. We had been five hours in the saddle, and had already changed our climate three times; passed from the temperate zone, the tierra templada, into the torrid heat of the tierra muy caliente. It was in the latter temperature that we found ourselves at the expiration of the above-named time, dripping with perspiration, roasting and stewing in the heat. We were surrounded by a new world of plants and animals. The borax and mangroves and fern were here as lofty as forest-trees, whilst the trees themselves shot up like church steeples. In the thickets around us were numbers of black tigers—we saw dozens of those cowardly sneaking beasts—iguanas full three feet long, squirrels double the size of any we had ever seen, and panthers, and wild pigs, and jackals, and apes and monkeys of every tribe and description, who threatened and grinned and chattered at us from the branches of the trees. But what is that yonder to the right, that stands out so white against the dark blue sky and the bronze-coloured rocks? A town—Quidricovi, d'ye call it?

We had now ridden a good five or six leagues, and begun to think we had escaped the aguas or deluge, of which the prospect had so terrified our friends the Tzapotecans. Rowley calculated, as he went puffing and grumbling along, that it wouldn't do any harm to let our beasts draw breath for a minute or two. The scrambling and constant change of pace rendered necessary by the nature of the road, or rather track, that we followed, was certainly dreadfully fatiguing both to man and beast. As for conversation it was out of the question. We had plenty to do to avoid getting our necks broken, or our teeth knocked out, as we struggled along, up and down barrancas, through marshes and thickets, over rocks and fallen trees, and through mimosas and bushes laced and twined together with thorns and creeping plants—all of which would have been beautiful in a picture, but was most infernally unpoetical in reality.

"Vamos! Por la Santissima Madre, vamos!" yelled our guides, and the cry was taken up by the Mexicans, in a shrill wild tone that jarred strangely upon our ears, and made the horses start and strain forward. Hurra! on we go, through thorns and bushes, which scratch and flog us, and tear our clothes to rags. We shall be naked if this lasts long. It is a regular race. In front the two guides, stooping, nodding, bowing, crouching down, first to one side, then to the other, like a couple of mandarins or Indian idols—behind them a Tzapotecan in his picturesque capa, then the women, then more Tzapotecans. There is little thought about precedence or ceremony; and Rowley and I, having been in the least hurry to start, find ourselves bringing up the rear of the whole column.

"Vamos! Por la Santissima! Las aguas, las aguas!" is again yelled by twenty voices. Hang the fools! Can't they be quiet with their eternal vamos? We can have barely two leagues more to go to reach the rancho, or village, they were talking of, and appearances are not as yet very alarming. It is getting rather thick to be sure; but that's nothing, only the exhalations from the swamp, for we are again approaching one of those cursed swamps, and can hear the music of the alligators and bullfrogs. There they are, the beauties; a couple of them are taking a peep at us, sticking their elegant heads and long delicate snouts out of the slime and mud. The neighbourhood is none of the best; but luckily the path is firm and good, carefully made, evidently by Indian hands. None but Indians could live and labour and travel habitually, in such a pestilential atmosphere. Thank God! we are out of it at last. Again on firm forest ground, amidst the magnificent monotony of the eternal palms and mahogany-trees. But—see there!

A new and surpassingly beautiful landscape burst suddenly upon our view, seeming to dance in the transparent atmosphere. On either side mountains, those on the left in deep shadow, those on the right standing forth like colossal figures of light, in a beauty and splendour that seemed really supernatural, every tree, every branch shining in its own vivid and glorious colouring. There lay the valley in its tropical luxuriance and beauty, one sheet of bloom and blossom up to the topmost crown of the palm-trees, that shot up, some of them, a hundred and fifty and a hundred and eighty feet high. Thousands and millions of convolvoluses, paulinias, bignonias, dendrobiums, climbing from the fern to the tree trunks, from the trunks to the branches and summits of the trees, and thence again falling gracefully down, and catching and clinging to the mangroves and blocks of granite. It burst upon us like a scene of enchantment, as we emerged from the darkness of the forest into the dazzling light and colouring of that glorious valley.

"Misericordia, misericordia! Audi nos peccadores! Misericordia, las aquas!" suddenly screamed and exclaimed the Mexicans in various intonations of terror and despair. We looked around us. What can be the matter? We see nothing. Nothing, except that from just behind those two mountains, which project like mighty promontories into the valley, a cloud is beginning to rise. "What is it? What is wrong?" A dozen voices answered us—

"Por la Santa Virgen, for the holy Virgin's sake, on, on! No hay tiempo para hablar. We have still two leagues to go, and in one hour comes the flood."

And they recommenced their howling, yelling chorus of "Misericordia! Audi nos peccadores!" and "Santissima Virgen, and Todos santos y angeles!"

"Are the fellows mad?" shouted Rowley, "What if the water does come? It won't swallow you. A ducking more or less is no such great matter. You are not made of sugar or salt. Many's the drenching I've had in the States, and none the worse for it. Yet our rains are no child's play neither."

On looking round us, however, we were involuntarily struck with the sudden change in the appearance of the heavens. The usual golden black blue colour of the sky was gone, and had been replaced by a dull gloomy grey. The quality of the air appeared also to have changed; it was neither very warm nor very cold, but it had lost its lightness and elasticity, and seemed to oppress and weigh us down. Presently we saw the dark cloud rise gradually from behind the hills, completely clearing their summits, and then sweeping along until it hung over the valley, in form and appearance like some monstrous night-moth, resting the tips of its enormous wings on the mountains on either side. To our right we still saw the roofs and walls of Quidricovi, apparently at a very short distance.

"Why not go to Quidricovi?" shouted I to the guides, "we cannot be far off."

"More than five leagues," answered the men, shaking their heads and looking up anxiously at the huge moth, which was still creeping and crawling on, each moment darker and more threatening. It was like some frightful monster, or the fabled Kraken, working itself along by its claws, which were struck deep into the mountain-wall on either side of its line of progress, and casting its hideous shadow over hill and dale, forest and valley, clothing them in gloom and darkness. To our right hand and behind us, the mountains were still of a glowing golden red, lighted up by the sun, but to the left and in our front all was black and dark. With the same glance we beheld the deepest gloom and the brightest day, meeting each other but not mingling. It was a strange and ominous sight.

Ominous enough; and the brute creation seem to feel it so as well as ourselves. The chattering parrots, the hopping, gibbering, quarrelsome apes, all the birds and beasts, scream and cry and flutter and spring about, as though seeking a refuge from some impending danger. Even our horses begin to tremble and groan—refuse to go on, start and snort. The whole animal world is in commotion, as if seized with an overwhelming panic. The forest is teeming with inhabitants. Whence come they, all these living things? On every side is heard the howling and snarling of beasts, the frightened cries and chirpings of birds. The vultures and turkey-buzzards, that a few minutes before were circling high in the air, are now screaming amidst the branches of the mahogany-trees; every creature that has life is running, scampering, flying—apes and tigers, birds and creeping things.

"Vamos, por la Santissima! On! or we are all lost."

And we ride, we rush along—neither masses of rock, nor fallen trees, nor thorns and brambles, check our wild career. Over every thing we go, leaping, scrambling, plunging, riding like desperate men, flying from a danger of which the nature is not clearly defined, but which we feel to be great and imminent. It is a frightful terror-striking foe, that huge night-moth, which comes ever nearer, growing each moment bigger and blacker. Looking behind us, we catch one last glimpse of the red and bloodshot sun, which the next instant disappears behind the edge of the mighty cloud.

Still we push on. Hosts of tigers, and monkeys both large and small, and squirrels and jackals, come close up to us as if seeking shelter, and then finding none, retreat howling into the forest. There is not a breath of air stirring, yet all nature—plants and trees, men and beasts—seem to quiver and tremble with apprehension. Our horses pant and groan as they bound along with dilated nostrils and glaring eyes, trembling in every limb, sweating at every pore, half wild with terror; giving springs and leaps that more resemble those of a hunted tiger than of a horse.

The prayer and exclamations of the terrified Mexicans, continued without intermission, whispered and shrieked and groaned in every variety of intonation. The earthy hue of intense terror was upon every countenance. For some moments a death-like stillness, an unnatural calm, reigned around us: it was as though the elements were holding in their breath, and collecting their energies for some mighty outbreak. Then came a low indistinct moaning sound, that seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth. The warning was significant.

"Halt! stop" shouted we to the guides. "Stop! and let us seek shelter from the storm."

"On! for God's sake, on! or we are lost," was the reply.

Thank Heaven! the path is getting wider—we come to a descent—they are leading us out of the forest. If the storm had come on while we were among the trees, we might be crushed to death by the falling branches. We are close to a barranca.

"Alerto! Alerto!" shrieked the Mexicans. "Madre de Dios! Dios! Dios!"

And well might they call to God for help in that awful moment. The gigantic night-moth gaped and shot forth tongues of fire—a ghastly white flame, that contrasted strangely and horribly with the dense black cloud from which it issued. There was a peal of thunder that seemed to shake the earth, then a pause during which nothing was heard but the panting of our horses as they dashed across the barranca, and began straining up the steep side of a knoll or hillock. The cloud again opened: for a second every thing was lighted up. Another thunder clap, and then, as though the gates of its prison had been suddenly burst open, the tempest came forth in its might and fury, breaking, crushing, and sweeping away all that opposed it. The trees of the forest staggered and tottered for a moment, as if making an effort to bear up against the storm; but it was in vain: the next instant, with a report like that of ten thousand cannon, whole acres of mighty trees were snapped off, their branches shivered, their roots torn up; it was no longer a forest but a chaos; an ocean of boughs and tree-trunks, that were tossed about like the waves of the sea, or thrown into the air like straws. The atmosphere was darkened with dust, and leaves, and branches.

"God be merciful to us! Rowley! where are ye?—No answer. What is become of them all?"

A second blast more furious than the first. Can the mountains resist it? will they stand? By the Almighty! they do not. The earth trembles; the hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating—full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees and shivered branches.

Suddenly the hurricane ceases, and all is hushed; but so suddenly that the charge is startling and unnatural. No sound is audible save the creaking and moaning of the trees with which the ground is cumbered. It is like a sudden pause in a battle, when the roar of the cannon and clang of charging squadrons cease, and nought is heard but the groaning of the wounded, the agonized sobs and gasps of the dying.

The report of a pistol is heard; then another, a third, hundreds, thousands of them. It is the flood, las aguas; the shots are drops of rain; but such drops! each as big as a hen's egg. They strike with the force of enormous hailstones—stunning and blinding us. The next moment there is no distinction of drops, the windows of heaven are opened; it is no longer rain nor flood, but a sea, a cataract, a Niagara. The hillock on which I am standing, undermined by the waters, gives way and crumbles under me; in ten seconds' time I find myself in the barranca, which is converted into a river, off my horse, which is gone I know not whither. The only person I see near me is Rowley, also dismounted and struggling against the stream, which is already up to our waists, and sweeps along with it huge branches and entire trees, that threaten each moment to carry us away with them, or to crush us against the rocks. We avoid these dangers, God knows how, make violent efforts to stem the torrent and gain the side of the barranca; although, even should we succeed, it is so steep that we can scarcely hope to climb it without assistance. And whence is that assistance to come? Of the Mexicans we see or hear nothing. They are doubtless all drowned or dashed to pieces. They were higher up on the hillock than we were, must consequently have been swept down with more force, and were probably carried away by the torrent. Nor can we hope for a better fate. Wearied by our ride, weakened by the fever and sufferings of the preceding night, we are in no condition to strive much longer with the furious elements. For one step that we gain, we lose two. The waters rise; already they are nearly up to our armpits. It is in vain to resist any longer. Our fate is sealed.

