Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume LXII., No. 381, July, 1847

by Various

LETTER FROM A RAILWAY WITNESS IN LONDON.

My dear Bogle,—In the words of the venerable Joe Grimaldi,—“Here I am again!” swearing away before the committees at no allowance. The trade is not quite so good a one as it was two years ago, when any intelligent and thorough-going calculator of traffic commanded his own price, and therefore invariably stood at an exorbitant premium. Still it would be very wrong in me to grumble. Though there is a woful defalcation of new lines, there is still a good deal to be done in the way of Extensions and Amalgamations; and I am happy to tell you that I am presently in the pay of no less than three companies, who are driving branch lines through the pleasure-grounds of different proprietors. I recollect the day when, in the exuberance of my greenness, I used to feel a sort of idiotical compassion for the situation of the men of land. I used to picture to myself the hardship of having your nice green policy cut into shreds by the forks of some confounded Junction—of seeing your ancestral trees go down like ninepins, before the axe of a callous engineer—of having sleep banished from your eyes by the roar of the engine, which sweeps past night and day, with disgusting punctuality, within fifty paces of your threshold—and of beholding some fine forenoon your first-born son conveyed a mangled corpse from the rail, because the company, out of sheer parsimony, have neglected to fence in their line, which goes slick through the centre of your garden; and the poor little innocent, in the absence of Girzy, then flirting among the gooseberries with the gardener, has been tempted to stray upon the irons in pursuit of an occasional butterfly! But I am thankful to say that I have now got rid of all such visionary scruples. Thanks to Sir Robert Peel, I have learned a new lesson in political economy. I have become a convert to the doctrine, that land is nothing else than manufactures; and I snap my fingers in derision at protection in all its shapes. Would you believe it, Bogle? I was giving evidence yesterday on behalf of the Clachandean railway—part of which, I am sorry to observe, has sunk into the centre of a bog—against a thick-headed proprietor, who has absolutely been insane enough to oppose, for three successive sessions, a branch line, which is to run through his estate for the purpose of communicating with some bathing-machines. The property has been in his family for some four or five hundred years. The mansion-house is an ordinary kind of tumble-down old affair, with turrets like pepper-boxes on the corners, and the fragment of an abbey behind it. There is no timber worth speaking of in the policy, except half-a-dozen great useless yew-trees, beneath which they show you a carved stone, that covers the dust of stout old Lord Alexander, whose body was brought home from the bloody field of Flodden;—and yet this absurd agriculturist has the coolness to propose to the company that they shall make a deviation of nearly half-a-mile, for the sake of avoiding this remnant of the darker ages! Three times, Bogle, has that man come up to London, at a most enormous expense, for the purpose of defending his property. The first time he was successful in his opposition before the committee of the House of Commons, because the chairman happened to be a person imbued with the same ridiculous prejudices as the proprietor, and was what these foolish Protectionists call a man of birth and connexion. He had on his own grounds a mausoleum with some rubbishy remains of his ancestors, who had been out with Harry Hotspur; and the moment he heard of the old tomb-stone and the yew-trees, he began to rave about desecration, and made such a row that the projectors were fain to give it up. That job cost the Protectionist proprietor at least a cool thousand; however, he was pleased to say, that he did not mind the expense, since he had succeeded in saving the mansion of his fathers. But we did not by any means intend to let him off so easily. My friend Switches, the engineer, laid out two new branches—if possible more annoying than the first, for they were to intersect one another at the yew-trees. We tipped the parliamentary notices; and, though the venerable Cincinnatus came with tears in his eyes to our directors, and offered them the land for nothing if they would only consent to a very slight and practicable deviation, we determined to make him pay for his whistle. Accordingly, next year we had him up again, all right and tight, before a fresh committee. Lord! what fun it was to hear him cross-examined by Sergeant Squashers! That’s the counsel for my money!—no feeling, or delicacy, or nonsense of that kind about him. I wish you had seen the rage of the proprietor when he was asked about his buried ancestor; whether his name was Sawney, or Sandy—and whether he was embalmed with sulphur! We all roared with laughter. “Don’t attempt to bully me, sir!” said the Sergeant,—for the red spot began to glow upon the old man’s cheek, and I believe that at that moment, if he had a weapon, he could have driven it hilt-deep into the body of the facetious barrister. “Don’t attempt to bully me, sir! thank Heaven, we are in a civilised country, where people wear breeches, and live under the protection of the law. Answer me, sir—and try to do it in something like intelligible English—was that fellow, Lord Saunders or Sawney, or whatever you call him, pickled up in brimstone or in pitch?” Squaretoes could not stand this; so he gathered himself up, I must say rather grandly—muttered something about scorn, and Squashers being a disgrace to the gown he wore, and marched out of the committee room amidst the guffaws of a group of us who were brought up to testify that the house was falling to pieces, and that no Christian, of ordinary intellect, would trust his carcass beneath its roof.

That time we had a capital chairman—a regular man of calico, who never professed to have a grandfather, hated the agriculturists like the pestilence, and had made a large fortune by the railways. He was perfectly delighted at the way in which our friend the Sergeant had put down Sir Pertinax M’Sycophant—a nickname suggested by our solicitor, and employed in the learned counsel’s reply with very considerable effect; and as there were two other members of the League on the committee, we had it all our own way. The preamble was declared to be proven, and no clauses of compensation were allowed. But, if we were obstinate in our purpose, so was Pertinax. He fought us in the House of Lords, and there, to be sure, he got what he termed justice—that is, our bill was thrown out, and some rather harsh expressions used with respect to the company’s behaviour. We were ten days before each committee—for Squashers is rather fond of spinning out a case, and none of us who are paid for attendance by the day, are in the habit of objecting to the same—so that Pertinax must have been out of pocket at least two thousand pounds by this second silly opposition. And considering that the fortunes of the family are not so flourishing as they once were, and that the old fellow can barely afford to give his son a university education, you will admit that this must have been a tolerable pull at his purse-strings. However we were determined to keep it up. The wisdom of the legislature in refusing, under any circumstances whatever, to give costs against the railways, has put it in the power of a company to drive any individual, by unremitting perseverance, to the wall. We set Switches to work again, and this time we propose to metamorphose the mansion into a station-house. I don’t know how the thing will go. Old Pertinax is fighting like a Trojan; and I rather fear that he made a little impression on the committee yesterday, by telling them that he has been obliged to borrow money upon his estate at a ruinous rate of interest, and to endanger the portions of his three pretty and motherless daughters solely to defend his patrimony from the wanton aggressions of the company. But—as Sergeant Squashers well observed, when he saw a tear stealing down the furrowed cheek of the Protectionist—this is not the age nor the place for such imbecile snivelling. We have been taught a new lesson with regard to the sacredness of rights and of property; and the sooner those antiquated hereditary notions are kicked out of the minds of the landowners, the better.

When I said, in the commencement of this letter, that I was swearing before the committees, I made use of a wrong term. We are not sworn—not even examined on soul, or on conscience, or on honour; and I must say that the recollection of that circumstance is sometimes a great comfort when I lie in bed awake of nights. What is technically termed at Westminster, engineering evidence, would, I am afraid, were an oath to be interposed, become very like the thing called perjury; which, not to mention its effect on a future state of existence, is popularly supposed in Scotland to bring one under the unpleasant but especial attention of the High Court of Justiciary. The beauty of the present system is, that it gives ample scope and rein to the imagination without imposing any restrictive fetters upon the conscience. It allows a fair latitude for that difference of opinion which always must prevail amongst professional gentlemen, and relieves them from whatever qualms they might otherwise have left in replying without any hesitation—the leading quality of a witness—to questions upon subjects of which they are utterly and entirely ignorant. I have found this advantage in my own case. I am positive that I could not, had I been on oath, have given any satisfactory evidence as to the amount of the bathing traffic on the line; though I certainly admit that I have sometimes of a Saturday afternoon sauntered along the shore with a cigar, to enjoy the posés plastiques of our northern aquatic Nereids. But as all such formality was dispensed with, I had no hesitation in stating the numbers of the amphibious animals, male and female, at eight hundred per hour during seven months of the year; which, on an average of nine hours a day, and at the rate of sixpence a head, would increase the income of the company by about £37,800 per annum. Such was one item of my evidence yesterday, for the clearness and accuracy of which I was politely complimented by the chairman. I must say, however, that I think Switches went rather too far when he valued poor Pertinax’s garden land at less than half-a-crown per acre. I can make every allowance for enthusiasm; but surely, surely this was pushing the principle a little to the extreme. One ought always to preserve, even for the sake of our employers and paymasters, some little semblance of probability. I do not object to an engineer stating in evidence that he is ready to tunnel Ben Nevis, throw a suspension bridge, over the Queensferry, or convert Lochlomond into a green and fertile meadow. All these—as Switches once observed with consummate coolness when badgered about the draining of a quicksand—are mere matters of estimate; but I like facts when we can have them; and had I been questioned on the subject, I think I should have been inclined to have allowed an additional shilling for the land.

Between ourselves, Bogle, I begin to suspect that this kind of work is not altogether conducive to the growth of a healthy state of morality amongst us, I would not say it in the hearing of our chairman; but I really do suspect that we have stretched a point or two exorbitantly far in our attempts to bolster up the bill. I know a lad who was brought up here, two years ago, to speak to the amount of minerals in a district which at present shall be nameless. He was then a good green creature, fresh from the superintendence of his mother, who—poor old body—had done her best to train him up in the ways of truth, and to instil into his mind a sound moral and religious principle. And she had so far succeeded. I do not believe that, at that time, he would have told a lie or injured a human being for the world; but evil was the day on which lie was brought up to London in order to testify before a committee. He was delivered into the hands of a big-boned Aberdonian engineer, notorious for his pawkiness and the adroit manner in which he always contrived to evade a direct answer to any hostile question whatever. The training proceeded, and in less than a month the youth was pronounced to be tolerably perfect in his paces. But he broke down upon cross-examination. He could not point out upon the map the locality of certain coal-fields which he had averred to be in existence; and a rigid heckling elicited the fact that a seam of black-band, valued at some annual thousands, was neither more nor less than a dyke of ordinary whinstone. It was clear that Jock was not yet entirely qualified for his vocation. He stammered too much—got red in the face when closely pressed, and was apt to potter with the compasses, instead of boldly measuring out his quota of imaginary furlongs. So he was remitted to his studies, and underwent another fortnight’s purification at the Coalhole and the Cyder cellars. A natural propensity for drink which lurked in his constitution, was carefully fostered, until his thirst became absolutely unappeasable. He, was drunk from morning to night, or more strictly speaking, from night till morning. His face broke out in blotches; a dark rim gathered beneath his eyes; his nose gave token of the coming pimple, and his lips were baked and bulging. A more disgusting object you never saw; and I only hope that when he was sent down after the session to Scotland, he had the common humanity not to visit the mother that bore him, for the spectacle would have broken her heart. Jock, however, had now risen in value, for he was ready to testify to any thing. To swear that black is white was nothing: he had no hesitation to depone in favour of the whole colours of the rainbow. When questioned for his employers, he was as acute and active as an eel; when under cross, he took refuge either in a stolid dulness of apprehension, which was extremely aggravating to his inquisitor, or had recourse to the safe and convenient operation of the non mi recordo system. In short, he was voted the prince of surveyor’s assistants, and his services were eagerly sought before every species of committee. Roads, canals, harbours, waterworks, or railways—nothing came amiss to Jock. Through habit he had become a quick study, and could satisfactorily master the details of the most intricate case in the course of a single evening, provided he was liberally, but not too exorbitantly, supplied with liquor. He is now a blackguard of the first water. I firmly believe that he has not spoken one word of truth for the last eighteen months, nor could he do so by any possibility even were you to pay him for it.