"Rowley, all is over—let us die like men. God have mercy on our souls!"

Rowley was a few paces higher up the barranca. He made me no answer, but looked at me with a calm, cold, and yet somewhat regretful smile upon his countenance. Then all at once he ceased the efforts he was making to resist the stream and gain the bank, folded his arms on his breast and gave a look up and around him as though to bid farewell to the world he was about to leave. The current was sweeping him rapidly down towards me, when suddenly a wild hurra burst from his lips, and he recommenced his struggles against the waters, striving violently to retain a footing on the slippery, uneven bed of the stream.

"Tenga! Tenga!" screamed a dozen voices, that seemed to proceed from spirits of the air; and at the same moment something whistled about my ears and struck me a smart blow across the face. With the instinct of a drowning man, I clutched the lasso that had been thrown to me. Rowley was at my elbow and seized it also. It was immediately drawn tight, and by its aid we gained the bank, and began ascending the side of the barranca, composed of rugged, declivitous rocks, affording but scanty foot-hold. God grant the lasso may prove tough! The strain on it is fearful. Rowley is a good fifteen stone, and I am no feather; and in some parts of our perilous ascent the rocks are almost as perpendicular and smooth as a wall of masonry, and we are obliged to cling with our whole weight to the lasso, which seems to stretch, and crack, and grow visibly thinner. Nothing but a strip of twisted cow-hide between us and a frightful agonizing death on the sharp rocks and in the foaming waters below. But the lasso holds good, and now the chief peril is past: we get some sort of footing—a point of rock, or a tree-root to clutch at. Another strain up this rugged slope of granite, another pull at the lasso; a leap, a last violent effort, and—Viva!—we are seized under the arms, dragged up, held upon our feet for a moment, and then—we sink exhausted to the ground in the midst of the Tzapotecans, mules, arrieros, guides, and women, who are sheltered from the storm in a sort of natural cavern. At the moment at which the hillock had given way under Rowley and myself, who were a short distance in rear of the party, the Mexicans had succeeded in attaining firm footing on a broad rocky ledge, a shelf of the precipice that flanked the barranca. Upon this ledge, which gradually widened into a platform, they found themselves in safety under some projecting crags that sheltered them completely from the tempest. Thence they looked down upon the barranca, where they descried Rowley and myself struggling for our lives in the roaring torrent; and thence, by knotting several lassos together, they were able to give us the opportune aid which had rescued us from our desperate situation. But whether this aid had come soon enough to save our lives was still a question, or at least for some time appeared to be so. The life seemed driven out of our bodies by all we had gone through: we were unable to move a finger, and lay helpless and motionless, with only a glimmering indistinct perception, not amounting to consciousness, of what was going on around us. Fatigue, the fever, the immersion in cold water when reeking with perspiration, the sufferings of all kinds we had endured in the course of the last twenty hours, had completely exhausted and broken us down.

The storm did not last long in its violence, but swept onwards, leaving a broad track of desolation behind it. The Mexicans recommenced their journey, with the exception of four or five who remained with us and our arrieros and servants. The village to which we were proceeding was not above a league off; but even that short distance Rowley and myself were in no condition to accomplish. The kind-hearted Tzapotecans made us swallow cordials, stripped off our drenched and tattered garments, and wrapped us in an abundance of blankets. We fell into a deep sleep, which lasted all that evening and the greater part of the night, and so much refreshed us that about an hour before daybreak we were able to resume our march—at a slow pace, it is true, and suffering grievously in every part of our bruised and wounded limbs and bodies, at each jolt or rough motion of the mules on which we were clinging, rather than sitting.

Our path lay over hill and dale, perpetually rising and falling. We soon got out of the district or zone that had been swept by the preceding day's hurricane, and after nearly an hour's ride, we paused on the crest of a steep descent, at the foot of which, as our guides informed us, lay the land of promise, the long looked-for rancho. While the muleteers were seeing to the girths of their beasts, and giving the due equilibrium to the baggage, before commencing the downward march, Rowley and I sat upon our mules, wrapped in large Mexican capas, gazing at the morning-star as it sank down and grew gradually paler and fainter. Suddenly the eastern sky began to brighten, and a brilliant beam appeared in the west, a point of light no bigger than a star—but yet not a star; it was of a far rosier hue. The next moment a second sparkling spot appeared, near to the first, which now swelled out into a sort of fiery tongue, that seemed to lick round the silvery summit of the snow-clad mountain. As we gazed, five—ten—twenty hill tops were tinged with the same rose-coloured glow; in another moment they became like fiery banners spread out against the heavens, while sparkling tongues and rays of golden light flashed and flamed round them, springing like meteors from one mountain summit to another, lighting them up like a succession of beacons. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed since the distant pinnacles of the mountains had appeared to us as huge phantom-like figures of a silvery white, dimly marked out upon a dark star-spangled ground; now the whole immense chain blazed like volcanoes covered with glowing lava, rising out of the darkness that still lingered on their flanks and bases, visible and wonderful witnesses to the omnipotence of him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light."

Above, all was broad day, flaming sunlight; below, all black night. Here and there streams of light burst through clefts and openings in the mountains, and then ensued an extraordinary kind of conflict. The shades of darkness seemed to live and move, to struggle against the bright beams that fell amongst them and broke their masses, forcing them down the wooded heights, tearing them asunder and dispersing them like tissues of cobwebs; so that successively, and as if by a stroke of enchantment, there appeared, first the deep indigo blue of the tamarinds and chicozapotes, then the bright green of the sugar-canes, lower down the darker green of the nopal-trees, lower still the white and green and gold and bright yellow of the orange and citron groves, and lowest of all, the stately fan-palms, and date-palms, and bananas; all glittering with millions of dewdrops, that covered them like a ganze veil embroidered with diamonds and rubies. And still in the very next valley all was utter darkness.

We sat silent and motionless, gazing at this scene of enchantment.

Presently the sun rose higher, and a flood of light illumined the whole valley, which lay some few hundred feet below us—a perfect garden, such as no northern imagination could picture forth; a garden of sugar-canes, cotton, and nopal-trees, intermixed with thickets of pomegranate and strawberry-trees, and groves of orange, fig, and lemon, giants of their kind, shooting up to a far greater height than the oak attains in the States—every tree a perfect hothouse, a pyramid of flowers, covered with bloom and blossom to its topmost spray. All was light, and freshness, and beauty; every object seemed to dance and rejoice in the clear elastic golden atmosphere. It was an earthly paradise, fresh from the hand of its Creator, and at first we could discover no sign of man or his works. Presently, however, we discerned the village lying almost at our feet, the small stone houses overgrown with flowers and embedded in trees; so that scarcely a square foot of roof or wall was to be seen. Even the church was concealed in a garland of orange-trees, and had lianas and star-flowered creepers climbing over and dangling on it, up as high as the slender cross that surmounted its square white tower. As we gazed, the first sign of life appeared in the village. A puff of blue smoke rose curling and spiral from a chimney, and the matin bell rang out its summons to prayer. Our Mexicans fell on their knees and crossed themselves, repeating their Ave-marias. We involuntarily took off our hats, and whispered a thanksgiving to the God who had been with us in the hour of peril, and was now so visible to us in his works.

The Mexicans rose from their knees.

"Vamos! Senores," said one of them, laying his hand on the bridle of my mule. "To the rancho, to breakfast."

We rode slowly down into the valley.

Footnote 1: [(return)]

The nigua is a small but very dangerous insect which fixes itself in the feet, bores holes in the skin, and lays its eggs there. These, if not extracted, (which extraction by the by is a most painful operation) cause first an intolerable itching, and subsequently sores and ulcers of a sufficiently serious nature to entail the loss of the feet.

---

THE BRITISH FLEET.[¹]

Were the question proposed to us, What is the most extraordinary, complete, and effective instance of skill, contrivance, science, and power, ever combined by man? we should unhesitatingly answer, an English line-of-battle ship. Take the model of a 120 gun ship—large as it may be for a floating body, its space is not great. For example, it is not half the ordinary size of a nobleman's mansion; yet that ship carries a thousand men with convenience, and lodges them day and night, with sufficient room for the necessary distinctions of obedience and command—has separate apartments for the admiral and the captain, for the different ranks of officers, and even for the different ranks of seamen—separate portions below decks for the sleeping of the crew, the dining of the officers, and the receptacle for the sick and wounded. Those thousand men are to be fed three times a-day, and provisions for four months are to be stowed. One hundred and twenty cannon, some of them of the heaviest metal, are to be carried; and room is to be found for all the weight of shot and quantities of powder, with other missiles, rockets, and signal fires, necessary for service. Besides this, room is to be provided for the stowage of fresh rigging, sails, ropes, cables, and yards, to replace those lost by accident, battle, or wear and tear. Besides this, too, there is to be a provision for the hospital. So far for the mere necessaries of the ship. Then we are to regard the science; for nothing can be more essential than the skill and the instruments of the navigator, as nothing can be more fatal than a scientific error, a false calculation, or a remission of vigilance. We shall do no more than allude to the habits of command essential to keep a thousand of these rough and daring spirits in order, and that, too, an order of the most implicit, steady, and active kind; nor to their knowledge of tactics, and conduct in battle. The true definition of the line-of-battle ship being, a floating regiment of artillery in a barrack, which, at the beat of a drum, may be turned into a field of battle, or, at the command of government, may be sent flying on the wings of the wind round the world. We think that we have thus established our proposition. If not, let any thing else be shown which exhibits the same quantity of power packed within the same space; and that power, too, increasing daily by new contrivances of stowage and building, by new models of guns, and new inventions in machinery. England is at this moment building two hundred steam-ships, with guns of a calibre to which all the past were trifling, with room for a regiment of land troops besides their crews, and with the known power of defying wind and wave, and throwing an army in full equipment for the field, within a few days, on any coast of Europe.

It is remarkable that the use of the navy, as a great branch of the military power of England, had been scarcely contemplated until the last century. Though the sea-coast of England, the largest of any European state, and the national habits of an insular country, might have pointed out this direction for the national energies from the earliest period, yet England was a kingdom for five hundred years before she seems to have thought of the use of ships as an instrument of public power. In the long war with France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ships were almost wholly mercantile; and, when employed in wars, were chiefly employed as transports to throw our troops on the French soil. It was the reign of Elizabeth, that true birth of the progress of England, that first developed the powers of an armed navy. The Spanish invasion forced the country to meet the Armada by means like its own; and the triumph, though won by a higher agency, and due to the winds and waves, or rather to the Supreme Providence which watched over the land of Protestantism, awoke the nation to the true faculty of defence; and from that period alone could the burden of the fine national song be realized, and Britain was to "rule the main." The expeditions against the Spanish West Indies, and the new ardour of discovery in regions where brilliant fable lent its aid to rational curiosity, carried on the process of naval power. The war against Holland, under Charles II., though disastrous and impolitic, showed at least that the fleet of England was the true arm of its strength; and the humiliation of the only rival of her commerce at once taught her where the sinews of war lay, and by what means the foundations of naval empire were to be laid. But it was not until the close of the last century that the truth came before the nation in its full form. The American war—a war of skirmishes—had its direct effect, perhaps its providential purpose, in compelling England to prepare for the tremendous collision which was so soon to follow, and which was to be the final security of the Continent itself. It was then, for the first time, that the nation was driven to the use of a navy on a great scale. The war, lying on the western shore of an ocean, made the use of naval armaments necessary to every operation. The treacherous hostility of the French cabinet, and the unfortunate subserviency of Spain to that treachery, made corresponding energy on the part of England a matter of public demand; and when France and Spain sent out fleets of a magnitude till then unknown, England was urged to follow their example. The defeats of the combined navies excited the nation to still more vigorous efforts; and the war closed with so full a demonstration of the matchless importance of a great navy to England, that the public feeling was fixed on giving it the largest contribution of the national confidence.

The time was at hand when the trial was to involve every interest of England and mankind. The first grand struggle of revolutionary France with England was to be on the seas; and the generation of naval officers who had been reared in the American war, then rising into vigour, trained by its experience, and stimulated by its example, gallantly maintained the honour of their country. A succession of sanguinary battles followed, each on the largest scale, and each closing in British victory; until the republic, in despair, abandoned the fatal element, and tied her fortunes in the easier conflicts of the land. The accession of Napoleon renewed the struggle for naval supremacy, until one vast blow extinguished his hopes and his navy at Trafalgar. Peace now exists, and long may it exist! but France is rapidly renewing her navy, taking every opportunity of exercising its strength, and especially patronising the policy of founding those colonies which it idly imagines to be the source of British opulence. But whether the wisdom of Louis Philippe limits the protection of French trade to the benefits which commerce may confer on his vast kingdom, or looks forward to the support which a mercantile navy may give to a warlike one, we must not sleep on our posts. The life of any individual is brief on a national scale; and his successor, whether regent or republican, may be as hot-headed, rash, and ambitious, as this great monarch has shown himself rational, prudent, and peaceful. We must prepare for all chances; and our true preparation must be, a fleet that may defy all.

It is a remarkable instance of the slowness with which science advances, that almost the whole scientific portion of seamanship has grown up since the middle of the seventeenth century, though America had been reached in 1492, and India in 1496; and thus the world had been nearly rounded before what would now be regarded as the ordinary knowledge of a navigator had been acquired. England has the honour of making the first advances. It was an Englishman, Norwood, who made the first measurement of a degree between London and York, and fixed it at 122,399 English yards. The attention of the world thus once awakened, Huygens and Cassini applied themselves to ascertain the figure of the earth. The first experiments of the French savans were in contradiction to Newton's theory of the flattening of the poles; but the controversy was the means of exciting new interest. The eyes of the scientific world were turned more intently on the subject. New experiments were made, which corrected the old; and finally, on the measurement of the arc in Peru, and in the north, truth and Newton triumphed, and the equatorial diameter was found to exceed the polar by a two hundred and fourth part of the whole. This was perhaps the finest problem ever solved by science; the most perplexing in its early state—exhibiting for a while the strongest contradiction of experiment and theory, occupying in a greater degree the attention of philosophers than any before or since, and finally established with a certainty which every subsequent observation has only tended to confirm. And this triumph belonged to an Englishman.

The investigation by measurements has since been largely adopted. In 1787, joint commissions were issued by England and France to connect the Greenwich and Parisian observations. Arcs of the meridian have since been measured across the whole breadth of France and Spain, and also near the Arctic circle, and in the Indian peninsula.

In navigation, the grand point for the sailor is to ascertain his latitude and longitude; in other words, to know where he is. The discovery of the latitude is easily effected by the quadrant, but the longitude is the difficulty. Any means which ascertained the hour at Greenwich, at the instant of making a celestial observation in any other part, would answer the difficulty; for the difference in quarters of an hour would give the difference of the degrees. But clocks could not be used on shipboard, and the best watches failed to keep the time. In the reign of Anne, Parliament offered a reward of L. 5000, perhaps not far from the value of twice the sum in the present day, for a watch within a certain degree of accuracy. Harrison, a watchmaker, sent in a watch which came within the limits, losing but two minutes in a voyage to the West Indies; yet even this was an error of thirty miles.

But, though chronometers have since been considerably improved, there are difficulties in their preservation in good order which have made it expedient to apply to other means; and the lunar tables of Mayer of Gottingen, formed in 1755, and subsequently improved by Dr Maskelyne and others, have brought the error within seven miles and a half.

Improvements of a very important order have also taken place in the mariner's compass; the variation of the needle has been reduced to rules, and some anomalies arising from the metallic attraction of the ship itself, have been corrected by Professor Barlow's experiments. The use of the marine barometer and thermometer have also largely assisted to give notice of tempests; and some ingenious theories have been lately formed, which, promising to give a knowledge of the origin and nature of tempests, are obviously not unlikely to assist the navigator in stemming their violence, or escaping them altogether.

The construction of ships for both the merchant and the public service has undergone striking improvements within this century. Round sterns, for the defence of a vessel engaged with several opponents at once; compartments in the hold, for security against leaks; iron tanks for water, containing twice the quantity, and keeping it free from the impurities of casks; a better general stowage; provisions prepared so as to remain almost fresh during an East Indian voyage; every means of preserving health, suggested by science, and succeeding to the most remarkable degree; a more intelligent system of shipbuilding, and a constant series of experiments on the shape, stowage, and sailing of ships, are among the beneficial changes of later times. But the one great change—steam—will probably swallow up all the rest, and form a new era in shipbuilding, in navigation, in the power and nature of a navy, and in the comfort, safety, and protection of the crews in actual engagement. The use of steam is still so palpably in its infancy, yet that infancy is so gigantic, that it is equally difficult to say what it may yet become, and to limit its progress. It will have the one obvious advantage to mankind in general, of making the question of war turn more than ever on the financial and mechanical resources of a people; and thus increasing the necessity for commercial opulence and intellectual exertion. It may expose nations more to each other's attacks; but it will render hostility more dreaded, because more dangerous. On the whole, like the use of gunpowder, which made a Tartar war impossible, and which rapidly tended to civilize Europe, steam appears to be intended as a further step in the same high process, in which force is to be put down by intelligence, and success, even in war, is to depend on the industry of peace; thus, in fact, providing a perpetual restriction on the belligerent propensities of nations, and urging the uncivilized, by necessity, to own the superiority, and follow the example of the civilized, by knowledge, habit, and principle.

It is not to be forgotten, even in this general and brief view of the values of the British fleet, that it has, within these few years, assumed a new character as an instrument of war. The Syrian campaign, the shortest, and, beyond all comparison, the most brilliant on record, if we are to estimate military distinction, not only by the gallantry of the conflict, but by the results of the victory—this campaign, which at once finished the war in Syria, gave peace to Turkey, reduced Egypt to obedience, rescued the sultan from Russian influence, and Egypt from French; or rather rescued all Europe from the collision of England, France, and Russia; and even, by the evidence of our naval capabilities, taught American faction the wisdom of avoiding hostilities—this grand operation was effected by a small portion of the British navy, well commanded, directed to the right point, and acting with national energy. The three hours' cannonade of Acre, the most effective achievement in the annals of war, exhibited a new use of a ship's broadside; for, though ships' guns had often battered forts before, it was the first instance of a fleet employed in attack, and fully overpowering all opposition. The attack on Algiers was the only exploit of a similar kind; but its success was limited, and the result was so far disastrous, that it at once fixed the eye of France on the invasion of Algiers, and disabled and disheartened the native government from vigorous resistance. The victory of the fleet at Acre will also have the effect of changing the whole system of defence in fortresses and cities exposed to the sea.

But a still further advance in the employment of fleets as an instrument of hostilities, has since occurred in the Chinese war—their simultaneous operation with troops. In former assaults of fortresses, the troops and ships attacked the same line of defence, and the consequence was the waste of force. From the moment when the troops approached the land, the fire of the ships necessarily ceased, and the fleet then remained spectators of the assault. But in this war, while the troops attacked on the land side, the fleet ran up to the sea batteries, and both attacks went on together—of course dividing the attention of the enemy, thus having a double chance of success, and employing both arms of the service in full energy. This masterly combination the Duke of Wellington, the highest military authority in Europe, pronounced to be a new principle in war; and even this is, perhaps, only the beginning of a system of combination which will lead to new victories, if war should ever unhappily return.

We now revert to the history of a naval hero.

John Jervis, the second son of Swynfen Jervis, Esq., was born on the 20th of January 1735. He was descended, on both the paternal and maternal side, from families which had figured in the olden times of England. The family of Jervis possessed estates in Staffordshire as far back as the reign of Edward III. The family of Swynfen was also long established in Worcestershire. John Swynfen was a public character during the troubled times of Charles I. and Cromwell, and until a late period in the reign of Charles II. He had been originally a strong Parliamentarian; but, thinking that the party went too far, he was turned out of parliament for tardiness by the Protector. But his original politics adhered to him still; for, even after the restoration, he was joined with Hampden, the grandson of the celebrated patriot, in drawing up the Bill of Exclusion. Among his ancestors by the mother's side was Sir John Turton, a judge in the Court of King's Bench, married to a daughter of the brave Colonel Samuel Moore, who made the memorable defence of Hopton Castle in the Civil War.

But no man less regarded ancestry than the subject of the present pages, who, in writing with reference to his pedigree, observed, in his usual frank and straightforward language—"They were all highly respectable; but, et genus et proavos, nearly all the Latin I now recollect, always struck my ear as the sound maxim for officers and statesmen."

His first school was at Burton-upon-Trent, where a slight incident seemed to designate his future politics and fortitude. In 1745, when the Pretender marched into the heart of the kingdom, without being joined by his friends or opposed by his enemies, as Gibbon antithetically observed, all the boys at the school, excepting young Jervis and Dick Meux, (afterwards the eminent brewer,) wore plaid ribands sent to them from home, and they pelted their two constitutional playmates, calling them Whigs.