Such is the career of a true child of the railway committee system; nor can it well be otherwise, so long as witnesses are allowed to depone without reference to oath, and without the pains of perjury before their eyes. Don’t think me, my dear Bogle, unnecessarily strict in my censures. I make no pretence of having a conscience much less elastic than those of my fellow mortals; but I have a kind of indistinct feeling that it would be better for all of us if, somehow or another, we could be brought to speak the truth, or at least to make some sort of approximation towards it. The very first question which used to be asked of a witness in a court of law, was the remarkably suggestive one,—“Has any body paid you any thing, or promised you any thing, for giving your testimony?” And even yet, when a bribe can be established, it is held to disqualify, or at least to cast discredit upon a witness. Now, although I do not like to confess that we are bribed in the strictest acceptation of the term, we have, all of us, more or less interest in the success of the companies who are judicious enough to secure our services. The leading engineer has the prospect of a large and profitable job. The contractor expects a slice; the surveyor constant employment; and the capability-man and the calculator of traffic know very well that a break-down in evidence will effectually debar them from a future visit to London on the occasion of the next extension, which exclusion is equivalent to a loss of five guineas a-day with all expenses paid. So that, on the whole, I think it is abundantly clear, that we are not altogether patriots of the highest and most exalted breed. Why, then, should we be exempted from that species of purification to which even the peerage of the realm are subjected in a court of law? Of this I am certain, that larger interests are arbitrarily disposed of every session by committees of the House of Commons, than are painfully and laboriously adjudicated on, with all the formalities of law, by the judges of the Court of Session. And if the safeguard of an oath is deemed indispensable in the one case, I cannot for the life of me understand on what principle it should entirely be omitted in the other.

But perhaps you think that a good deal may safely be left to the discretion, discrimination, and prudence of those honourable members who are virtually the judges between the merits of the invading company and the rights of the invaded proprietor. You think that exaggerated or perverted testimony would be of no avail before a tribunal of such exalted intelligence; and that it would be as impossible to get up a fictitious case of traffic, as it would be to persuade a Birmingham trader that a metallic basis to the currency is the foundation of our national prosperity. Bless you, my dear friend! you know nothing at all about the matter. You have not the smallest idea of the extent of swallow of the Sassenach. In nine cases out of ten, they are as ignorant of the points at issue, as that unclean Whig Mr Gisborne is of the nation which he had the impudent audacity to revile. I shall put the case to you in a clear and intelligible point of view. Suppose that a company were proposing to run a line from Rutherglen across the Clyde, the Green of Glasgow, and, through the very heart of the city to the terminus near George Square. You will not deny that there are tolerably weighty interests involved in such a project as that, and I presume you would like to have the whole matter thoroughly expounded, before a locomotive train was permitted to shoot over a skew-bridge in the middle of the Trongate. Now, apart from evidence, who do you think would be the best judges of the expediency of such a measure? Are you not of opinion that the interests of Glasgow would be safer in the hands of the members for the West of Scotland, who have all some local knowledge of the place, than if intrusted to the tender mercies of five gentlemen, not one of whom has ever crossed the Border, and who, during, the whole period of their sitting, are impressed with a strong idea that Rutherglen is the same place as Rugby? Would you consider yourself, and our mutual friends Walter Sheddon, Steenie Provan, Tammy Gilkison, and Ephraim Cansh, a proper or a competent committee to try the merits of a line which was to intersect the heart of Bristol? Not one of you ever set foot in that respectable metropolis of spar; and it baffles my imagination to conceive how your aggregate wisdom could manage to detect and discriminate the truth amidst the conflicting evidence of a cloud of witnesses. Is it not a mere matter of toss-up, whether your decision would be right or wrong? Would you not be apt to abide by the testimony of the most plausible and practised witness, simply because you have no means of testing the accuracy of his deposition? But if the Rutherglen Junction were referred to the decision of you five, I warrant me we should have the business conducted in a very different kind of manner. I think I see Gilkison’s expression of face, at hearing a herring-curer brought up to speak to the value of the salmon fisheries at the Green; or the mute ire of Cansh at being told that the Trongate is a mere lane, and the buildings of no earthly value! I think I hear the obstreperous roar of Provan, consequent on the testimony of an intoxicated brass-founder, that the substratum of the Green is black band! Would not the oleaginous cheeks of Sheddon glisten with indignant dew, if he heard the Clyde described as a positive nuisance to the community?—and would not you, O Bogle, annihilate with a terrific frown, the ruffian who should aver that the finest square in Glasgow is evidently intended by nature for the purposes of a railway station? My life upon it, that you five would soon bring the witnesses to their senses. But, as the business is conducted at present, neither the judges—that is, the members of the committee—nor the counsel who are examining, know any thing at all about the localities. There is a complete monopoly in the business. Members of the English bar, who are necessarily strangers to the site of the proposed operations, are invariably employed by the solicitors in preference to our own advocates who were born and bred upon the spot. Friend Squashers, for example, was never in his life twenty miles north of the Old Bailey, and yet he is considered the fittest person to expatiate to the committee on the advantages of a Highland line. And I will say this for him, that he makes his mountains remarkably like Shooter’s Hill; and in point of bullying a witness, and insulting a landed proprietor, none of our native lads are fit to hold the candle to him.

The question, therefore, which I once put to you before, and which I certainly would put to that plucky little fellow Lord John Russell, if I happened to have the honour of his acquaintance, is simply this—Would it not be better that the evidence which is now taken before committees of the House of Commons on railway and other bills should be given in Scotland, Ireland, and the provinces, before a paid commission and on oath? Certain I am that the work would be far better done. Results would be more accurately brought out, the truth would be better sifted, and there would be an end to that profligate system of demoralisation which is doing no good to London, and is rapidly corrupting such of us as are necessarily drawn within its influence. Honourable members would be relieved from a harassing, tedious, and laborious duty; and their legislative functions need not be interfered with, as the printed evidence would fall to be leisurely and thoroughly sifted. At present a member of the House of Commons is far less a legislator than a mere railway machine. He has not time to study the merits of the vast public questions which ought above every thing to claim his attention; for his whole day is occupied with a dreary detail of curves, gradients, and sections; and by being compelled to do too much, he is crippled in the exercise and discharge of by far his most important functions. And further, the railway interest is already too widely spread in the House of Commons. Almost every member has an interest, direct or indirect, in some particular line or company; and it is impossible to expect that in every case there shall not be a particular sway or bias in the minds of some of the judges. This is not right nor decent. The leading quality which is required of a judge in every department is a strict and thorough impartiality, and an absolute renunciation of every interested motive;—and no sacrifice on the part of the public can be too great to attain so desirable an end. It would be well for us if, during the last and the preceding year, country members had been more occupied with watching the attitude and the proceedings of the ministry, and less with the conflicting statements of rival companies and engineers. Had they been attending to the Currency and the Corn Laws, we ought to have escaped from a commercial crisis, in which even the railway shareholder, as I imagine, has been tolerably severely pinched.

And really, Bogle, I do not think that we are compensated in the sight of Heaven, by our five guineas a-day, for the enormous immoralities which we contract in this overgrown and seductive city. There are some thousands of us here, all living like plethoric gamecocks; and, so far as I can gather, going, in plain language, as fast as possible to the devil. I wish you saw the scramble which takes place in the lobby of the committee-rooms at twelve. A perfect torrent of engineers, surveyors, solicitors, agents, and witnesses—in the middle of which, every here and there, appears the cauliflower head of a counsel—pours up the stairs. The refreshment table below is blocked up with thirsty demons, all clamorous for soda-water, their matutinal tea having failed to quench the old hereditary drought. You wrestle your way into the committee-room, and before the members meet, you become the edified auditor of such scraps of information as the following:—

“Whaur d’ye think Jimsey and me gaed tae last nicht after ‘The Judge and Jury?’”

“I’m sure I dinna ken: some deil’s buckie’s errand, I’se be bound.”

“Gosh, man! we gaed tae the Puckadully Saloon; and Jimsey there took twa turns wi’ an opera dancer at the Polka. Eh, man! she was a grand yin.”

“Was ye no feared, Jimsey?”

“Me feared? Deil a bit. She telt me I was unco like Count Dorsy.”

“And whaur did ye gang after?”

“I dinna mind: I was awfu’ fou.”

“Weel, I wasna muckle better mysel’. Me and Wattie Strowan gaed down to Greenitch, and we forgathered wi’ twa Paisley lads in the steamboat. But there’s Wattie. How d’ye find yoursel’ this morning, Wattie?”

“No richt ava. I woke at eleven with my boots on, and somebody has helped theirsel’ to my watch.”

“Man, that’s fearsome.”

“I dinna care muckle aboot it. It was an auld pinchbeck ane o’ my auntie’s.”

“What’s become o’ Geordie MacAuslan?”

“That’s mair nor ony body kens. Geordie hasna been seen thae twa days. He’s an awfa’ body when he gets upon the batter. He drinks waur nor a trout.”

“Hae ye been to hear Jeanie Lind yet?”

“No me. I dinna care for thae skirling foreigners, and it’s ower dear.”

“Ye should gang though. What’s keeping the committee?”

“The chairman o’t will hae been fon tae. Hech me, I’ve got a sair heid! Jimsey, quae down to the lobby, and we’ll hae a glass of soddy, wi’ a wee thing o’ brandy intil it.”

And so exeunt for a quarter of an hour my fine and faithful compatriots.

Do not think, Bogle, that I am unnecessarily severe, or that I have the slightest wish whatever to detract from the merits of my countrymen. On the contrary, I love them exceedingly; and it is only because I cannot bear to see them lowered in the eyes of the stranger, that I would have them speedily removed from the influences of such perilous temptation. Few of my young railway friends possess the continence or austere morality which were the creditable characteristics of Richie Moniplies. They have got more money than is good for them, and they are by no means particular how and where they spend it. Centralisation, which is now the favourite theory of our government, is unquestionably productive of great and serious evils. The system of transacting the whole business of the country, in so far as public works and improvements are concerned, in London, acts as a heavy drain upon the provinces, and is, I think, in many ways detrimental to the well-being of the country. It is very easy for ministers who are constantly resident here to forget the existence of the smaller and remote capitals; and therefore it is that Edinburgh has shared so little in the bounties and benefactions which are liberally heaped upon London. If you run your eye over the public estimates, you cannot fail to be struck with the prodigious sums which are annually expended by government upon the metropolitan improvements and institutions, the liberal state-patronage which is bestowed upon the fine arts, and the grants to hospitals and museums. This is wise and proper, and I do not grudge nor complain of it. All I contend for is, that some consideration should be shown to the other leading cities of the empire. We are all taxed for London: is it not but fair and reasonable that some portion of the public money should be appropriated for the encouragement of similar objects in the north? If London is to remain as now the only favoured city, the necessary consequence must be, that it will attract towards it all the intellect and excellence, which otherwise would be scattered through the kingdoms—that the smaller capitals must decay in proportion as the large plethoric central one augments. And such, indeed, is the true state of matters at the present period. The moment that a rising artist shows himself among us, he is instantly transported to London; because it is the only field where he can meet with proper encouragement, or where his talents will be adequately rewarded. In literature it is the same thing. The position of our Universities is lowered, simply because they are starved by the government, which ought to foster and protect them. Sir Robert Peel, yielding as usual to the Irish howl, had no objections whatever to found and endow most liberally the Papist colleges. The same statesman positively declined to do any thing for the University of Edinburgh, in which the government-salary of the best endowed professor is not equal to the emolument of a common mail-guard, or a postman! Under such circumstances the only marvel is, that men can be found to occupy the chairs. The present Premier is an alumnus of that university, and also an honorary graduate; but it is too much to hope that he will move one inch in support of his Alma Mater. It is clear that the Presbyterian has not the ghost of a chance in competition with the Papist. And although the Commissioners appointed in 1825 urgently represented to government the necessity of doing something to enable these unhappy professors to live, not one single step has been taken by the Treasury in consequence. The natural result is that the professors are being constantly drafted away to the manifest detriment of the university. Some take refuge at St Andrew’s and elsewhere, where the chairs are more liberally endowed. Others, sick at heart, throw up their commissions altogether. That noble institution, the Edinburgh Infirmary, is almost bankrupt, and never has received the slightest assistance from the public purse; and yet one of the city members is in the Cabinet! I wonder that it has not occurred to the somnolent citizens of Edinburgh, that some little advantage as well as glory might be derived from such distinguished representation. Honourable members are generally rather squeezable on the eve of an election; and were I a burgess of the good town, I think I should be disposed to require some little explanation on these points, and some assurance that the candidates would advocate in future the undoubted interests and rights of the electors, before I again came forward with my vote.

Dublin, with her vice-regal court, has something like the appearance of a capital; and I sincerely trust that it may be long before any government, yielding to the clamours of the parsimonious Joseph Hume, shall attempt to rob her of that privilege. Edinburgh has not a shadow of royalty left her, save the Commissioner to the General Assembly! The dreary halls of Holyrood, I fear, will never again be rendered gay by the presence even of a delegate of sovereignty; and were it not for the existence of the courts of law, now miserably contracted in their functions, Edinburgh would inevitably become a retrograding city. Notwithstanding the habitual jealousy with which we of the balmy west are wont to contemplate our beautiful rival, I really am, from the bottom of my soul, sincerely sorry for the capital of Scotland. Last year, after our parliamentary campaign, I treated myself to a run on the Continent, and I never was more struck in my life than with the remarkable similarity which exists between Edinburgh and Darmstadt. There are the same spacious streets, the same wide squares, the same imposing and substantial buildings; but, alas! there is also the same dearth of inhabitants, and the same remarkable absence of that traffic and bustle which is the surest index of the wealth and prosperity of a town. Huge plate-glass windows in the shops are not, I apprehend, unerring tokens of the thriving business of the tradesman; and it is quite possible that a city of palaces may be inhabited by those who rank in the monetary scale very far indeed below the point which their external appearance indicates.

Edinburgh is, in my mind, the best existing evidence of the baneful effects of centralisation. She never was, and in all probability never will become, a seat of commerce or manufacture; and perhaps it is better so, for I hardly think that her noble aspect would be beautified by the addition of some hundred chimney stacks, on the model of the St. Rollox column, vomiting out long streams of smoke across the surface of the clear blue sky. She is no longer a seat of government. Even had it been intended, as some still maintain, that, after the incorporating Union, a shadow of local government should be left to Scotland, subsequent events and mighty uncontemplated changes have arisen to render such a view untenable. But then, until some thirty years ago, Edinburgh had many privileges. The whole public business of the country was transacted by native functionaries residing within her walls. She had her boards of Custom and Excise. The high officers of the law all resided there, and she still was able to maintain something of the semblance of a metropolis. But the besom of reform, nowhere else so ruthlessly and cruelly wielded, swept every cranny and corner of her clean. Under the pretext of economy, all the local boards were suppressed and transferred to London, amidst the insane joy of our primitive native reformers, who do not seem for one moment to have reflected on the fatal consequences which were sure to follow. The courts of law, and all that remained to us of the ancient Scottish constitution were next assailed. In vain did Sir Walter Scott and others, who had not bowed the knee to Baal, demonstrate the impolicy of measures which must have the effect of degrading the status of the bar by narrowing its prospects, and of impoverishing the bulk of the citizens of Edinburgh by materially diminishing the income which had hitherto been expended amongst them. Such warnings were regarded as the drivellings of a senile intellect. Year after year the work of abolition went on. Some offices were suppressed, others grievously curtailed; and in several departments, where the fees of office were retained, these were ordered to be transmitted, and are so at the present moment, to the general account of the Treasury, in which they figure under the item of Miscellaneous Revenue;—so that the public purse of Great Britain is now augmented by the balance of the fees which were originally intended for the maintenance and support of the high officers of the Scottish crown.

Now, mark the consequence of all this. The bar, as a profession, has been very materially lowered; for it is impossible to expect that the same class of men as formerly will devote themselves assiduously to the law, when it no longer holds out to their ambition the reasonable prospect of an ultimate prize. No Scottish advocate now-a-days can hope to be comfortably shelved save on the Bench, and it is a long and weary toil to attain that coveted eminence. There are hardly any middle situations left, which a man of any talent or enterprise would accept. But a lower field has been opened, and the bar is now, to the detriment of the country practitioners, monopolising the inferior situations of sheriffs-substitute; and the holders of these places are still, notwithstanding a recent change for the better, but inadequately remunerated for the onerous duties which they perform. It is now quite notorious that the Scottish bar can hold out no inducement to young men of talent and distinguished abilities. It is therefore not surprising to find that many members of our oldest and most influential families have now qualified themselves for the English bar, which, with its colonial judgeships, commissionerships, and high offices, is in all probability the first profession in the world. The English, Bogle, are too wise a people to strip themselves naked, because at certain seasons their clothing may have been inconveniently warm.

I say, therefore, that the wholesale spoliation and reduction of offices in Scotland has had, in the first instance, the effect of removing from Edinburgh many of the ablest men, at least of the rising generation. And if that should be thought a light matter, let me remark, that not only the law but the literature of the country has suffered. The time has been, and is not long gone by, when, in a single turn of the Parliament House, you might encounter in their advocates’ gowns, such men as Scott, Wilson, Jeffrey, and Lockhart—it would now, I think, rather puzzle you to select from the children of the Scottish Themis, one single name equal in weight to the least of these. Edinburgh, I am afraid, has ceased to hold rank as a nursery of talent; and for that, as well as other deteriorations, she may thank the Reformers and the Whigs.

In the second place, I say that there is not a single tradesman in Edinburgh who has not suffered materially in purse on account of these insane reductions; and it would have been far better if some of them who set up for practical economists, had been minding their own balance-sheet instead of attending to the ledger of the nation. Is it not as clear as sunshine, that every penny which has been taken out of Edinburgh, has been ultimately abstracted from their pockets? Will any one of them venture to say, that trade has not declined since the work of spoliation began? I am told by those who are intimately acquainted with the place, that the contraction of general society, even in the winter session, is something positively remarkable—that there is less festivity, less social intercourse, fewer equipages, and fewer entertainments now, than were common thirty years ago, when the city had attractions not only for our own but even for the English nobility. At present, as I understand, not a single Scottish peer maintains a mansion in Edinburgh, and the more influential of the gentry are gradually withdrawing from it also. It is useless to say that this is owing to the superior attractions of London. A small capital, provided it be otherwise a pleasant residence, will always attract to it persons of moderate fortune; because they are certain to obtain a much higher position in proportion to their means, than they could possibly aspire to in the more plethoric metropolis. But then the fundamental charm of such a residence consists in an agreeable society. And where, as in Edinburgh, every thing has been done to impoverish the habitual residenters—where every possible inducement is held out to draw talent away from it, and where nothing is attempted to create a corresponding influx—where genius, however bright, must linger in obscurity and decay—is it, I ask, possible to expect that any such society can be found? You will find beauty there, no doubt; but, alas! that beauty can do but little for those who possess it. Go into an Edinburgh ballroom, and you will see groups of pretty young women, well educated, well principled, and with ancient blood in their veins, whose fate it is to be left withering on the stalk, because they have no portions of their own, and the men cannot afford to marry. And do you think that the poor fellows, bred up, through the mistaken pride of their parents, to a thankless and declining profession, are less legitimate objects of pity? Morning after morning, throughout the cold and dreary routine of the winter session, do they pace the barren boards of the Parliament House in a kind of dreamy languor, or laugh off with reckless witticism the disgust which is preying on their souls. No kind agent approaches them with a fee, for there is scarcely legal business left—thanks to the new-fangled Jurisdiction Acts which throw a triple burden on the sheriffs—to keep twenty or at most thirty elderly advocates in something like tolerable employment. They are afraid to try literature, for the common prejudice is against it; and so the best and most precious years of their lives are consumed in idle listlessness, and in dull and sickening expectation. Far better had it been for them, if, like their younger and more fortunate brothers, they had been shipped off from school to India, even though they had fallen with glory on the banks of the distant Sutlej, or gone to sleep, benumbed and frozen, amidst the snows of the Kyber Pass! For then they would have left behind them a brave and an honourable name, and have escaped the weary curse of a profitless and ignoble existence. If not one other word of old Belhaven’s prophecy were true, he spoke like a faithful seer, when he warned the Scottish gentry that ere long their daughters would be languishing for want of husbands, and their sons driven away to seek employment at the hand of the stranger.

All this is so perfectly conspicuous and self-apparent, that one cannot but be amazed at the apathy which has prevailed at the time when, and since, these miserable innovations were made. And I can hardly persuade myself that the citizens of Edinburgh—indeed the people of Scotland, for it is their common cause—will remain much longer quiescent, without making some effort for the restoration of their decaying capital. Let Edinburgh, in the first instance, have its due; and let the system of centralisation be so far relaxed, that the ordinary business of the nation may be conducted in its own capital. The loss to London would be nothing—the gain to Edinburgh would be immense; and I am sure no ministry whatever ought to grudge so reasonable a demand, more especially as the whole patronage would still be left in their power. As regards the legal and other official changes, I have every reason to believe that even the Whigs are now convinced of the fatal effects of their policy; and far be it from me in any way to impede their repentance. Indeed, neither party in the state are altogether blameless in this matter; and I hope that as both have sinned against their country, both will join cordially in the graceful act of reparation.

Let us, moreover, have a board of commissioners, sitting at the same time with the Court of Session, before whom all evidence relating to private bills may be laid, before these are submitted to the consideration of the Imperial Parliament. I cannot figure to myself any possible objection to this scheme. It would cost the country nothing, for the whole expense of the establishment should be defrayed by the companies who are demanding constitution; and considering the multiplicity of these projects, the quota of each would be a matter of absolute indifference. I maintain broadly, that justice will never be done, even to the companies themselves, until things are put upon such a footing. No man, or body of men, can properly perform the judicial function, unless they are directly responsible to the public. It is this principle which secures the due administration of justice, and it is universally acted upon throughout the civilised world.