His father designed young Jervis for the law; but, in 1747, removing to Greenwich on being appointed Counsel to the Admiralty and Auditor to the Hospital, naval sights were too near not to prove a strong temptation to the mind of an animated and vigorous boy. His parents were still strongly for the adoption of his father's profession; but there was another authority on the subject, the family coachman, one Pinkhorne, who, saying that it was a shame to go into a profession where all were rogues, determined the future hero; and, before the year was over, he ran away, to commence life as a sailor. He was reclaimed, however, by his family, and was regularly entered in the navy, in January 1748, on board the Gloucester, fifty guns, Commodore Townshend—twenty pounds being all that was given to him by his father for his equipment. The Gloucester sailed for the West Indies; and thus, at the age of thirteen, young Jervis began the world. It appears that the rigid economy of his father, combined with the singular good sense of this mere child, urged him to every means of acquiring the knowledge of his profession. The monotonous life of a guard-ship already seemed to him a waste of time, while the expenses on shore must have been ruinous to his slender finances. He therefore volunteered into whatever ship was going to sea. He thus writes to his sister from on board the Sphinx, 1753:—"There are many entertainments and public assemblies here, but they are rather above my sphere, many inconveniences and expenses attending them; so that my chief employ, when from my duty, is reading, studying navigation, and perusing my own letters, of which I have almost enough to make an octavo volume."

At length, however, his twenty pounds were exhausted; and, at the end of three years, he drew for twenty pounds more. It is vexatious to say that his bill was dishonoured; and he never received another shilling from any one. It is scarcely possible to conceive that so harsh a measure could have been the result of intention; but it subjected this extraordinary boy to the severest privations. To take up the dishonoured bill, he was obliged to effect his discharge from one ship into another, so as to obtain his pay tickets, which he sold at forty per cent discount. His remaining six years on the station were spent in the exercise of a severe economy, and the endurance even of severe suffering. He was compelled to sell all his bedding, and sleep on the bare deck. He had no other resource than, generally, to make and mend, and always to wash, his own clothes. He never afforded himself any fresh meat; and even the fruit and vegetables, which are so necessary and so cheap, he could obtain only by barter from the negroes, for the small share of provisions which he could subduct from his own allowance. True as all this doubtless is, it reflects more severely on the captain and officers of his own ship, than even upon his parents. The latter, on the other side of the Atlantic, might have no knowledge of his difficulties; but that those who saw his sufferings from day to day could have allowed them to continue, argues a degree of negligence and inhumanity, of which we hope that no present instance occurs in our navy, and which at any period would appear incomprehensible. In 1754, young Jervis returned to England, and passed his examination for lieutenant with great credit.

The commencement of the war with France was, like the commencement of English wars in general, disastrous. We seldom make due preparation. Fleets inferior to the enemy in equipment and number, are sent out on the emergency; detachments of troops are sent where armies should have gone; and thus victory itself is without effect. Thus for a year or two we continue blundering if not beaten, and angry with our generals and admirals for failing to do impossibilities. At last the nation becomes fairly roused; the success of the enemy makes exertion necessary; their insolence inflames the popular indignation; a great effort is made; a triumph is obtained, and a peace follows, which might have been accomplished half a dozen years before, at a tenth part of the expense in blood and treasure which it cost to consummate the war. Our troops under Braddock, a brave fool, were beaten by the French and Indians in America. Our Mediterranean fleet was baffled under the unfortunate command of Byng. Minorca was taken before our eyes, and the naval and military stars of England seem to have gone down together. Yet this era of national dishonour and public disgust was followed by the three years of Chatham's administration, a period of triumph that equaled the campaigns of Marlborough at the commencement of the century, and was scarcely eclipsed even by the splendours that followed its close.

The skill and talent of young Jervis had already given him distinction among the rising officers of the feet. He had become a favourite with Admiral Saunders, was taken with him from ship to ship; and when the admiral was recalled from the Mediterranean to take the command of the naval force destined to co-operate in the attack on Quebec, by the heroic and lamented General Wolfe, young Jervis was selected to be first lieutenant of the Prince, which bore the admiral's flag. On the passage out, the general and his aide-de-camp, Captain, afterwards the well-known Colonel Barré, were guests on board the Prince, and of course Jervis had the advantage of their intelligent society. In February 1759, the fleet sailed from England, and in June proceeded from Louisburg to the St Lawrence. Lieutenant Jervis was now appointed to the command of the Porcupine sloop; and on the general requesting a naval force to escort his transports past Quebec, the Porcupine was ordered by the admiral to lead. The service was one of extreme difficulty; for the attempt to sound the channel the day before had failed, though it was made by the master of the fleet, Cook, afterwards the celebrated navigator. The winds suddenly falling calm, prevented the Porcupine from reaching her station. A heavy fire was instantly opened upon her from every gun that could be brought to bear, and the army were in terror of her being destroyed, for the general was on board. But Jervis's skill was equal to his gallantry; he hoisted out his boats, cheered his men through the fire, and brought his ship to her station.

A little incident occurred on the night before the memorable engagement, which even at this distance of time is of painful interest, but which shows the confidence reposed in the young naval officer by the hero of Quebec. After the orders for the assault next day were given, Wolfe requested a private interview with him; and saying that he had the strongest presentiment of falling on the field, yet that he should fall in victory, he took from his bosom the miniature of a young lady to whom he was attached, gave it to Jervis, desiring that, if the foreboding came to pass, he should return it to her on his arrival in England. Wolfe's gallant fate and brilliant victory are known: the picture was delivered to Miss Lowther.

After the capture of Quebec, Jervis was dispatched to England; and was appointed to the Scorpion, to carry out important despatches to General Amherst. On this occasion, he gave an instance of that remarkable promptitude which characterised him throughout his whole career. The Scorpion was in such a crazy state that she had nearly foundered between Spithead and Plymouth. On reaching the latter port, and representing at once the condition of the vessel and the importance of the despatches, the port-admiral instantly ordered him to proceed to sea in the Albany, a sloop in the Sound. But the Albany had been a long time in commission; her people claimed arrears of pay; and by no means relishing a voyage across the Atlantic in such weather, they absolutely refused to heave the anchor. Their young commander first tried remonstrance, but in vain; he then took a more effectual means—he ordered his boat's crew, whom he had brought from the Scorpion, to take their hatchets and cut the cables, and then go aloft to loosen the foresail. Perceiving the kind of man with whom they had to do, the crew submitted, and the Albany instantly proceeded to sea: the ringleaders were punished; and the service was performed. The Albany made New York in twenty-four days.

In October 1761, Commander Jervis was made Post, into the Gosport of 60 guns. Among his midshipmen was the afterwards Admiral Lord Keith. In 1762, peace was made. The Gosport was paid off next year, and Captain Jervis did not serve again until 1769, when he commanded the Alarm of 32 guns for the next three years.

A striking incident occurred during the cruise of this vessel in the Mediterranean, exhibiting not only the spirit of her captain, but the historic recollections by which that spirit was sustained. One Sunday afternoon, the day after her arrival at Genoa, two Turkish slaves, in enjoyment of the holiday's rest from labour, sauntered from their galley near the mole. Seeing the Alarm's boat, they jumped into her, wrapped themselves in the British colours, and exclaimed, "We are free!" The Genoese officer on duty, however, ordered them to be dragged out, which was done, though one of them tore away in his struggle a piece of the boat's pendant. On the circumstance reaching the captain's ears he was indignant, and demanded instant reparation. To use his own language:—"I required," said he, "of the Doge and Senate, that both the slaves should be brought on board, with the part of the torn pendant which the slave carried off with him; the officer of the guard punished; and an apology made on the quarterdeck of the Alarm, under the king's colours, for the outrage offered to the British nation."

On the following Tuesday this was complied with in all the particulars; but, unhappily, the government at home did not exhibit the spirit of their gallant officer abroad; and in a letter which he addressed to his brother he says:—"I had an opportunity of carrying the British flag, in relation to two Turkish slaves, as high as Blake had ever done, for which I am publicly censured; though I hope we have too much virtue left, for me not to be justified in private."

The result, however, of this transaction was, that for many years afterwards, in the Barbary states, if a slave could but touch the British colours, which all our men-of-war's boats carry in foreign ports, he could of right demand his release. This, however, was counteracted as far as possible by the renewed vigilance of the Moors, who kept all their slaves out of sight while a British flag flew in the harbour. The allusion to the famous Blake shows with what studies the young officer fed his mind, and in how high a spirit he was prepared to adopt them.

Another instance of his skill and intrepidity soon followed. In March 1770, the frigate, after a tempestuous cruise, came to anchor at Marseilles. An equinoctial gale came on, and after two days of desperate exertion, and throwing many of the guns overboard, the frigate was driven from her anchors, stranded on a reef of rocks, and the crew in such peril that they were saved only by the most extraordinary exertions, and the assistance of the people on shore. The port officer, M. de Peltier, exhibited great kindness and activity, and the ship was rapidly repaired, but with such an exact economy, that its complete refit, with the expense of the crew for three months, amounted only to £1415.

The first act of this excellent son was to write to his father:—"Do not be alarmed, my dear sir, at the newspaper accounts which you will hear of the Alarm. The interposition of Divine Providence has miraculously preserved her. The same Providence will, I hope, give long life to my dear father, mother, and brother."

In July he wrote to his sister from Mahon, after the repairs of the vessel:—"The Alarm is the completest thing I ever saw on the water, insomuch that I forgot she was the other day, in the opinion of most beholders, her own officers and crew not excepted, a miserable sunken wreck. Such is the reward of perseverance. Happily for my reputation, my health at that period happened to be equal to the task, or I had been lost for ever, instead of receiving continual marks of public and private approbation of my conduct; but this is entre nous. I never speak or write on the subject except to those I most love. You will easily believe Barrington to be one; his goodness to me is romantic."

It is gratifying to state, that the English Admiralty, on the young captain's warm representation of the French superintendent, M. de Peltier's hospitality and kindness, sent a handsome piece of plate in public acknowledgment to that officer; and, as if to make the compliment perfect in all its parts, as it arrived before the frigate had left the station, the captain had the indulgence of presenting it in person; thus making, as his letter to his father mentioned, "the family of Pleville de Peltier happy beyond description."

The frigate was soon after paid off, and as there was no probability of his being speedily employed, he applied himself to gain every species of knowledge connected with his profession. We strongly doubt whether the example of this rising officer is not even more important when we regard him in peace than in the activity and daring of war. There is no want of courage and conduct in the British fleet; but life on shore offers too many temptations to indolence, to be always turned to the use of which it is capable. Captain Jervis, on the contrary, appears always to have regarded life on shore preparatory to life afloat, and to be constantly employed in laying up knowledge for those emergencies which so often occur in the bold and perilous life of the sailor. There is often something like a predictive spirit in the early career of great men, which urges them to make provision for greatness; and remote as is the condition of a captain of a smart frigate from the commander of fleets, yet the captain of the Alarm, though the least ostentatious of men, seems always to have had a glance towards the highest duties of the British admiral. "Time," says Franklin, "is the stuff that life is made of;" and as France is the antagonist with which the power of England naturally expects to struggle, his first object was to acquire all possible knowledge of the naval means of France. The primary step was to acquire a knowledge of the language. Accordingly, he went to France, and placed himself in a pension. There he applied himself so closely to the study of the language, that his health became out of order, and his family requested him to return. But this he declined, and in his answer said that he had adopted this pursuit on the best view a military man in his situation could form. "For it will always," said he, "be useful to have a general idea of this prevalent language, and a knowledge of the country with which we have so long contended, and which must ever be our rival in arms and commerce."

Having accomplished his object of acquiring sufficient fluency in speaking French, his next excursion was to St Petersburg. He and Captain Barrington went in a merchant vessel, and reached Cronstadt. While at sea, Captain Jervis kept a regular log. During the voyage, all the headlands are described, all the soundings noted, and every opportunity to test and correct the charts adopted. As an example, he remarks on the castle of Cronenburg, which guards the entrance into the Sound, that it may be overlooked by a line-of-battle ship, which may anchor in good ground as near the beach as she pleases. He remarks the two channels leading to Copenhagen, puts all the lighthouses down on his own chart, and lays down all the approaches to St Petersburg accurately; "because," said he, "I find all the charts are incorrect, and it may be useful." And he actually did find it useful; for when he was at the head of the Admiralty, this knowledge enabled him, while his colleagues hesitated, to give his orders confidently to Sir Charles Pole, in command of the Baltic fleet. His sojourn at St Petersburg was but brief; but it was at a time of remarkable excitement. The Empress Catharine was at the height of her splendour, a legislator and a conqueror, and surrounded by a court exhibiting all the daring and dashing characters of her vast empire. His description of this celebrated woman's character on one public occasion, shows the exactness with which he observed every thing:—"When she entered the cathedral, Catharine mingled her salutations to the saints and the people, showing at once her compliance with religious ceremonials, and her attentions to her servants and the foreign ambassadors. But she showed no devotion, in which she was not singular, old people and Cossack officers excepted. During the sermon she took occasion to smile and nod to those whom she meant to gratify; and surely no sovereign ever possessed the power of pleasing all within her eye to the degree she did. She was dressed in the Guards' uniform, which was a scarlet pelisse, and a green silk robe lapelled from top to bottom. Her hair was combed neatly, and boxed en militaire, with a small cap, and an ornament of diamonds in front; a blue riband, and the order of St Andrew on her right shoulder."

He speaks of the empress excelling in that inclination of the body which the Russian ladies substitute for the curtsy, and which he justly regards as very becoming, the empress adding dignity and grace. He describes Orloff as an herculean figure, finely proportioned, with a cheerful eye, and, for a Russian, a good complexion: Potemkin as having stature and shoulders, but being ill limbed and of a most forbidding countenance. His examination of the Russian dockyards, naval armament, and general style of shipbuilding, was most exact; and he records in his notes his having seen, in the naval arsenals of Norway, sheds to cover ships on the stocks—an important arrangement, which was afterwards claimed as an invention at home.

After inspecting the harbours of Sweden and Norway, the travellers returned by Holland, where they made similar investigations. In the following year they renewed their tour of inspection, and traversed the western parts of France. And this active pursuit of knowledge was carried on without any pecuniary assistance beyond his half-pay. He had hitherto made no prize-money. "To be sure," he said in after days, "we sometimes did fare rather roughly; but what signifies that now? my object was attained."

His character was now high, but it is to be presumed that he had some powerful interest; for on his return he was appointed to two line-of-battle ships in succession, the Kent, 74, and the Foudroyant, 84, a French prize, and reckoned the finest two-decker in the navy.

From this period a new scene opened before him, and his career became a part of the naval history of England. In 1778 he joined the Channel fleet, and his ship was placed by the celebrated Keppel as one of his seconds in the order of battle, and immediately astern of the admiral's ship, the Victory, on the 27th of July, in the drawn battle off Ushant with the French fleet commanded by D'Orvilliers. The people of England are not content with drawn battles, and the result of this action produced a general uproar. Keppel threw the blame on the tardiness of Sir Hugh Palliser, the second in command. Palliser retorted, and the result was a court-martial on the commander of the fleet; which, however, ended in a triumphant acquittal. It was not generally known that Keppel's defence, which was admired as a model of intelligence, and even of eloquence, was drawn up by Captain Jervis. The transaction, though so long passed away, is not yet beyond discussion; and there is still some interest in knowing the opinion of so powerful a mind on the general subject. It was thus given in a private letter to his friend Jackson:—"I do not agree that we were outwitted. The French, I am convinced, never would have fought us if they had not been surprised into it by a sudden flow of wind; and when they formed their inimitable line after our brush, it was merely to cover their intention of flight."

He then gives one of those comprehensive maxims which already show the experienced "admiral:"—"I have often told you that two fleets of equal force can never produce decisive events, unless they are equally determined to fight it out, or the commander-in-chief of one of them misconducts his line." We have then an instance of that manly feeling which is one of the truest characteristics of greatness, and yet which has been deficient in some very remarkable men.

"I perceive," says he, "it is the fashion of people to puff themselves. For my part, I forbade my officers to write by the frigate that carried the despatches. I did not write a syllable myself, except touching my health; nor shall I, but to state the intrepidity of the officers and people under my command, (through the most infernal fire I ever saw or heard,) to Lord Sandwich," (first lord of the Admiralty.) But one cannot feel the merit of this self-denial without a glance at his actual hazards and services during the battle.

"In justice to the Foudroyant," he thus ends his letter, "I must observe to you, that though she received the fire of seventeen sail, and had the Bretagne, Ville de Paris, and a seventy-four on her at the same time, and appeared more disabled in her masts and rigging than any other ship, she was the first in the line of battle, and truly fitter for business, in essentials, (because her people were cool,) than when she began. Keep this to yourself, unless you hear too much said in praise of others.

"J.J."

The national wrath was poured on Sir Hugh Palliser, Keppel's second in command, whose tardiness in obeying signals was charged as the cause of the French escape; so strong had already become the national assurance that a British fleet could go forth only to victory. But the succession of courts-martial cleared up nothing except the characters of the two admirals. Palliser was enabled to show that his ship had suffered so much from the enemy's fire as to be at least (plausibly) unfit for close action, and the whole dispute on land closed, like the naval conflict, in a drawn battle. Jervis was the chief witness for Keppel, as serving next his ship; and his testimony was of the highest order to the gallantry, skill, and perseverance of the admiral. But Palliser was acknowledged to be brave; and it is evident from Jervis's personal opinion, that when it was once the object of the enemy's commander to get away, it was next to impossible to have prevented his escape.

But these were trying times for the British navy: it was scarcely acquainted with its own strength; the nation, disgusted with the nature of the American war, refused its sympathy; without that sympathy ministers could do nothing effectual, and never can do any thing effectual. The character of the cabinet was feebleness, the spirit of the metropolis was faction; the king, though one of the best of men, was singularly unpopular; and the war became a system of feeble defence against arrogant and increasing hostilities. France, powerful as she was, became more powerful by the national exultation—the frenzied rejoicing in the success of American revolt—and the revived hope of European supremacy in a nation which had been broken down since the days of Marlborough; a crush which had been felt in every sinew of France for a hundred angry years. Spain, always strong, but unable to use her strength, had now given it in to the training of discipline; and the combined fleets presented a display of force, which, in the haughty language of the Tuileries, was formed to sweep the seas.

The threat was put in rapid and unexpected execution. The combined fleet moved up the Channel; and to the surprise, the sorrow, and the indignation of England, the British fleet, under Sir Charles Hardy, was seen making, what could only be called "a dignified retreat." The Foudroyant, on that melancholy occasion, had been astern of the Victory, the admiral's ship. If Jervis had been admiral, he would have tried the fate of battle—and he would have done right. No result of a battle could have been so painful to the national feelings, or so injurious in its effects on the feelings of Europe, as that retreat. If the whole British fleet on that occasion had perished, its gallantry would have only raised a new spirit of worth and power in the nation; and England has resources that, when once fully called into exertion, are absolutely unconquerable. But that was a dishonour; and even now we can echo the feelings of the brave and high-minded young officer, who was condemned to share in the disgrace. He writes to his sister, as if to relieve the fulness of his heart at the moment—"I am in the most humbled state of mind I ever experienced, from the retreat we have made before the combined fleets all yesterday and this morning." The Admiralty ultimately gave the retreating admiral an official certificate of good behaviour, "their high approbation of Sir Charles Hardy's wise and prudent conduct;" but "gallant and bold conduct" would have been a better testimonial. The truth seems to be, that the Admiralty, blamable themselves in sending him to sea with an inadequate force, and scarcely expecting to escape if they had suffered him to lie under the charge, were glad to avail themselves of his personal character as a man of known bravery; and thus quash a process which must finally have brought them before the tribunal. But let naval officers remember, that the officer who fights is the officer of the nation. Nelson's maxim is unanswerable—"The captain cannot be mistaken who lays his ship alongside the enemy."

This, too, was a period of cabinet revolutions. No favouritism can sustain a ministry which has become disgustful to the nation. Lord North, though ingenious, dexterous, and long enough in possession of power to have filled all its offices with his dependents, was driven from the premiership with such a storm of national contempt, that he could scarcely be sheltered by the curtains of the throne. Lord Rockingham, a dull minister, was transformed into a brilliant one by his contrast with the national weariness of Lord North; and it fell to the lot of Captain Jervis to give the country the first omen of returning victory. France had already combined Holland in her alliance, and the French minister, already made insolent by his triumph in the Channel, had determined on a blow in a quarter where English interests were most vulnerable, and where the assault was least expected. A squadron of French line-of-battle ships, convoying a fleet of transports, were prepared for an expedition to the East Indies.

The preparations for the combined movement were on an immense scale. The fleets of France, Spain, and Holland were again to sweep the Channel; and while the attention of the British fleets was thus engrossed, the Eastern expedition was to sail from Brest. The Admiralty, in order to counteract, or at least delay, this formidable movement, immediately dispatched Admiral Barrington, with twelve sail of the line, to cruise in the bay of Biscay. On the 18th of April the French expedition sailed, and on the 20th, when Admiral Barrington had reached a few leagues beyond Ushant, the Artois frigate signaled a hostile fleet, but could not discover their flag or numbers. The signal being made for a general chase, the Foudroyant, Jervis's ship, soon left the rest of the fleet behind; and before night she had so much gained upon the enemy as to ascertain that they were six French ships of war, with eighteen sail of convoy. The whole of the British fleet, being several leagues astern, was now lost sight of, and did not come up till the following day. In the mean time Jervis was left alone. At ten at night, the French ships of war separating, Jervis, selecting the largest for pursuit, prepared to attack: at twelve, he had approached near enough to see that the chase was a ship of the line. The Foudroyant's superior manœuvring enabled her to commence the engagement by a raking fire. Its effect was so powerful, that the enemy was thrown into extreme disorder, and was carried by boarding, after an action of only three quarters of an hour. The prize was the Pégase, seventy-four. The loss of life on board the enemy was great; but by an extraordinary piece of good fortune, on board the Foudroyant not a man was killed, Captain Jervis and five seamen being the only wounded.

To the gallantry which produced this striking success, the young officer added extreme delicacy with respect to his prisoners. He would not allow the first boat to be sent on board the prize, until he had given written orders for the particular preservation of every thing in the shape of property belonging to the French officers, adding at the bottom of his memorandum,—"For though I have the highest opinion of my officers, we must not be suspected of designs to plunder."