In Committee practice, points are constantly occurring which involve legal questions of the subtlest and most delicate nature. Do five country squires, or five manufacturing cotton-lords, or five railway millionaires form a proper tribunal to hear or to decide upon these? The simpler points of form and of order, and the competency or incompetency of leading a certain line of evidence, are matters which few of these gentlemen have any pretension to understand. And the consequence is, that in some cases the inquiry is protracted to a ridiculous length, by the intervention of parties who have no right whatever to be heard, and in others, a fair and legitimate opposition is ruthlessly strangled in the bud. The wisdom of collective parliament is undoubtedly great, but I deny that such wisdom is equally divided among the members. One blockhead, through sheer obstinacy or stupidity, may throw out a bill on committee; and surely it is rather imprudent that the risk should be unnecessarily incurred. On all these considerations, therefore, I advocate the establishment of a local board for Scotland, to relieve honourable members of the most onerous and thankless duty which they are now called upon to perform. The public would be better and more economically served; and I need hardly point out the advantages which would accrue to Edinburgh. It is true, that under such an arrangement, my vocation and that of several thousands more would be at an end. We should no longer be brought up to London, at the cost of the unfortunate shareholders, to testify with Mandeville courage to the existence of imaginary mines, or the wealth of uncultivated districts. Our fictitious statistics would disappear beneath the operation of a sounder system than the present; but I cannot presume to maintain that the interests of the nation would thereby be exorbitantly damaged. The establishment of such a board would cause far less expense to all parties concerned, than the course which is now pursued; and surely it would be better if we were allowed to retain within ourselves that considerable portion of capital which is now either squandered in London, or quietly transferred to the pockets of the English lawyers. These gentlemen may well be satisfied with the product of their own country, without rapaciously absorbing the smaller item, which, if retained at home, is sufficient to resuscitate the poorer bar of Scotland.

I think it is very generally admitted, at least by the sufferers, that something should be done to counteract the baneful effects of that centralisation which has been gradually but surely on the increase. The members whom we send to parliament are infinitely too supine upon such really important points: they seem to forget altogether that they are intrusted with a national duty, and exhibit none of that watchfulness and spirit which characterise the zealous Irish. It is to be devoutly wished that some intelligent and patriotic nobleman—some true and generous Scotsman, such as we all know the Earl of Eglinton to be—would put himself at the head of a national movement, and force these subjects upon the attention of our drowsy governments. I am certain that he would not look around him in vain for sympathy and support. The feeling that our Scottish interests have been culpably and dangerously overlooked, is now far more prevalent than ever; more especially since the detrimental effects of Peel’s wanton aggression upon the Banking system of the nation have been felt by the commercial community. Every true Scotsman must feel that our present position is a degrading one; and we want but a vigorous effort to compel that justice which is our fair prerogative. But so long as our Peerage and members sit with folded hands, and allow every remnant of our native institutions to be uprooted and removed without a struggle and without remonstrance, we cannot expect any thing else than a continued drain upon our country, and a decline in the resources, the wealth, and the institutions of our capital city. Oh, for some spirit powerful enough to rouse those sluggards to their duty! Brave old Sir Walter sleeps in his honoured grave at Dryburgh, and as yet no one has arisen who is worthy to occupy his place.

But I must turn to some other theme; for I really can hardly keep myself within bounds when I reflect on this. What shall I tell you of now?—the theatres or Jenny Lind? You have no doubt heard of the great sensation which the long-deferred appearance of the Swedish warbler has excited in the metropolis, but you can scarcely form any adequate idea of its extent. The long delay which intervened between her first engagement and her actual visit,—the fuss, lighting, and controversy betwixt the two rival managers—and the reports of the unparalleled enthusiasm with which she was received at Vienna and elsewhere, all served to keep the expectation of the public screwed up to the highest pitch. And when it was at last ascertained that the actual Jenny was in London, and speedily to appear, the price of opera-boxes and of stall-tickets rose as rapidly in the market as railway scrips in the redoubted days of staging. Mr D’Israeli’s friends, the Caucasians, were too acute to let so glorious an opportunity escape them. They bought up on speculation every vacant place, and retailed them at exorbitant profits to the eager and impatient amateurs. The expenditure of coat-tails at the pit-door for the first two or three nights was, I understand, something prodigious. Fractured ribs were as plentiful as gooseberries in their season; and the triumph of the syren was complete. She retired amidst a shower of bouquets—one of them thrown by a royal hand; and next morning the journals, forgetting politics for a time, vied with each other in ecstatic rhapsody and high-flown panegyric of the fair and gifted stranger. All this was extremely stimulating to the curiosity; and though, as you are well aware, nature has not gifted me with extreme nicety of ear, and the exorbitant rate of admission was somewhat of a stumbling-block, I resolved to throw parsimony to the winds for once, and took a box upon joint speculation with our friend Mr Archy Chaffinch.

After all, Her Majesty’s Theatre upon a gala-night presents a very gorgeous spectacle, and I do not wonder that, apart from the music, it is a place of so much attraction. The mere sight of the company is enough to strike us poor provincials with astonishment—for I believe that in no other assemblage in the world will you see so much beauty, rank, and elegance congregated as here. The opera for the evening was the “Somnambula,” and after the curtain had risen, and the preliminary scene was over, a fair, fresh, innocent-looking girl, attired in peasant costume, tripped upon the stage, and the storm of applause which literally shook the house welcomed the appearance of the celebrated Swedish singer. I do not purpose, Bogle, to go through the performance in detail—for two reasons: first, because I am not a competent critic; and secondly, because even supposing that I were qualified to write the musical article for the Morning Post, I am well convinced that you could not understand me. But I will tell you generally, and in plain words, what I think of Jenny Lind. The great charm of her performances seems to be this—that she combines together in extraordinary perfection the leading qualities of the actress and the singer. Nothing could be more natural, more touching, or more beautiful than the manner in which she embodied the character of Amina, and I write this with the full memory of the exquisite Malibran before me. But Malibran, with all her grace and genius, was more artificial than Jenny Lind. She always made it visible to you that somewhat of her simplicity was assumed; and occasionally she rather imitated the archness of the grisette, than the soft, modest, and yet playful demeanour of the village maiden. Jenny, on the other hand, is faultless in the expression of her emotions. Whether she is giving way to a burst of confiding love, or chiding her betrothed for his jealousy, or repelling with vexed impatience the approaches of the libertine Count, she never for a moment is untrue to the proper nature of her character. I never saw any thing so perfect as the sleep-walking scene; Siddons could not have done it better: and if mesmerism had often such charming pupils, it would soon become a popular science. Her voice in singing is most charming, but I think it strikes one less with surprise at its compass, than with delight at the exquisite melody and birdlike clearness of its tones. Indeed, no more appropriate name could have been bestowed on her than that by which she is now familiar throughout Europe—the peerless Nightingale of Sweden.

It is to be wished, however, that the more ardent admirers of this delightful syren would preserve some little moderation in their encomium. For it is quite obvious to me that, in actual power of voice, she is exceeded by several singers at present on the London stage; and whenever much physical exertion is required, she fails to electrify the audience with such bursts of magnificent song as thrill from the throat of Grisi. Jenny Lind seems to be quite aware of her own capabilities; for she has not yet selected a vehement or stormy part, which may be said to embody the highest operatic tragedy. And she does wisely in confining herself to her own sphere, in which she has no equal. And I do most devoutly hope that all the adulation and applause which has been showered upon her, may not turn that sweet young innocent head; that when her period of probation is over, she may return to Sweden the same gentle and unassuming creature as when she left it; and in the quiet retreats of her native Scandinavian valley, find that happiness and calm content of soul which is better than all the plaudits of a changeable and fantastic world.

To tell you the truth, Bogle, I wish all this row was over. I am sick of hot committee-rooms, of gentlemen in horse-hair wigs, and of the whole paraphernalia of railway bills; and I long either to be throwing a fly on the breezy surface of Loch Awe, or enjoying a cool bowl of punch in your company at the open window of your marine villa which looks out upon the hills of Cowall. I no longer take pleasure in white-bait and those eternal courses of eels and diminutive flounder which constitute a fish-dinner at Greenwich, or in the equally unvarying repast which awaits one at Richmond of a Sunday. I get quite unhappy as I survey those gasping goldfish parboiling in the basin at Hampton Court: now that the horse-chestnuts have faded, Bushy Park appears to me but a seedy sort of place; and I have no inclination whatever to trust myself in the ring at Ascot. I am sighing for a wimpling burn or a green brae in the north, where I can lie down upon the gowans, look up into the clear deep sky, and listen to the pleasant sounds that in summer give glory to a Scottish glen. I cannot see any charm in the dusty Park, with its long strings of coronetted carriages—more than half of which, I am afraid, are justly challengeable at Heralds’ College—and the bold, broad, Semiramis-like beauty of the women who are reclining luxuriously within. Titmarsh is decidedly right. It is but a picture of Vanity Fair; and, I fear me, vanity displayed in its poorest and most contemptible form. All that rivalry of equipage—all that glitter and splendour—all that parade of lazy menials in crimson and orange attire, fail to impress me with any thing like admiration, and certainly do not excite within me the smallest thrill of envy. It is but the race of wealth, the competition of pomp, the exhibition of pitiful rivalry which now whirls along that smoking road: each is striving to outvie the other—not in greatness, nor in goodness, nor even in substantial comfort, but simply in the gew-gaws and trappings which are produced by the common artificer. I am not a “oneness-of-purpose” man, Bogle, nor do I set up for an “earnest spirit;” but all this sort of thing strikes me as incalculably mean and plebeian. There is, in fact, among the English people, especially the Londoners, a degree of toadyism, and worship of the externals of Mammon, which would be utterly ludicrous in any other part of Europe. In some countries a man is esteemed for his personal talents and pretensions; in others, the claim of noble blood and unalloyed descent reflects a borrowed splendour and consideration upon individuals; but nowhere, except here, as far as I know, are claims to rank put forward on the foundation of a lacquered equipage, and a couple of flaunting and pimpled dependants, for whose sake one is almost tempted to believe that a portion of the human race are created without the awful and immortal attribute of a soul! Aristocracy-hunting, indeed, is a passion which is carried in London to a most incredible extent. Much as the son of the soap-boiler values himself on his wealth, he is yet a discontented person if he cannot by some means attach himself to a scion of nobility, of whose acquaintance he may boast to his less fortunate compeers. He will even go so far as to pay hard money for such an adventitious distinction; and many are the thousands which annually find their way from ignoble to titled pockets for this meanest of earthly privileges. Nay, I believe that there is no possible form of imposture which will not be assumed by some, for the sake of constituting an imaginary link between themselves and the members of the class whom they look up to with a species of adoration. I shall give you a very pregnant proof of this. A hereditary tendency to corns, and a lingering regard for the ancient bond of alliance between Scotland and France, have caused me for many years to submit my toes to papooshes of the foreign manufacture. In former times, it is true, I might have undergone reproach as a discourager of the home market—but all such scruples have been removed by the policy of Sir Robert Peel. Accordingly I went, the other day, to a rather celebrated warehouse in Regent Street, where ready-made Parisian boots are vended; and after some trouble selected a couple of pairs, which I fondly hoped might enhance the native symmetry of my instep. When the parcel came home, I opened it, and the first pair which I extricated bore on the inside and on the sole, the name of the Hon. Augustus Bosh. I thought at first there might be some mistake, but on inspection I was convinced that they were the same boots which, that morning, I had fitted on unsullied and unmarked, and, as Bosh and I seemed to be of about the same calibre of pedestal, I felt no hesitation in perambulating London for a couple of days upon his soles. I then drew forth the other pair, which, to my great astonishment, I found were marked as the property of a certain Viscount St Vitus. Now, I had only experimented in the first instance with the right moiety of these boots, and on attempting the other, I was annoyed to find that my heel was at least twice as large as that of the noble peer. In consequence I went back to the warehouse, and this time selected a virgin pair without spot or blemish, in order that I might possess at least one unquestionable footing of my own. It would not do, Bogle. The boots were sent to me inscribed as the property of Lord Alfred Le Pitcher, and at this moment I am installed in that respectable nobleman’s leather. Now, mark the consequences. If I go down to the country, I shall inevitably be taken either for the Honourable Augustus, who is notorious for his defalcations in the ring, or for Le Pitcher, who is proverbially a roué and a spendthrift. In the one case I run the risk of a horse-whipping, in the other I am perfectly certain to be subjected to an exorbitant bill. Or, supposing that my personal appearance does not justify the noble imputation, am I to run the hazard of being charged as an impostor, or possibly mistaken for a thief? Heaven knows, I have no earthly desire to represent those distinguished personages. I would much prefer to walk in unchallengeable boots of my own, but I am not permitted to do so. Now I hold this Frenchman to be quite a genius in his way. He sees the leading foible of the people with whom he has to deal, and humours them to the top of their bent. Many a cadaverous Cockney has he dismissed from his apartment exulting and frolicsome in spirit, and convinced in his inmost soul that he has now some tangible connexion with the aristocracy, and may possibly be able to persuade some country chambermaid that he is the scion of a noble house.