The result of the action was, that sixteen transports out of twenty were taken, according to the letter of young Ricketts, the captain's nephew. It must be owned, that brave as the French are, their admiral made but a bad figure in this business: why the sight of one vessel should have been sufficient to disperse a fleet of six men-of-war, and of course ruin an expedition which must thus be left without convoy, is not easily to be accounted for; or why, when the admiral saw that his pursuer was but a single ship, he should not have turned upon him and crushed him, it is equally difficult to say. It only shows that his court wanted common sense as much as he wanted discretion. The expedition was destroyed, and the Foudroyant had the whole honour of the victory.

An action between single ships of this force is rare at any period, and nothing could be nearer a match in point of equipment then the two ships. The Foudroyant had the larger tonnage, and carried three more guns on her broadside; but the Pégase threw a greater weight of shot, had a more numerous crew, and a large proportion of soldiers on board. The English ship, however, had the incomparable advantage of a crew which had sailed together for six years, and been disciplined by such an officer as Jervis.

The ministry and the king were equally rejoiced at this return of the naval distinctions of the country, and the immediate consequence was, the conferring of a baronetcy and the order of the Bath upon the gallant officer. Congratulations of all kinds were poured upon him by the ministry, his admiral, and his brother officers. The admiral writes, in speaking of the squadron's cruise, "but the Pégase is every thing, and does the highest honour to Jervis."

Another instance of his decision, and, as in all probability will be thought, of the clearness of his judgment, was shortly after given in the memorable relief of Gibraltar. As it was likely that the combined fleets of France and Spain would oppose the passage of the British, Lord Howe, at an early period, called the flag-officers and captains on board the Victory, and proposed to them the question—Whether, considering the superiority of the enemy's numbers, it might not be advisable to fight the battle at night, when British discipline might counterbalance the numerical superiority? All the officers junior to Jervis gave their opinion for the night attack, but he dissented. "Expressing his regret that he must offer an opinion, not only contrary to that of his brother officers, but also, as he feared, to that of his commander-in-chief, he was convinced that battle in the day would be greatly preferable. In the first place, because it would give an opportunity for the display of his lordship's tactics, and afford the means of taking prompt advantage of any mistake of the enemy, change of the wind, or any other favourable circumstance; while in the mêlée of a battle at night, there must always be greater risk of separation, and of ships receiving the fire of their friends as well as their foes." It is obvious to every comprehension, that a night action must preclude all manœuvring, and prevent the greater skill of the tactician from having any advantage over the blunderer who turns his ships into mere batteries. The only officer who coincided with Jervis was Admiral Barrington, who gave as an additional and a just argument for the attack by day, that it would give an opportunity of ascertaining the conduct of the respective captains in action. On those opinions Lord Howe made no comment; but it is presumed that he ultimately agreed with them, from his conduct in the celebrated action of the 1st of June 1794, when he had the enemy's fleet directly to leeward of him from the night before.

In the relief of Gibraltar, the Foudroyant had the honour to be the ship which was dispatched from the fleet to escort the victuallers into the harbour, which was accomplished amid the acclamations of the garrison. It had been expected that Lord Howe would have attacked the combined fleets, and the nation of course looked forward to a victory; but they were disappointed. The fact is, that Lord Howe, though a brave man, and what is generally regarded as a good officer, was of a different class of mind from the Jervises and Nelsons. He did his duty, but he did no more. The men who were yet to give a character to the navy did more than their duty, suffered no opportunity of distinction to escape them, relied on the invincibility of British prowess when it was boldly directed, and by that reliance rendered it invincible.

There was a kindness and generosity of nature in this future "thunderbolt of war," which shows how compatible the gentler feelings are with the gallant daring, and comprehensive talent of the great commander. Having happened to receive the Duc de Chabelais on board his ship when at Cadiz, the politeness of his reception caused the Sardinian prince to exhibit his gratitude in some handsome presents to the officers. One of Jervis's letters mentions, that the prince had given to each of the lieutenants a handsome gold box; to the lieutenant of marines and five of the midshipmen gold watches; and to the other officers and ship's company, a princely sum of money.

"I pride myself," he adds, "exceedingly in the presents being so diffused; on all former occasions they have centred in the captain." In another letter he says,—"I was twenty-four hours in the bay of Marseilles about a fortnight ago, just time to receive the warm embraces of a man to whose bravery and friendship I had some months before been indebted for my reputation, the preservation of the people under my command, and of the Alarm. You would have felt infinite pleasure at the scene of our interview." In a letter to the under-secretary of the Admiralty, he says,—"My dear Jackson, you must allow me to interest your humanity in favour of poor Spicer, who, overwhelmed with dropsy, asthma, and a large family, and with nothing but his pay to support him under those afflictions, is appointed to the —— under a mean man, and very likely to go to the East Indies. The letter which he writes to the Board, desiring to be excused from his appointment, is dictated by me."

He then mentions a contingency, "in which case I shall write for Spicer to be first lieutenant of the Foudroyant, with intention to nurse him, and keep him clear of all expense." Shortly after the Foudroyant was paid off, Sir John Jervis was united to a lady to whom he had long been attached, the daughter of Sir Thomas Parker, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Every man in England, as he rises into distinction, necessarily becomes a politician. It was the misfortune of Sir John Jervis, and it was his only misfortune, that he was a politician before he had risen into distinction. Having had the ill luck to profess himself a Whig, at a period when he could scarcely have known the nature of the connexion, he unhappily adhered to it long after Whiggism had ceased to possess either public utility or national respect. But his Whiggism was unconscious Toryism after all: it was what even his biographer is forced to call it, Whig Royalism, or pretty nearly what Blake's Republicanism was—a determination to raise his country to the highest eminence to which his talents and bravery could contribute, without regarding by whom the government was administered. At the general election of 1784, he sat for Yarmouth.

In 1787, Sir John Jervis was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. At the general election in 1790, he was returned for Wycombe, and shared in parliament the successive defeats of his party; until, in 1793, he was called to a nobler field, in which, unembarrassed by party, and undegraded by Whiggism, his talents took their natural direction in the cause of his country. It is now scarcely necessary to remark upon the narrow system of enterprise with which England began the great revolutionary war; nor can it now be doubted that, if the energies of the country had been directed to meet the enemy in Europe, measureless misfortunes might have been averted. If the succession of fleets and armies which were wasted upon the conquest of the French West Indies, had been employed in the protection of the feebler European states, there can be no question that the progress of the French armies would have been signally retarded, if invasion had not been thrown back over the French frontier. For instance, it would have been utterly impossible for Napoleon, in 1796, to have marched triumphantly throughout Italy with the British fleet covering the coast, commanding all the harbours, and ready to throw in troops in aid of the insurrections in his rear.

But it was the policy of the time to pacify the merchants, whose bugbear was a negro insurrection in the West Indies; and whether the genius or the fears of Pitt gave way to the impression, the consequence was equally lamentable—the mighty power of England was wasted on the capture of sugar islands, which we did not want, which we could not cultivate, and which cost the lives, by disease and climate, of ten times the number of gallant men who might have saved Europe. At the close of 1793, a grand expedition against the French Caribbee islands was resolved upon by the British cabinet; and it is a remarkable instance of both the reputation of Sir John Jervis and the impartiality of the great minister, that a Whig member of parliament should have been chosen to command the naval part of the expedition.

The expedition consisted of twenty-two ships of war and six thousand troops, the troops divided into three brigades, of which one was commanded by the late Duke of Kent. Sir John Jervis hoisted his flag as vice-admiral of the blue on the 3d of October.

A ludicrous circumstance occurred in the instance of a favourite officer, Mr Bayntun, who had applied for permission to join Sir John. Bayntun received in answer the following decisive note: "Sir, your having thought fit to take to yourself a wife, you are to look for no further attention from your humble servant, J. JERVIS." It happened that Bayntun was a bachelor, and he instantly wrote an exculpatory letter, denying that he had been guilty of so formidable a charge. The mistake arose from a misdirection in two notes which the admiral had written on the same subject. He had left them to Lady Jervis to direct, and she had addressed them to the wrong persons. The consequence, however, was, that Bayntun received the appointment, and the married man the refusal. This inveteracy against married officers seems strange in one who had committed the same crime himself; yet he constantly persisted in calling officers who married moon-struck, and appears at all times to have regarded matrimony in the service as little short of personal ruin.

On the passage out, a curious circumstance occurred to the Zebra frigate, under command of the gallant Robert Faulknor. The Zebra, which had been separated from the rest of the squadron, saw one evening a ship on the horizon. All sail was made in chase, and the ship was discovered to be a twenty-eight gun frigate. All contrivances were adopted to induce her to show her colours, but without success. At length Faulknor, impatient of delay, and disregarding the disparity of force, closed upon her, and jumped on board at the head of his men. To his astonishment he found that she was a Dutch frigate, quietly pursuing her way; and as Holland was at peace with England, equally unexpecting and unprepared for an attack. This instance of apathy night have procured her a broadside; but luckily the affair finished with the shaking of hands.

On the 5th of February the expedition reached Martinique. On the 18th of March Fort Lewis was stormed, General Rochambeau capitulated, and Martinique was taken, St Lucie followed, the Saintes next fell, and the final conquest was Guadaloupe. Thus in three months the capture of the French islands was complete.

But an enemy more formidable than the sword was now to be encountered. The yellow fever began its ravages. The troops perished in such numbers, that the regiments were reduced to skeletons; and just at the moment when the disease was at its height, Victor Hughes was dispatched from France with an expedition. The islands fell one by one into his hands, and the campaign was utterly thrown away.

The romantic portion of the European campaigns now began. The French Directory, unpopular at home, wearied by the sanguinary successes of the Vendéan insurrection, and baffled in their invasion of Germany, were in a condition of the greatest perplexity, when a new wonder of war taught France again to conquer. Napoleon Bonaparte, since so memorable, but then known only as commanding a company of artillery at Toulon, and repelling the armed mob in Paris, was appointed to command the army on the Italian frontier. Even now, with all our knowledge of his genius, and the splendid experience of his successes, his sudden elevation, his daring offer of command, his plan of the Italian campaign, and his almost instantaneous victories, are legitimate matter of astonishment. In him we have the instance of a young man of twenty-six, who had never seen a campaign, who had never commanded a brigade, nor even a regiment, undertaking the command of an army, proposing the invasion of a country of eighteen millions, garrisoned by the army of one of the greatest military powers of Europe, which had nearly 300,000 soldiers in the field, and which was in the most intimate alliance with all the sovereigns of Italy. Yet, extravagant as all those conceptions seem, and improbable as those results certainly were, two campaigns saw every project realized—Italy conquered, the Tyrol, the great southern barrier of Austria, overpassed, and peace signed within a hundred miles of Vienna. The invasion of Italy first awoke the British ministry to the true direction of the vast naval powers of England. To save Italy if possible, was the primary object; the next was to prevent the superiority of the French fleet in the Mediterranean. A powerful fleet had been prepared in Toulon, for the purpose of aiding the French army in its invasion, and finally taking possession of all the ports and islands, until it should have realized the project of Louis XIV., of turning the Mediterranean into a French lake. It was determined to keep up a powerful British fleet to oppose this project, and Sir John Jervis was appointed to the command. Nothing could be a higher testimony to the opinion entertained of his talents, as his connexion with the Whigs was undisguised. But Pitt's feeling for the public service overcame all personal predilections, and this great officer was sent to take the command of the most extensive and important station to which a British admiral could be appointed. Lord Hood had previously declined it, on the singular plea of inadequacy of force; and Sir Charles Hotham having solicited his recall in consequence of declining health, the gallant Jervis was sent forth to establish the renown of his country and his own.