But I really must break off now, as it is almost time to go down to the committee. The period of the Session of Parliament seems as yet quite uncertain; but you may be sure I shall make as good use of my time as I can. Our people were thrown, the other day, into a terrible state of consternation by the rumour of a dissolution when the money market was just at its tightest; and for my own part I thought that the Whigs would be justified had they taken the easiest way of disposing of the Gordian knot. Peel’s Banking Restriction Act, like the car of Juggernaut, was in full operation, crushing under its wheels the small trader and every man who required credit throughout the country; and as the ministry had not the courage or the ability to stop it, they might with considerable grace have taken up their garments and fled. However, things are now looking somewhat better; shares, though not buoyant, are on the rise, and the hearts of the proprietors are being cheered by the prospect of a coming dividend. Farewell, Bogle. Give my compliments to Cansh, and tell him that the Powhead’s Junction was yesterday pitched into limbo.

SIR H. NICOLAS’S HISTORY OF THE NAVY.[11]

“Her ancient British name, Clas merdin, ‘the sea-defended green spot,’ indicated alike her fertility and natural protection,” writes Sir Harris Nicolas, in the commencement of his Naval History of Great Britain. Clas merdin may she still and long deserve to be called—“the sea-defended green spot!” Long may she fight her battles on the waste of waters—on the untilled and untenanted plains of the ocean! Long may she carry forth, and offer up, upon the seas, her great sacrifices to the god of war!

It has been remarked that war, though it assumes a most terrible aspect when to its own proper dangers are added all the perils of the sea, is yet carried on with more humanity, and with a more generous spirit of hostility, between ships upon the ocean than between armies upon land. “Two armies,” says Mr James, in the preface to his Naval History, “meet and engage: the battle ends, but the slaughter continues; the pursuing cavalry trample upon and hew to pieces the dead, the wounded, and the flying. A fort is stormed, and after a stout resistance carried: the garrison for their brave defence are put to the sword—as for their tame surrender they would have been branded (and who can say unjustly?) with cowardice. Two ships meet and engage: the instant the flag of one falls, the fire of the other ceases; and the vanquished become the guests rather than the prisoners of the victors. In another case, boarding in all its fury succeeds the cannonade: still no cutlass is raised after possession is complete. Again: a vessel, instead of flying from or quietly yielding to, boldly engages an opponent of treble her strength. Her temerity is accepted as valour; and all the mischief she may have caused—all the blood she may have spilt—far from provoking the rage, does but ensure the respect of the captors. In a fourth case, a fatal broadside sinks one ship: out go the boats of the other, and the emulation then is, not who shall destroy, but who shall save the greatest number of the enemy.”

Perhaps it may not be altogether fanciful to deduce that love of fair play, or rather of fair fighting, and that generosity to the vanquished which refuses to strike an adversary when down—traits which confessedly distinguish the national character of the English—to these more liberal customs which prevail in naval combat, the form in which war is so well known and honoured amongst them. Their naval victories, and the spirit in which they have been won, fill the imagination from the earliest years, and animate and regulate the combative propensities of the boy. Only strike your colours—know me for your better,—exclaims the young hero, and his adversary may quit the field uninjured—nay, shall be protected from all other assailants. Our national character, some may be disposed to suggest, has given the tone to our naval combats, and not these the temper which distinguishes our national character; seeing there is nothing peculiarly mollifying in the circumstances themselves of a sea-fight. Perhaps not; but still the customs which prevail in maritime warfare have a less capricious, and what will be thought a less noble, cause than the national character of the people who have chiefly distinguished themselves in it. We suspect they must be traced to the vulgar, but the constant motive of cupidity. In a naval combat one great object of victory is to capture the vessel itself—a prize in which all are interested. If it were not the custom to spare the vanquished crew—if, on the contrary, it were the custom to put them to death, no enemy would surrender his ship; he would rather set fire to it, or sink it, and sink with it in the waves. Were not the conquered secure of their lives on the surrender of their vessel, they would have no motive whatever for suffering it to become the rich prize of their adversary. On this account it is, and not because men are a whit more disposed to spare their enemies on sea than on land, that by general consent the battle is supposed to be at an end the moment the flag is struck.

As to that “fourth case,” in which a fatal broadside sinks one of the combatants, we have no difficulty in believing that a quick revulsion of feeling may naturally take place, and that hostility may suddenly change into compassion on beholding their drowning enemy within the clutch of their great common adversary, the sea. But even this change of feeling has been facilitated by the previous habit of regarding the combat as definitively closed when a ship has been fought as long as possible.

That it should ever have been considered a law of war that the captain or governor of a fort should be put to death by the conqueror for having attempted to hold an untenable place, is only one of those many instances where tyranny and overbearing force loves to clothe itself in the form of law or custom. The pretence of diminishing bloodshed is shallow enough. A general at the head of a great army is impatient at being detained before some insignificant town or fortress, and revenges himself by a sort of military execution on the bold man who has ventured to oppose him with so contemptible a force. Wallenstein, one of the proudest of men, and the least scrupulous of shedding blood, is said to have adopted, more systematically than any other general, this so-called law of war. If the same custom has never been introduced into naval combats, it is because there is not even the shallowest pretext on which it can be founded. A ship, however inferior in force to its adversary, if it have no chance of victory, may yet have a chance of escape. The governor of a castle—he and his castle are rooted to the earth: the sea-captain gives his walls and his artillery to the winds; he and his guns, by some skilful manœuvre, by some obstruction or crippling of his foe, may, after a brief encounter, get out of reach and out of sight. Many are the turns and tides of fortune in a naval engagement; all the accidents of navigation are added to those of war. There is no shadow of reason, therefore, for treating with peculiar severity the captain of a vessel who refuses to obey the summons of his more powerful adversary, but resolves to take advantage of whatever chance his skill, his bravery, and the various incidents of a sea-fight may afford him.

We hold it, therefore, to be a fortunate circumstance, favourably influencing our national character, as well as preserving us from many of the calamities that attend on war, that we as a nation have been called upon chiefly to defend ourselves by means of “our wooden walls.”

A more national subject, or one on which there was more evidently a vacant space for a new book, Sir Harris Nicolas could hardly have selected, than this of a history of our Navy from the earliest times down to the period when the Naval History of Mr James commences. Yet the expectations of a reader who sits down to the perusal of such a work should not be too highly raised. Nothing is more glorious than the naval victories which our country has achieved; but few things are more monotonous and wearisome than the description of a series of naval engagements. There is the same repeated account of masts shot away or “badly wounded,” of rigging cut to pieces, sails rent and riddled, and shattered hulls; till the ships, not the men, seem the real combatants, and it appears to be a contest between oak timbers and cannon-balls, between the power of endurance in the wooden fabric and the explosive force of gunpowder. A naval battle is always split into details; if two hostile fleets encounter, no matter of what magnitude, it is still but a multitude of single combats between ship and ship. When we have gone through the incidents of one or two of these tremendous duels, it must require in the historian singular power of narration to induce us to proceed to the final destruction and capture of the rest of the fleet. If any thing could abate the enthusiasm of an Englishman in the naval heroes of his country, it would be the obligation to read a detailed account of the victories they had achieved. Very feeble is the cheer we give for Trafalgar, after reading all we can read of Mr James’s account of the battle.

Not by any means that naval warfare is destitute of its stirring annals, and of adventures which have all the colouring of romance. But the interest of the narrative does not rise with the importance and magnitude of the occasion. It is in the single combat of detached frigates—in the perils and fortunes of the light cruiser, probably some frigate’s tender—that the incident which stirs the blood is most frequently encountered. A little gun-brig, the Speedy, mounting its fourteen four-pounders, and manned by some forty men with a few boys, is cruising in the Mediterranean, cutting up the coasting trade of the Spaniard, who thereupon despatch, from several ports, armed vessels in pursuit of her. One of these, the Gamo, (we are abridging one of Mr James’s narratives) a thirty-two-gun zebec frigate, by means of hanging or closed ports, decoys the Speedy within hail, and then drawing these suddenly up, discovers her heavy battery. Against stratagem let stratagem be first tried. The English captain hoists Danish colours, and parades upon the gangway a man dressed in the costume of a Danish officer, who roars out something which with the Spaniard passes for the Danish language. The Gamo is, however, but half satisfied, and sends her boat with an officer to make more particular inquiries. Him they softly hail before he can well get alongside, and inform—in some other language, we presume, than their Danish—that their brig has lately quitted one of the Barbary ports; reminding him that a nearer visit will subject him and his ship to a long quarantine. This he knows well enough; so, after a few mutual salutations and wavings of the hand, the vessels part company, one glad at having escaped the plague, the other equally glad, one might suppose, at having escaped capture.

But not at all. The officers and men of the English brig had been all impatience to encounter their superior antagonist, and desired nothing better than to try their fourteen four-pounders and their forty men and some boys against the thirty-two long guns of their opponent, and their crew of some three hundred men. Lord Cochrane—for he it was who commanded the Speedy—on learning this disposition of his crew, promised them, if he again fell in with the Spaniard, to give full scope to their wishes. “On the 6th of May, at daylight, the Speedy being close off Barcelona, descried a sail, standing towards her. Chase was given, but owing to light winds it was nearly nine o’clock before the two vessels got within mutual gun-shot. The Speedy soon discovered that the armed zebec, approaching her was her old friend the Gamo. The former, then close under the latter’s lee, tacked and commenced action. After a forty-five minutes’ cannonade, in which the Speedy, with all her manœuvring, could not evade the heavy broadsides of the Gamo, and had sustained in consequence a loss of three seamen killed and five wounded, Lord Cochrane determined to board. With this intent the Speedy ran close along side the Gamo; and the crew of the British vessel, headed by their gallant commander, made a simultaneous rush from every part of her upon the deck of the Spaniard. For about ten minutes the combat was desperate, especially in the waist; but the impetuosity of the assault was irresistible; the Spanish colours were struck, and the Gamo became the prize of the Speedy!”