The fleet was a noble command. It consisted on the whole of about twenty-five sail of the line, two of them of a hundred guns, and five of ninety-eight; thirty-six frigates, and fifteen or sixteen sloops and other armed vessels.

Among the officers of the fleet were almost all the names which subsequently obtained distinction in the great naval victories—Troubridge, Hallowell, Hood, Collingwood, &c., and first of the first, that star of the British seaman, Nelson. It is remarkable, and only a just tribute to the new admiral, that he, almost from his earliest intercourse with those gallant men, marked their merits, although hitherto they had found no opportunities of acquiring distinction—all were to come. Nelson, in writing to his wife, speaking of the admiral's notice of him, says, "Sir John Jervis was a perfect stranger to me, therefore I feel the more flattered." The admiral, in writing to the secretary of the Admiralty, says—"I am afraid of being thought a puffer, like many of my brethren, or I should before have dealt out to the Board the merits of Captain Troubridge, which are very uncommon."

The French fleet, of fifteen sail of the line, lay in Toulon, ready to convoy an army to plunge upon the Roman states. Sir John Jervis instantly proceeded to block up Toulon, keeping what is called the in-shore squadron looking into the harbour's mouth, while the main body cruised outside. The admiral at once employed Nelson on the brilliant service for which he was fitted, and sent him with a flying squadron of a ship of the line, three frigates, and two sloops, to scour the coast of Italy. The duties of the Mediterranean fleet, powerful as the armament was, were immense. Independently of the blockade of Toulon, and the necessity of continually watching the enemy's fleet, which might be brought out by the same wind which blew off the British, the admiral had the responsibility of protecting the Mediterranean convoys, of sustaining the British interests in the neutral courts, of assisting the allies on shore, of overawing the Barbary powers, which were then peculiarly restless and insolent, and of upholding the general supremacy of England, from Smyrna to Gibraltar.

The French campaign opened on the 9th of April 1797, and the Austrians were beaten on the following day at Montenotte, and in a campaign of a month Bonaparte reached Milan. The success of the enemy increased to an extraordinary degree the difficulties of the British admiral. The repairs of the fleet, the provisioning, and every other circumstance connected with the land, lay under increased impediments; but they were all gradually overcome by the vigilance and intelligence of the admiral.

A curious and characteristic circumstance occurred, soon after his taking the command. Nelson had captured a vessel carrying 152 Austrian grenadiers, who had been made prisoners by the French, and actually sold by their captors to the Spaniards, for the purpose of enlisting them in the Spanish army. His letter to Jackson, the secretary of legation at Turin, on this subject, spiritedly expresses his feelings:—

"SIR,—From a Swiss dealer in human flesh, the demand made upon me to deliver up 152 Austrian grenadiers, serving on board his Majesty's fleet under my command, is natural enough, but that a Spaniard, who is a noble creature, should join in such a demand, I must confess astonishes me; and I can only account for it by the Chevalier Caamano being ignorant that the persons in question were made prisoners of war in the last war with General Beaulieu, and are not deserters, and that they were most basely sold by the French commissaries to the vile crimps who recruit for the foreign regiments in the service of Spain. It is high time a stop should be put to this abominable traffic, a million times more disgraceful than the African slave-trade."

But other dangers now menaced the British supremacy in the Mediterranean. The victories of Bonaparte had terrified all the Italian states into neutrality or absolute submission; and the success of the Directory, and perhaps their bribes, influenced the miserably corrupt and feeble Spanish ministry, to make common cause with the conquering republic. Spain at last became openly hostile. This was a tremendous increase of hazards, because Spain had fifty-seven sail of the line, and a crowd of frigates. The difficulty of blockading Toulon was now increased by the failure of provisions. On the night of the 2d of November, the admiral sent for the master of the Victory, and told him that he now had not the least hope of being reinforced, and had made up his mind to push down to Gibraltar with all possible dispatch.

The passage became a stormy one, and it was with considerable difficulty that the fleet reached Gibraltar. Some of the transports were lost, a ship of the line went down, and several of the fleet were disabled.

The result of the French successes and the Austrian misfortunes, was an order for the fleet to leave the Mediterranean, and take up its station at the Tagus. The vivid spirit of Nelson was especially indignant at this change of scene. In one of his letters he says—"We are preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what this fleet is capable of performing—any thing, and every thing. Of all the fleets I ever saw, I never saw one, in point of officers and men, equal to Sir John Jervis's, who is a commander able to lead them to glory." The admiral's merits were recognized by the government in a still more permanent manner; for, by a despatch from the Admiralty in February 1797, it was announced that the king had raised him to the dignity of the peerage.

The prospect now darkened round every quarter of the horizon. The power of Austria had given way; Spain and Holland were combined against our naval supremacy; Italy was lost; a French expedition threatened Ireland; there was a strong probability of the invasion of Portugal; and the junction of the French and Spanish fleets might endanger not merely the Tagus fleet, but expose the Channel fleet to an encounter with numbers so superior, as to leave the British shores open to invasion. The domestic difficulties, too, had their share. The necessity of suspending cash payments at the Bank had, if not thrown a damp upon the nation, at least given so formidable a ground for the fallacies and bitterness of the Opposition, as deeply to embarrass even the fortitude of the great minister. We can now see how slightly all these hazards eventually affected the real power of England; and we now feel how fully adequate the strength of this extraordinary and inexhaustible country was to resist all obstacles and turn the trial into triumph. But faction was busy, party predicted ruin, public men used every art to dispirit the nation and inflame the populace; and the result was, a state of public anxiety of which no former war had given the example.

It is incontestable that the list of the British navy at this period of the war exhibited some of the noblest specimens of English character—brave, intelligent, and indefatigable men, ready for any service, and equal for all; with all the intrepidity of heroes, possessing the highest science of their profession, and exhibiting at once that lion-heartedness, and that knowledge, which gave the British navy the command of the ocean. And yet, if we were to assign the highest place where all were high, we should probably assign it to Lord St Vincent as an admiral. Nelson certainly, as an executive officer, defies all competition; his three battles, Copenhagen, Aboukir, and Trafalgar, each of them a title to eminent distinction, place him as a conqueror at the head of all. But an admiral has other duties than those of the line of battle; and for a great naval administrator, first disciplining a fleet, then supplying it with all the means of victory, and finally leading it to victory—Lord St Vincent was perhaps the most complete example on record of all the combined qualities that make the British admiral. His profound tactics, his stern but salutary exactness of command, his incomparable judgment, and his cool and unhesitating intrepidity, form one of the very noblest models of high command. All those qualities were now to be called into full exertion.

The continental campaign had left Europe at the mercy of France. England was now the only enemy, and she was to be assailed, in the first instance, by a naval war. To prevent the junction of the Spanish and French fleets, the Tagus was the station fixed upon by Lord St Vincent. Ill luck seemed to frown upon the fleet. The Bombay Castle, a seventy-four, was lost going in; the St George, a ninety, grounded in coming out, and was obliged to be docked; still the admiral determined to keep the sea, though his fleet was reduced to eight sail of the line. The day before he left the Tagus, information was received that the enemy's fleets had both left the Mediterranean. The French had gone to Brest, the Spanish first to Toulon, then to Carthagena, and was now proceeding to join the French at Brest. A reinforcement of six sail of the line now fortunately joined the fleet off the Tagus; but at the same time information was received that the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line, with fourteen frigates, had passed Cadiz, and could not be far distant. To prevent the junction of this immense force with the powerful fleet already prepared for a start in Brest, was of the utmost national importance; for, combined, they must sweep the Channel. The admiral instantly formed his plan, and sailed for Cape St Vincent.

The details of the magnificent encounter which followed, are among the best portions of the volumes. They are strikingly given, and will attract the notice, as they might form the model, of the future historian of this glorious period of our annals. We can now give only an outline.

On the announcement of the Spanish advance, the first object was to gain exact intelligence, and ships were stationed in all quarters on the look-out. But on the 13th Captain Foote, in the Niger frigate, joined, with the intelligence that he had kept sight of the enemy for three days. The admiral was now to have a new reinforcement, not in ships but in heroes; the Minerva frigate, bearing Nelson's broad pendant, from the Mediterranean, arrived, and Nelson shifted his pendant into the Captain. The Lively frigate, with Lord Garlies, also arrived from Corsica. The signal was made, "To keep close order, and prepare for battle." On that day, Lord Garlies, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Captain Hallowell, with some other officers, dined on board the Victory. At breaking up, the toast was drunk, "Victory over the Dons, in the battle from which they cannot escape to-morrow!"

The "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," can probably have but little conception of the price which men in high command pay for glory. No language can describe the anxieties which have often exercised the minds of those bold and prominent characters, of whom we now know little but of their laurels. The solemn responsibilities of their condition, the consciousness that a false step might be ruin, the feeling that the eye of their country was fixed upon them, the hope of renown, the dread of tarnishing all their past distinctions, must pass powerfully and painfully through the mind of men fitted for the struggles by which greatness is to be alone achieved.

"It is believed that Sir John Jervis did not go to bed that night, but sat up writing. It is certain that he executed his will." In the course of the first and second watches, the enemy's signal-guns were distinctly heard; and, as he noticed them sounding more and more audibly, Sir John made more earnest enquiries as to the compact order and situation of his own ships, as well as they could be made out in the darkness. Long before break of day, he walked the deck in more than even his usual silence. When the grey of the morning of the 14th enabled him to discern his fleet, his first remarks were high approbation of his captains, for "their admirably close order, and that he wished they were now well up with the enemy; for," added he thoughtfully, "a victory is very essential to England at this moment."

Now came on the day of decision. The morning was foggy; but as the mist cleared up, the Lively, and then the Niger, signaled "a strange fleet." The Bonne Citoyenne was next ordered to reconnoitre. Soon after, the Culloden's guns announced the enemy. At twenty minutes past ten the signal was made to six of the ships—"to chase." Sir John still walked the quarterdeck, and, as the enemy's numbers were counted, they were duly reported to him by the captain of the fleet.

"There are eight sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty-five sail of the line, Sir John."

"Very well, sir."

"There are twenty-seven sail of the line, Sir John." This was accompanied by some remark on the great disparity of the two forces. Sir John's gallant answer now was:—

"Enough, sir—no more of that: the die is cast, and if there are fifty sail, I will go through them."