There is more to interest the imagination in a detail of this comparatively insignificant combat than in the manœuvres and engagement of a whole fleet. They are the episodes in the great war that supply the naval historian with his most stirring narratives. Even the frigate’s tender has a more romantic history than the frigate herself, combining in her solitary cruise all the charms of adventure with all the perils and enterprise of war. Few, we suspect, go steadily through Mr James’s history of the battle of the Nile; and there are few, perhaps, who do not retrace their steps to read a second time his account, succinct and unadorned as it is, of the tender of the Abergavenny. We will indulge our own readers with a portion of it.

“Amongst the many weary hours,” writes Mr James, “to which a naval life is subject, none surely can equal those passed on board a stationary flag-ship; especially in a port where there is a constant egress and regress of cruisers; some sailing forth to seek prizes, others returning with prizes already in their possession. During the whole of 1799 and a great part of 1800 the fifty-four-gun ship Abergavenny, as she lay moored in Port Royal harbour, Jamaica, daily exposed her officers and men to these Tantalusian torments. At length it was suggested that a small tender sent off the east end of the island might acquire for the parent ship some share of the honours that were reaping around her. A thirty-eight-gun frigate’s launch having been obtained, and armed with a swivel in the bow, the next difficulty was to find an officer who, to a willingness, would add the other requisites for so bold and hazardous an enterprise. It was not every man who would like to be cramped up night and day in an open boat, exposed to all kinds of weather, as well as to capture from some of the many pickaroons that infested the coast. An acting lieutenant of the Abergavenny, one on whom nature had conferred an ardent mind,—habit, an indifference about personal comfort,—and eighteen or twenty years of active service an experience in all the duties of his profession, consented to take charge of the cruiser-boat. Mr Michael Fitton soon gave proofs of his fitness for the task he had undertaken; and the crew of the Abergavenny could now and then greet a prize of their own among the many that dropped anchor near them.

“Late in December 1800, Lieutenant Fitton transferred himself and his crew to one of their prizes, a Spanish privateer, a felucca of about fifty tons, mounting one long twelve-pounder on a traversing carriage, with a screw to raise it from the hold when wanted for use. Having embarked on board of her, and stowed as well as he could his crew of forty-four men and officers, Lieutenant Fitton, early in January, sailed out to cruise on the Spanish main.”

After destroying many of the small craft of the enemy which had been committing vexatious depredations on the West Indian commerce, and having suffered much himself from a succession of storms, and refitted his now crazy vessel to the best of his power, “he bore up to Carthagena, intending to coast down the main to Portobello, in the hopes of being able to capture or cut out some vessel that might answer to carry his crew and himself to Jamaica. On the 23d of January, early in the morning, as the tender was hauling round Cape Rosario, a schooner was discovered, to which she immediately gave chase. The schooner, which was the Spanish guarda-costa Santa Maria of six (pierced for ten) long six-pounders, ten swivels, and sixty men, commanded by Don José Corei, a few hours only from Carthagena, bore down to reconnoitre the lugger. As the latter had her gun below, and as many of her men hid from view as the want of a barricade would permit, the former readily approached within gun-shot. Lieutenant Fitton could not resist the opportunity of showing how well his men could handle their twelve-pounder. It was soon raised up, and discharged repeatedly in quick succession, with evident effect.

“After about thirty minutes’ firing with cannon and musketry, the Santa Maria sheered off, and directed her course for the Isle of Varus, evidently with intent to run on shore. Her persevering opponent, with his one gun, stuck close to her, plying her well with shot great and small; but the tender was unable to grapple with the schooner because the latter had the wind. At length the Santa Maria grounded, and Lieutenant Fitton, aware that if the schooner landed her men in the bushes, no attempt of his people would avail, eased off the lugger’s sheets, and ran her also on shore about ten yards from the Santa Maria. The musketry of the latter, as she heeled over, greatly annoyed the tender’s men, who had no barricades to shelter them; but Lieutenant Fitton leaped overboard, and with his sword in his mouth, followed by the greater part of his crew, similarly armed, swam to, boarded, and, after a stout resistance, carried the schooner.

“Four or five that were on the sick list, heedless alike of the doctor’s injunctions and their own feeble state, sprang over the side with their comrades; and one or two of them nearly perished in consequence of their inability to struggle with the waves.

“The Spanish inhabitants having collected along, and opened a fire from, the shore, and the prize having grounded too fast to be got off, Lieutenant Fitton took out of her what was most wanted for his own vessel, landed the prisoners (for whom, being without a ’tween-decks, he had no room) and even the dead, and then set the vessel on fire. Having effectually destroyed this Spanish guarda-costa, the Abergavenny’s tender sailed back to Jamaica, and on the fourth day reached Black River with scarcely a gallon of water on board.”—(James’s Naval History, vol. ii. p. 563.) These sea-tigers, swimming with their swords in their mouths—climbing in this fashion the steep sides of a defended vessel—assailing, taking it—then landing safely the conquered and their very dead, before they set fire to it—here is war in all its pristine ferocity, while the fight is forward, and in its most humanised and generous mood when the victory is won.

How the present writer, Sir Harris Nicolas, will acquit himself in the description of naval engagements, we can hardly judge, as the first volume only of his work is yet published, and this does not bring him into the era of broadsides, and “tremendous cannonading.” This volume addresses itself rather to the naval antiquarian than to the professional seaman, or the enthusiast in naval exploits. It contains much interesting material; and it is rather our object to give some account of its contents, than to pass an elaborate criticism, which would be somewhat premature, upon a work of which we have merely the commencement before us.

In a manly, distinct, and well written preface, the author gives a statement of the sources of his details, and of the course which he has prescribed for himself in the treatment of his subject. Our old chroniclers have hitherto, it seems, been the sole source from which historians have derived their accounts of the naval transactions of the earlier reigns of the Kings of England. Sir Harris Nicolas has illustrated, corrected, and enlarged the scanty and often precarious information which these old chroniclers afford, by a variety of details extracted from the public records. These details cannot be supposed to be always of an interesting or popular character, but their utility will not be questioned, and the industry which is here displayed in collecting them will meet with its due acknowledgment and undisputed praise.

In the treatment of his subject our author has made two great divisions.

“I. The civil history—containing the formation, economy, and government of the navy.

“II. The military history.

“To the first division belong the construction, the size, rig, appearance, tonnage, armament, stores, equipment, and expense of the various classes of vessels; the manner in which ships and seamen were obtained by the crown, and the number and description of the officers and crews, their pay, provisions, prize-money, and discipline. Under this division, every thing else relating to the navy has been noticed; namely the Cinque Ports, dock-yards, lighthouses, pilotage, maritime laws, the law of wreck, taxes and other contributions for naval subsidies, the Court of Admiralty, the right of England to the sovereignty of the seas, the invention of the compass and of the modern rudder, the national flag, &c. To these statements are added biographical notices of the admirals, and other persons, who have been eminently distinguished for their talents or prowess at sea.

“The second division treats only of active naval proceedings; that is to say, the employment of ships in piratical acts, military expeditions, remarkable voyages, and, of course, all sea-fights.”

Here, it will be observed, is a wide range of subjects on which information is promised, and so far as the work has advanced, the performance by no means belies the promise: on almost all these topics something is added, of more or less importance, to the stock of our knowledge. The classification, however, here adopted has this great inconvenience, it obliges the author to travel twice over the same epoch, first for his civil, and then for his military history of the navy. As the same public events are necessarily alluded to in both departments, an air of repetition is thrown over the book, and the reader finds himself on two or three occasions brought back to the commencement of some king’s reign,—an Alfred or a Richard Cœur-de-Lion,—whom he thought he had left long ago behind him. This repetition Sir Harris Nicolas is not unconscious of, but thinks it “inevitable;” we cannot help thinking that a little more pains bestowed on the arrangement of his materials might have obviated this disagreeable effect, produced by the retracing of his steps. With a little more labour of the artistic kind, with a little more attention to the subordinate toils of composition, he might, we imagine, have so kept his materials together as to have come down the stream of time in one voyage, with both civil and military equipage on board. This ascending again and descending a second time, with a cargo which to all appearance might have been stowed away on the first voyage, gives an unusual tediousness to our mode of progression. This want of a skilful arrangement, and dexterous blending of his materials, together with the dryness of some of the details—which many readers will think should have been relegated to an appendix—will operate against the popularity of the work. But a popular work it was not the ambition of Sir Harris Nicolas to produce: he has compiled one which will be highly useful to the laborious student of history. We must add, too, lest we should be creating a false impression, that the idlest of readers, allowing for a little skipping, may peruse it with interest. And in point of style, the work has one invariable charm: it is free from all affectation—simple, manly, straightforward—a charm which, next to that of the highest order of eloquence, is the greatest and the rarest.

Our history of the navy begins, as may be supposed, from the invasion of Cæsar, and with the scanty notices he has recorded of the maritime skill of these barbarian islanders whom he both discovered and conquered. From these notices it would appear that our British ancestors, at the time of the invasion of Cæsar, were more advanced in naval architecture than were the Anglo-Saxons, who, at the decline of the Roman Empire, took possession of the island. But the British navy, whatever it might have been, seemed to pass away with the Roman name and the Roman protection, and our history may be said to have its true commencement with the shipping of our northern invaders and settlers. There is no line of filiation between the Saxon and the British navy; it is the northmen we must regard as our direct naval ancestors. We open the work of Sir Harris at the description he gives of the Anglo-Saxon shipping.

“However much the vessels Anglo-Saxons may have differed from each other in length, it may be safely concluded that though described as ‘ships’ or ‘long ships,’ these vessels were, in fact, only large, deep, open, undecked boats, and that none of them exceeded fifty tons in burden. Their prows and sterns were considerably elevated; and one or both were usually ornamented with effigies of men, birds, lions, or other animals, which were sometimes gilded. To a single mast, supported by a few shrouds, or rather stays, a large square sail was suspended, which could only have been useful when going large, or before the wind; hence their main dependence in contrary winds and calms was upon their oars. The modern rudder being unknown for many centuries after this period, they were steered by paddles fixed to the quarter. While the steersman, who was also the captain or master, and perhaps, too, the pilot, held the paddle in one hand, he kept the sheet of the sail in the other, thus guiding and providing for the safety of his vessel at the same time. It is doubtful if for any purpose these vessels ever carried more than fifty or sixty men; and when not employed they were drawn up on the sea-shore....

“A very interesting account is given by northern historians of the Danish fleets which so frequently harassed this country. The crews obeyed a single chief, whom they styled their ‘King,’ and who also commanded them on land; who was always the bravest of the brave, who never slept beneath a raftered roof, nor ever drained the bowl by a sheltered hearth—a glowing picture of their wild and predatory habits. To these qualities a celebrated sea-chieftain, called Olaf, added extraordinary eloquence, and great personal strength and agility. He was second to none as a swimmer, could walk upon the oars of his vessel while they were in motion, could throw three darts into the air at the same time, and catch two of them alternately, and could moreover hurl a lance with each hand; but he was impetuous, cruel, and revengeful, and ‘prompt to dare and do.’”—(P. 9.)

To enter more minutely into the naval antiquities of this period would appear to be a hopeless enterprise. There were a class of vessels, we are told, called “ceols,” probably longer, narrower, and of less burden than others, but which Sir Harris will not venture to describe more accurately. “In a later document,” he adds, “they are classed with ‘hulks,’ but there is as much uncertainty about an ancient ‘hulk,’ as about an ancient ‘ceol.’”

Alfred, our first admiral, as he has been justly called, was also the best shipwright of his day; he not only led the way to naval victory, but he also built ships of an improved structure, and of a greater magnitude than had over been seen before. “They were full-nigh twice as long as the others;” says the chronicler, “some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others. They were shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish; but so as it seemed to him that they would be most efficient.” Evidently a man of original genius, this Alfred. Taking himself the command of his “long ships,” he conquered the Danes in several battles, and in particular repelled a certain invasion of one Hasting who had made a camp at Boulogne! where he had collected his infantry and cavalry and a fleet of two hundred and fifty sail.

In the reign of Edgar, if our ships were still small, they were numerous enough. If we are to believe the monkish historians of this reign, his fleet consisted of three thousand six hundred sail, “all very stout ones;” some say four thousand, and others four thousand eight hundred. But these monkish historians were not only tempted, in gratitude to their munificent patron, to extol his power to their utmost; they were probably quite ignorant of nautical affairs. They were not likely to be much better informed on the shipping of their own country than they were of the geography of the island on which they were living; and of the singular notions on this subject sometimes entertained by these recluses, we have authentic testimony. Here their ignorance can be convicted. Edgar’s fleet, “all stout ones,” as they were, have passed away, and none can tell what their number may have been; but the hills, and seas, and rivers, which they misdescribed in their maps, still remain to speak for themselves. “In some of these maps of the twelfth century,” (discovered in the monasteries at the time of their suppression by Henry VIII.,) “Scotland is represented as an island separated from England by an arm of the sea. Ireland is also divided in two by the river Boyne, which is represented as a canal connecting the Irish Channel with the Atlantic. The towns are drawn in them of a disproportionate size, and the abbeys, with the walls, gates, and belfreys, occupy so great a space as to leave little room for the rivers,” &c.[12]

If the Anglo-Saxons had been capable of manning such a fleet as is here described, they must have been sad poltroons to have succumbed as they did to the Danes under Swain and Canute—the naval heroes who next appear in review before us. This Canute, after all his victories, is remembered chiefly, and remembered by every man, woman, and child amongst us, by the singular dialogue he is said once to have held with the sea. We must quote the story again for the sake of the commentary which is here attached to it. We are glad to find, by the way, that the story has escaped—it is a very narrow escape—from the clutches of historical criticism.

“The anecdote by which the name of Canute is best known to posterity, though unnoticed by the Saxon annalist, stands on the authority of an early historian. ‘Besides many splendid warlike deeds,’ says Henry of Huntingdon, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century, ‘Canute did three elegant and celebrated things, of which the following was the most memorable: Being at Southampton in all regal pomp, he placed himself on a seat on the sea-shore, and addressing the flowing tide with an air of authority, said, ‘Thou, O sea! art subject to me, as is the land on which I sit; nor is there any one therein who dare resist my commands; now I enjoin thee neither to approach my land, nor presume to wet the feet or garments of thy sovereign.’ But the tide rising, as usual, soon wetted his feet and legs, and the king, retreating, exclaimed,—‘Let every inhabitant of the world know that the power of kings is a vain and trifling thing, nor is there any one worthy of the name of king but He at whose nod the heavens, and earth, and sea, and all that in them are, obey his eternal laws.’ From this time Canute never wore the crown, but placing it upon the head of an image of the crucifixion, set a great example of humility to future kings.

“The world,” adds our author, “has always seen, in this beautiful anecdote, a striking lesson to courtly sycophants; but it was reserved for two profound lawyers to discover in it an important political fact, they having gravely insisted that the king thereby most expressly asserted the sea to be a part of his dominions.”—(P. 18.)

How far the two profound lawyers in their argument for England’s dominion of the seas, could strengthen their case from the title which Canute the Dane chose to bear, we stop not to inquire; but it gives its full meaning and point to the popular anecdote to understand of Canute, that he claimed a dominion over the sea as well as the land, and that his title proclaimed him to be lord of the ocean. Otherwise, his refusal to wear the crown after the contumacious rising of the waters, and his suspending it on the holy image, would be devoid of any peculiar significance. It was as monarch of the sea that he declared himself dethroned by the rebellious waves.

However numerous the fleets which our Anglo-Saxon kings were capable of occasionally collecting—as, for instance, Edward the Confessor when threatened by an invasion from Norway—it is evident but little progress had been made towards establishing a permanent naval force. For when William the Conqueror invaded England, although his great preparations were matter of notoriety, and he had taken no pains whatever to conceal his design, the attempt was not made to encounter him at sea; all was left to the issue of the battle upon land. And William himself had so little appreciation of any naval power attached to the possession of the island, that he burned his ships as soon as he had landed, merely to give his men an additional motive for their courage.

Sir Harris Nicolas has given us here an engraving of the vessel in which William himself set sail from Normandy—a copy from the celebrated Bayeux tapestry; and on several other occasions we are presented with etchings taken from some antique representation. These are well to have, and curious to look at; but it is very difficult to extract any information whatever from such designs, it being impossible to know what is to be attributed to the rude state of the pictorial art, and what to the rude condition of naval architecture. It would be almost as safe to take our notion of a Chinese junk from the ships we see sailing in the sky upon their porcelain ware, as to derive our ideas of William the Conqueror’s ship from the tapestry of the Empress Matilda and her ladies. Though needle-work was in such repute and perfection, that we are told by Miss Strickland, quoting Malmsbury, how “the proficiency of the four sisters of King Athelstane in weaving and embroidery procured these royal spinsters the addresses of the greatest princes of Europe,” we must still take leave to think that the fidelity of representation was often somewhat sacrificed to the exigencies of the worsted work. In this engraving, the unhappy pilot or steersman, while he is working his paddle-rudder with one hand, holds the sail in the other, holds it bodily by the sheet in his extended hand, without the assistance of any belaying pin, or even of a rope. Are we to infer from this, that the simple expedient of turning a rope round a pin to hold the sail the firmer and the easier, with capability of slackening it at pleasure, was unknown in these times, or that the fair artist had but slender knowledge of the management of sailing craft? We are informed that the original exhibits a tri-coloured sail of three broad stripes, brown, yellow, and red: who can tell us whether these gay colours had any other origin than the taste of the needle-woman, and the claims of the worsted work? Sir Harris Nicolas has gravely observed that there are more shields hung round the outside of the vessel than there are men within it—which might have been anticipated without counting them, as it was much easier to work a round shield than even such figures as are here intended to pass for men. We must plainly be content with as many men as she of the needle can manage.

The accession of William the Conqueror, owing to the contempt which the Norman had of commerce, and the little care he took to protect or honour the merchant—(little would he have dreamed of ennobling, as did the Saxon, the man who had made three voyages!)—must have retarded the progress of England as a naval power. Land and castles, forests and hunting-fields, were all the Normans thought of. But though chivalry was no friend to commerce or to navigation, the crusading spirit which seized upon all the knights of Europe, gave fresh employment and a new impetus to our marine. It is thus that the reign of Richard Cœur-de-Lion came to be an important epoch in our naval history. His expedition to the Holy Land incurred the necessity of building many and large vessels; voyages were to be performed to the Mediterranean; and the British navy made its first conquest in distant seas—the isle of Cyprus.

“The English navy at this time seems to have consisted chiefly, if not entirely, of large galleys, afterwards called galliasses and galiones, small and light galleys for war, and of busses, which were large ships of burden, with a bluff bow and bulging sides, chiefly used for the conveyance of troops, stores, provisions, and merchandise. No drawing or description of English ships before the reign of King Edward II. justifies the idea that they had ever more than one mast; but some of the busses in the fleet which accompanied King Richard I. from Messina to Cyprus, are said to have had ‘a three-fold expansion of sails’—an ambiguous expression, which may mean that they had three sails on one mast, or that the sails were affixed to two or more masts.”—(P. 75.)

These small craft, so gaily decorated, sailing and rowing together in even lines, and in such close order that each ship was within hail of its neighbour, with the armour of the knights, their spears and their pennons, seen glittering within them, and their shields ranged on the outside, must have presented a very picturesque appearance, especially when spread out in the calm blue waters of the Mediterranean. “As soon as the people heard of the arrival of Richard at the port of Messina,” says a contemporary writer, Vinesauf, “they rushed in crowds to the shore to behold the glorious King of England, and at a distance saw the sea covered with innumerable galleys; and the sounds of trumpets from afar, with the sharper and shriller blasts of clarions, resounded in their ears; and they beheld the galleys rowing in order nearer to the land, adorned and furnished with all manner of arms, countless pennons floating in the winds, ensigns at the ends of the lances, the beaks of the galleys distinguished by various paintings, and glittering shields suspended to the prows. The sea appeared to boil with the multitude of the rowers; the clangour of their trumpets was deafening; the greatest joy was testified at the arrival of the various multitudes: when thus our magnificent King, attended by crowds of those who navigated the galleys—as if to see what was unknown to him, or to be beheld by those to whom he was unknown,—stood on a prow more ornamented and higher than the others; and landing, displayed himself elegantly adorned, to all who pressed to the shore to see him.”

Richard was as much distinguished for bravery on sea as on land, and during his expedition to Palestine he zealously performed the duties of admiral of his fleet. He sailed in the rear—which in him must have been a remarkable self-denial—for the better protection of the convoy. During a tempest which overtook them and threatened their destruction, he remained cool and collected, encouraging all around him by his speeches and his example. And when the gale abated, the King’s ship, which was indicated during the night by a light at the mast-head, brought to, that the scattered vessels might gather round her. “In truth,” says Vinesauf, “the King watched and looked after his fleet as a hen doth after her chickens.”

These, his “chickens,” however, he was by no means disposed to spare, if any thing like battle was going forward. Sailing along the coast of Syria, an immense ship was discovered a-head. It proved a Turk. It was the largest vessel the English had ever seen, and excited great wonder and admiration. Some chroniclers, call her a “dromon,” others a “buss,” while one of them exclaims, “A marvellous ship! a ship than which, except Noah’s ship, none greater was ever read of!—the queen of ships!” It had three masts, and was reported, though it is incredible, to have had on board fifteen hundred men. It was on its way to Acre to assist in the defence of that place, and was laden with bows, arrows, and other weapons, an abundance of Greek fire in jars, and “two hundred most deadly serpents prepared for the destruction of Christians.”

Lingard has, in his severe classical manner, described the contest of Richard’s fleet with this gigantic Turk. But the account which our present author gives of it, being in great part immediately translated from the original of Vinesauf, is so highly graphic, and withal so characteristic of our Cœur-de-Lion, that we must find room for a portion of it.