At forty minutes past ten the signal was made to form line of battle ahead and astern of the Victory, and to steer S.S.W. The fog was now cleared off, and the British fleet were seen admirably formed in the closest order; while the Spaniards were stretching in two straggling bodies across the horizon, leaving an open space between. The opportunity of dividing their fleet struck the admiral at once, and at half-past eleven the signal was made to pass through the enemy's line, and engage them to leeward. At twelve o'clock, as the Culloden was reaching close up to the enemy, the British fleet hoisted their colours, and the Culloden opened her fire. An extraordinary incident, even in those colossal battles, occurred to this fine ship. The course of the Culloden brought her directly on board one of the enemy's three-deckers. The first lieutenant, Griffiths, reported to her captain, Troubridge, that a collision was inevitable. "Can't help it, Griffiths—let the weakest fend off," was the hero's reply. The Culloden, still pushing on, fired two of her double-shotted broadsides into the Spaniard with such tremendous effect, that the three-decker went about, and the guns of her other side not being even cast loose, she did not fire a single shot, while the Culloden passed triumphantly through. Scarcely had she broken the enemy's line, than the commander-in-chief signaled the order to tack in succession. Troubridge's manœuvre was so dashingly performed, that the admiral could not restrain his delight and admiration.

"Look, Jackson," he rapturously exclaimed, "look at Troubridge there! He tacks his ship to battle as if the eyes of all England were upon him; and would to God they were, for then they would see him to be what I know him."

The leeward division of the enemy, perceiving the fatal consequences of their disunited order of sailing, now endeavoured to retrieve the day, and to break through the British line. A vice-admiral, in a three-decker, led them, and was reaching up to the Victory just as she had come up to tack in her station. The vice-admiral stood on with great apparent determination till within pistol-shot, but there he stopped; and when the Victory could bring her guns to bear upon him, she thundered in two of her broadsides, sweeping the Spaniard's decks, and so terrified him, that when his sails filled, he ran clear out of the battle altogether. The Victory then tacked into her station, and the conflict raged with desperate fury. At this period of the battle, the Spanish commander-in-chief bore up with nine sail of the line to run round the British, and rejoin his leeward division. This was a formidable manœuvre; but no sooner was it commenced, than his eye caught it "whose greatest wish it ever was to be the first to find, and foremost to fight, his enemy." Nelson, instead of waiting till his turn to tack should bring him into action, took it upon himself to depart from the prescribed mode of attack, and ordered his ship to be immediately wore. This masterly manœuvre was completely successful, at once arresting the Spanish commander-in-chief, and carrying Nelson and Collingwood into the van and brunt of the battle. He now attacked the four-decker, the Santissima Trinidada, also engaged by the Culloden. The Captain's fore-topmast being now shot away, Nelson put his helm down, and let her come to the wind, that he might board the San Nicolas; Captain, afterwards Sir Edward Berry, then a passenger with Nelson, jumping into her mizen-chains, was the first in the enemy's ship; Nelson leading his boarders, and a party of the 69th regiment, immediately followed, and the colours were hauled down. While he was on the deck of the San Nicolas, the San Josef, disabled, fell on board. Nelson instantly seized the opportunity of boarding her from his prize; followed by Captain Berry, and Lieutenant Pierson of the 69th, he led the boarders, and jumped into the San Josef's main-chains. He was then informed that the ship had surrendered. Four line-of-battle ships had now been taken, and the Santissima Trinidada had also struck; but she subsequently made her escape, for now the Spanish leeward division, fourteen sail, having re-formed their line, bore down to support their commander-in-chief: to receive them, Sir John Jervis was obliged to form a line of battle on the starboard tack—the enemy immediately retired. Thus, at five in the evening, concluded the most brilliant battle that had ever till then been fought at sea.

Captain Calder was immediately sent off with the despatch, and arrived in London on the 3d of March. A battle gained over such a numerical superiority, for it was much more than two to one, when we take into our estimate the immense size of the enemy's ships, and their weight of metal, there being one four-decker of 130 guns, and six three-deckers of 112, of which two were taken; and further, the more interesting circumstance, that this great victory was gained on our part with only the loss of 73 killed and 227 wounded, the public feeling of exultation was unbounded; and when the minister on that very evening proposed that the vote of thanks should be taken on the following Monday, the House would hear of no delay, but insisted on recording its gratitude at the moment. The House of Peers gave a similar vote on the 8th; and the Commons and the Crown immediately proposed to settle upon the admiral a pension of three thousand a-year. A member of the House of Commons, on moving for an address to the Crown to confer some signal mark of favour on the admiral, was instantly replied to by the sonorous eloquence of the minister—"Can it be supposed," said he, "that the Crown can require to be prompted to pay the just tribute of approbation and honour to those who have eminently distinguished themselves by public services? On the part of his Majesty's ministers, I can safely affirm, that before the last splendid instance of the conduct of the gallant admiral, we have not been remiss in watching the uniform tenor of his professional career. We have witnessed the whole of his proceedings—such instances of perseverance, of diligence, and of exertion in the public service, as, though less brilliant and dazzling than the last exploit, are only less meritorious as they are put in competition with a single day, which has produced such incalculable benefit to the British empire."

The result was an earldom. The first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer, having already written to Sir John the royal pleasure to promote him to a peerage, and the letter not having reached him previously to the battle, he thus had notice of the two steps in the peerage nearly at once.

Popular honours now flowed in upon him: London voted its freedom in a gold box, with swords to the admirals of the fleet and Nelson; vice-admirals Parker and Thompson were created baronets; Nelson received the red riband; the chief cities and towns of England and Ireland sent their freedoms and presents; and the king gave all the admirals and captains a gold medal.

We must now be brief in our observations on the services of this most distinguished person. We have next a narrative of the suppression of the memorable mutiny of 1798, whose purpose it was to have suffered the enemy's fleet to leave their harbours, to revolutionize the Mediterranean fleet, and, after putting the admirals and captains to death, proceed to every folly and frenzy that could be committed by men conscious of power, and equally conscious that forgiveness was impossible. The fleet under Lord St Vincent was on the point of corruption, when it was restored to discipline by the singular firmness of the admiral, who, by exhibiting his determination to punish all insubordination, extinguished this most alarming disaffection, and saved the naval name of the country.

On the resignation of Mr Pitt in 1801, and the appointment of Mr Addington as first lord of the treasury, a letter was written from the new minister to Lord St Vincent, offering him the appointment of first lord of the Admiralty. Having obtained an interview with the king, and explained the general tone of his political feelings, the king told him he very much wished to see him at the Admiralty, and to place the navy entirely in his hands. This was perhaps the only appointment of that singularly feeble administration which met with universal approval. There could be no question of the intelligence, high principle, or public services of the great admiral. Mr Addington came into power under circumstances which would have tried the talents of a man of first-rate ability. The war had exhausted the patience, though not the power, of the nation. All our allies had failed. The severity of the taxes was doubly felt, when the war had necessarily turned into a blockade on the Continent. We had thus all the exhaustion of hostilities without the excitement of triumph; and, to increase public anxieties, the failure of the harvest threatened a comparative famine. Wheat, which on an average of the preceding ten years had been 54s. a quarter, was now at 110s., then rose to 139s., and even reached as high as 180s. At one period the quartern loaf had risen to 1s. 10-1/2d. The popular cry now arose for peace. France, which with all her victories had been taught the precariousness of war, by the loss of Egypt and the capture of her army, was now also eager for peace. England had but two allies, Portugal and Turkey. At length the peace was made, and Lord St Vincent's attention was then drawn to an object which he had long in view, the reformation of the dockyards. This was indeed the Augean stable, and unexampled clamour arose from the multitude who had indolently fattened for years on the easy plunder of the public stores. However, the reform went on: perquisites were abolished, privileges taken away; and, rough as the operation was, nothing could be more salutary than its effect. The acuteness of the gallant old man at the head of the Admiralty could not be evaded, his vigour could not be defied, and his public spirit gave him an influence with the country, which enabled him to outlive faction and put down calumny. Yet this was evidently the most painful, and, to a certain extent, the most unsuccessful portion of his long career. Nominally a Whig, but practically a Tory—for his loyalty was unimpeachable and his honour without a stain—Lord St Vincent found himself in the condition of a man who presses reform on those with whom hitherto it has been only a watchword, and expects faction to act up to its professions.

The Addington treaty was soon discovered to be nothing more than a truce. Napoleon lived only in war; hostilities were essential to the government which he had formed for France; and his theory of government, false as it was, and his passion for excitement, whatever might be its price, made even the two years of peace so irksome to him, that he actually adopted a gross and foolish insult to the British ambassador as the means of compelling us to renew the conflict. The first result was, the return of Pitt to power; the next, the total ruin of the French navy at Trafalgar; the next, the bloody and ruinous war with Russia, expressly for the ruin of England through the ruin of her commerce; and finally the crash of Waterloo, which extinguished his diadem and his dominion together—a series of events, occurring within little more than ten years, of a more stupendous order than had hitherto affected the fate of any individual, or influenced the destinies of an European kingdom.

With the ministry of Mr Addington, Lord St Vincent retired from public life. He was now old, and the hardships of long service had partially exhausted his original vigour of frame. He retired to his seat, Rochetts in Essex, and there led the delightful life of a man who had gained opulence and distinction by pre-eminent services, and whose old age was surrounded by love, honour, and troops of friends. He appeared from time to time in the House of Lords, where, however, he spoke but seldom, but where he always spoke with dignity and effect.

In the month of March 1823, Lord St Vincent was seized with a general feeling of infirmity which portended his speedy dissolution. He had a violent and convulsive cough; yet his intellects were strongly turned upon public events, and he expressed an anxiety to know all that could be known of events in France, which was then disturbed; of the Spanish revolution, which then threatened to involve Europe; and even of the affairs of Greece. In the course of the evening of the 13th, while his physician and family were round him, his strength suddenly gave way, and at half past eight he died, at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried at Stone in Staffordshire. He was succeeded in the peerage by his nephew, who, however, inherits only the viscounty.

In our general notice of Lord St Vincent's career, we have adverted as little as possible to the opinions which his biographer had introduced from his own view of public affairs. We have no wish to make a peevish return to the writer of a work which has given us both information and pleasure. But it is necessary to caution Mr Tucker against giving trite and trifling opinions on subjects of which he evidently knows so little as of the Romish question, or the state of Ireland. Nothing is easier than to be at once solemn and superficial on such topics; and when a writer of this order flings his epithets of "bigoted, harsh, and impolitic," and the other stock phrases of party organs, he only enfeebles our respect for his authority in the immediate matters of his work, and rather lowers our respect for his faculties in all. The question of Popery in Ireland, is not a question of religion but of faction. Religious controversy on Romish doctrines has long ceased to exist. Romanism has no grounds on which a controversy can be sustained. It cannot appeal to the Scriptures, which it shuts up; and it will no longer be suffered to appeal to its mere childish pretence of infallibility. Its only ground in Ireland is party; and the present unhappy condition to which it has reduced Ireland, exhibits the natural consequences of indulgence to Popery, and the only means by which its spirit can be rendered consistent with the order of society.

Footnote 1: [(return)]

Memoirs of Admiral Earl St Vincent. By T.S. TUCKER. 2 vols.

---