“The moment the galley (which had been sent to reconnoitre the strange vessel) came alongside of the ship, the Saracens threw arrows and Greek fire into her. Richard instantly ordered the enemy to be attacked, saying, ‘Follow, and take them! for if they escape ye lose my love forever; and if ye capture them, all their goods shall be yours.’ Himself foremost in the fight, and summoning his galleys to the royal vessel, he animated all around by his characteristic valour. Showers of missiles flew on both sides, and the Turkish ship slackened her way; but though the galleys rowed round and about her in all directions, her great height and the number of her crew, whose arrows fell with deadly effect from her decks, rendered it extremely difficult to board her. The English consequently became discouraged, if not dismayed; when the King cried out, ‘Will ye now suffer that ship to get off untouched and uninjured? Oh, shame! after so many triumphs do ye now give way to sloth and fear? Know that if this ship escape, every one of ye shall be hung upon the cross or put to extreme torture.’ The galley-men making, says the candid historian, a virtue of necessity, jumped overboard, and diving under the enemy’s vessel, fastened ropes to her rudder, steering her as they pleased; and then, catching hold of ropes and climbing up her sides, they succeeded at last in boarding her. A desperate conflict ensued; the Turks were forced forward, but being joined by those from below, they rallied and drove their assailants back to their galleys. Only one resource remained, and it instantly presented itself to the King’s mind. He ordered his galleys to pierce the sides of the enemy with the iron spurs affixed to their prows. These directions were executed with great skill and success. The galleys, receding a little, formed a line; and then, giving full effect to their oars, struck the Turkish ship with such violence that her sides were stove in many places, and the sea immediately rushing in, she soon foundered.”—(P. 120.)

Of the Greek fire, which is here incidentally mentioned, Sir Harris Nicolas gives us a terrible description. He thinks it an instrument of war more dreadful than gunpowder, or than any other discovery of modern chemistry. “It was propelled in a fluid state through brazen tubes from the prows of vessels and fortifications with as much precision as water is now thrown from a fire-engine. The moment it was exposed to the air it ignited, and became a continuous stream of fire, bringing with it excruciating torture and inevitable destruction. Unlike any other combustible, water increased its properties, and it could only be extinguished by vinegar, or stifled with sand;[13] while to its other horrors were added a thick smoke, loud noise, and disgusting stench.”

A stream of fire playing upon a vessel presents a terrible enough picture to the imagination; but we doubt very much if this Greek fire would have ever been replaced by gunpowder, if there had not been very good reasons for the preference. To have your instruments of destruction under complete control is one of the first requisites of war; and it is probable that this continuous stream of fire, which might be avoided by a slight movement to the right or left, was often utterly wasted, and that its preparation and employment was almost as perilous to those who used it, as to those against whom it was directed. The sagacity of man is rarely at fault in the work of destruction, and we have perfect confidence that he would in this matter make choice of the most effective means at his disposal.

If the impression on the imagination, or the terror excited in a spectator, were any test of the efficacy of these terrible contrivances, many of the earliest and rudest would claim our preference. We might look with respect upon that expedient which an old traveller, Carpini, attributes to the fabulous hero and monarch, Prester John. “This Prester John (whom he places somewhere in India) caused a number of hollow copper figures to be made, resembling men, which were stuffed with combustibles and set upon horses, each having a man behind on the horse with a pair of bellows to stir up the fire. At the first onset of the battle these mounted figures were set forward to the charge; the men who rode behind them set fire to the combustibles, and then blew strongly with the bellows. Immediately the Mongul men and horses were burned with wildfire, and the air was darkened with smoke. Then the Indians fell upon the Monguls, who were thrown into confusion by this new mode of warfare, and routed them with great slaughter.”—(Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. i. p. 258.)

These fiery cavaliers must have been fearful enough to look upon, darting flames from eyes and mouth like so many Apollyons; but it must also have been a fearful business to act as faithful squire to one of these combustible knights; and, after all, a single piece of artillery, one long black cylinder of iron with its sooty charge, were worth a whole regiment of them.

It is worthy of remark how few of these schemes for the wholesale destruction of an enemy, or his fleet, have ever succeeded. They have raised great expectations on one side, and great alarm on the other, but have generally ended in some very paltry result. Even in modern times, when the use of explosive materials is so much better understood, fire-ships, and the like inventions, have proved of little efficacy. The means of destruction are great, but they are not sufficiently under the control of those who would use them. In the late war, in order to destroy the flotilla at Boulogne, we despatched four fire-ships in succession—“catamarans” as they were called, horribly stuffed with gunpowder and all sorts of inflammable matter. They exploded one after the other with a terrible noise, but effected nothing. Those who have read Cooper’s History of the American Navy, will remember the disastrous issue of that “floating mine” which was to destroy the fleet and arsenal at Tripoli. This “infernal,” as it was called, was filled with a hundred barrels of gunpowder, a hundred and fifty shells, a large quantity of shot, great and small, and all manner of fragments of iron. In the dead of night it was to sail unperceived into the harbour of Tripoli, and the officer and men who had the charge of it, after having lit the fuse, were to return in their boats to the frigate Nautilus from which they had proceeded. The men on board the frigate, watched the “Infernal” till its dim sail was lost in a pitch-dark night. Then came a fierce and sudden blaze—a torrent of fire like the great eruption of Vesuvius, and a concussion that made the vessel tremble from its keel to its topmost spar. Tenfold night succeeded—and silence; and every eye was vigilant to discover the returning boats. Some leaned over the sides of the vessel, holding lights to guide them; others placed their ears near the water, to detect the sound of their oars. They never reappeared; not a single man of them returned. By some unexplained accident, all had perished in the explosion; and the morning dawned, and the enemy was untouched and uninjured.

Amongst the many subjects which Sir Harris Nicolas has occasion to treat in the course of his naval history, none is more curious than that of the law of wreck. A rude and barbarous people concluded that what was thrown by the tempest on their coast was a sort of god-send, and the property of the first finder. The king, as general finder of all lost treasure, was not long before he put in his paramount claim; and the common law sanctioned it, proceeding, we are told, upon the principle, that by the loss of the ship all property had passed away from the original owner. With equal gravity it might have sanctioned any species of theft or spoliation, by promulgating the principle, that when a man can no longer keep possession of his goods, “all property has passed away from the original owner.” This was indeed “adding sorrow to sorrow, and injustice to misfortune. Henry I. has the merit of having first mitigated this cruelty of the common law. “He ordained that if any person escaped alive from the ship, it should not be considered a wreck:” on the principle, we suppose—for the law loves what it calls a principle, and if it partakes of the nature of a fiction loves it the more—that the person who escaped might be considered as an agent for the merchant or proprietor, retaining in his name a possession of the goods and the ship. But the next step in this humane course of legislation was still more singular. A statute of Edward I. enacts—“Concerning wrecks of the sea, it is agreed that when a man, a dog, or a cat, escape quick out of the ship, that neither such ship or barge, nor any thing within them, shall be adjudged wreck.” Here the dog or the cat, which was so fortunate as to escape, must, in the eye of the law, we presume, have been clothed with the character of an agent, and looked upon, for the time being, as the servant of the hapless merchant. Such, we suppose, must have been the legal reasoning; but perhaps some prejudice of an ignorant people, which we cannot now follow or define, was in reality taken advantage of by the legislation of those days; and a rude selfishness, which would have been deaf to reason or humanity, was assailed by the aid of some superstition as rude as itself. However, after such a law, we hope no ship set sail without having a supply of dogs and cats on board.

The extent to which piratical habits, and indeed all manner of robbing and violence, prevailed in these early periods, is very well known; but the reader will find some curious and startling instances in the work before us. Between foreign countries there was generally a species of private war being carried on; for it was an understood custom, that when a native of one country was injured by a native of another, and could get no redress, he was justified in obtaining what compensation or revenge he could from the fellow-countrymen of the person who had injured him. In such cases, his government granted him letters of marque—“license to mark, retain, and appropriate,” the men and goods of such foreign nation. Even on land the creditor of one foreigner, who could not get paid, might attach the goods of any other foreigner—of the same nation, we presume. It had to be enacted by Statute i. West. c. 23., that “no stranger who is of this realm shall be distrained in any town or market for a debt wherein he is neither principal nor security.”[14] Sir Harris Nicolas mentions a curious case at p. 235, which shows how rooted this idea must have been in the general mind, that the goods of all foreigners were liable for the debt of any one of them. One Richard de Canne had captured a ship in Brittany, and Helen, widow of Richard Clark, had lost a ship in Brittany; whereupon widow Helen laid claim to Richard’s ship, and got possession of it. But the king reversed the sentence of the justiciary of Ireland—“forasmuch that it does not appear to us to be just that the said Richard should lose the aforesaid ship, which he acquired in a land at war with us, on account of a ship which the said Helen afterwards lost in the same hostile land.”

The present volume of Sir H. Nicolas’s history carries us no further than the reign of Edward II. We shall watch its future progress with interest. Hitherto we have to familiarise the imagination with ships or boats of very small dimensions, and their very limited exploits. And it is singular what an effort of the imagination it requires here to reduce sufficiently the scale of things. How complete is the contrast of that Saxon ship, with its one sail held by the hand, its few oars, its paddle at the quarter, and its sea-captain showing his dexterity in walking upon the oars while in motion, and throwing, like a conjuror, three darts in the air at once—with the stately man-of-war, and its calm and intelligent commander! Nothing can exhibit more strikingly than this contrast the gradual improvements which age after age may make and transmit. Mast has been added to mast, and sail to sail, and rope to rope; and in the hull, tier after tier of guns have been raised, till the ship has become the hugest and most complicated piece of mechanism the world has ever seen.

Who has not in his time gazed with wonder on those floating castles which the citizen of England from time to time sees hovering on his coast, the watchful and moving fortresses of his island home? You are a dweller in cities—you are lying, in some holiday and summer month, listlessly upon the beach—the great ocean is spread before you, illimitable—and it almost terrifies the imagination to think of men passing out there, in that wild waste of waters, given up to the two unthinking and gigantic powers of wind and wave, that have no more respect for man or his structures than if they were still in the liberty of chaos. That men do go forth to the uttermost ends of the world seems a thing almost fabulous—incredible. You have eaten of the lotus leaf: why should they go?—go from the firm and sheltering earth, to lay their lives upon the winds? But now comes in sight a sail; the extended wing floats unfluttered; the tall tapering masts are visible; it moves imperturbable, like a god upon the waters. And look at that tongue of flame drawn back with a serpent’s swiftness, and that wreath of whitest vapour that steals out from its side so soft and graceful!—is that the deadly shot that levels stoutest walls, and puts to silence the bastion and the fort? So beautiful—so strong!—it walks the waves, how fearless!—and nothing on the sea can harm it, and nothing on the shore resist.

Where now are the great waters that swallowed up all enterprise, and smote the heart with despair? The sea is ours!—we live, we revel, we fight, we conquer on it.

The ship casts anchor, and you rush with many others upon the shore, and you enter a skiff, which will take you off to a nearer survey of this great visitor. You approach, and mount the sides of this floating arsenal. Is this the thing you saw moving light as a bird upon the horizon? You look down as from a house-top. That yacht which bore its pennon so gallantly in the air, and which is now moored under the stern, can just lay its fluttering flag on the solid deck you are walking. Look down—you are giddy with the height; look up—and you are again level with the waters; for there rises the enormous mast, piercing the sky, laying its steady spars against the blue ether, bearing its acre-broad canvass, that makes the vast hull with all its iron stores, bound over the surface of the wave. O Clas merdin!—thou “sea-defended green spot,”—such, and so great, is the sacrifice thou art called to offer up upon the deep to the god of war! May it avail to keep thy homes for ever untouched by the invader!