That his mind was full of vigour to the last is best proved by that autobiography. But the body was worn out. After two years of great physical suffering, passed in the house of his eldest son at Queen's Gate, Kensington, he died on the 31st of October, 1860, eighty-five years old.

He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where in his last moments he had expressed a desire to rest, in company with other great servants of the nation. A public funeral was not granted to him; but his son was permitted to conduct that funeral in a way worthy of his great reputation, and agreeable to the wishes of all classes of his countrymen. Through the personal intervention of her most gracious Majesty and the Prince Consort, moreover, who counteracted the efforts of subordinates, his insignia of the Order of the Bath, which had been ignominiously spurned from King Henry the Seventh's chapel, one-and-fifty years before, were restored to their place on the 13th of November. Thus his last and most cherished wish was fulfilled, and another precious boon was added to the many favours for which his family can never cease to be grateful to their Sovereign and her noble husband.

The burial was on the 14th of November. The pall-bearers were Admiral Sir George Seymour, the Brazilian Minister, Admiral Grenfell—who five-and-thirty years before had been associated with Lord Dundonald in securing the independence of Brazil—Captain Goldsmith, Captain Schomberg, Captain Hay, and Captain Nolloth. Among the mourners was Lord Brougham, who had come from Paris to render this last honour to one who had been his friend through fifty years. Standing over the grave, and looking round upon the assemblage, he exclaimed, "No Cabinet minister here! no officer of State to grace this great man's funeral!" But the funeral was graced by the reverent homage of hundreds gathered within the Abbey walls, and of the thousands who, though absent, acknowledged that England had lost one of her bravest warriors and most unselfish patriots, one whose warfare had been marked by acts of daring rarely equalled, and whose patriotism had brought upon him sufferings such as few in modern times have had to endure. The solemn anthem chanted over his grave, "His body is buried in peace, but his memory shall live for ever," echoed far and wide, and awakened in every breast keen sentiments of sympathy for what he had borne and of pride in what he had done.

Ashes to Ashes! Lay the hero down
Within the grey old Abbey's glorious shade.
In our Walhalla ne'er was worthier laid
Since martyr first won palm, or victor crown.

'Tis well the State he served no farthing pays
To grace with pomp and honour all too late
His grave, whom, living, Statesmen dogged with hate,
Denying justice, and withholding praise.

Let England hide her face above his tomb,
As much for shame as sorrow. Let her think
Upon the bitter cup he had to drink—
Heroic soul, branded with felon's doom.

A Sea-King, whose fit place had been by Blake,
Or our own Nelson, had he been but free
To follow glory's quest upon the sea,
Leading the conquered navies in his wake—

A Captain, whom it had been ours to cheer
From conquest on to conquest, had our land
But set its wisest, worthiest in command,
Not such as hated all the good revere.

We let them cage the Lion while the fire
In his high heart burnt clear and unsubdued;
We let them stir that frank and forward mood
From greatness to the self-consuming ire,

The fret and chafe that wait on service scorned,
Justice denied, and truth to silence driven;
From men we left him to appeal to Heaven,
'Gainst fraud set high, and evidence suborned—

We left him, with bound arms, to mark the sword
Given to weak hands; left him, with working brain,
To see rogues traffic, and fools rashly reign,
Where Strength should have been guide, and Honour lord—

Left him to cry aloud, without support,
Against the creeping things that eat away
Our wooden walls, and boast as they betray,
The base supporters of a baser Court,

The crawling worms that in corruption breed,
And on corruption batten, till at last
Mistaken honour the proud victim cast
Out to their spite, to writhe, and pant, and bleed

Under their stings and slime; and bleed he did
For years, till hope into heart-sickness grew,
And he sought other seas and service new,
And his bright sword in alien laurels hid—

Nor even so found gratitude, but came
Back to his England, bankrupt, save of praise,
To eat his heart, through weary wishful days,
And shape his strength to bearing of his shame,

Till, slow but sure, drew on a better time,
And Statesmen owned the check of public will;
And, at the last, light pierced the shadow chill
That fouled his honour with the taint of crime.

And then they gave him back the knightly spurs
Which he had never forfeited—the rank
From which he ne'er by ill-deserving sank,
More than the Lion sinks for yelp of curs.

Justice had lingered on its road too long:
The Lion was grown old; the time gone by,
When for his aid we vainly raised a cry,
To save our flag from shame, our decks from wrong.

The infamy is theirs, whose evil deed
Is past undoing; yet not guiltless we,
Who, penniless, that brave old man could see,
Restored to honour, but denied its meed.

A Belisarius, old and sad and poor,
To our shame, not to his—so he lived on,
Till man's allotted fourscore years were gone,
And scarcely then had leave to 'stablish sure

Proofs of his innocence, and their shame,
That had so wronged him; and, this done, came death,
To seal the assurance of his dying breath,
And wipe the last faint tarnish from his name.

At last his fame stands fair, and full of years
He seeks that judgment which his wrongers all
Have sought before him—and above his pall
His flag, replaced at length, waves with his peers.

He did not live to see it, but he knew
His country with one voice had set it high;
And knowing this he was content to die,
And leave to gracious Heaven what might ensue.

Ashes to ashes! Lay the hero down,
No nobler heart e'er knew the bitter lot
To be misjudged, maligned, accused, forgot—
Twine martyr's palm among his victor's crown.[26]

"Victor and Martyr." Those are the words fittest to be inscribed on the monument that will be set up in the hearts of Englishmen in honour of the Earl of Dundonald. Entering life with great powers of mind and great physical endowments for his only fortune, he made his name famous, and won immortal honour to himself by daring and successful enterprises in the naval service of his country, which none have surpassed at an age so young as his, and which few have rivalled during a long life-time spent in war. But he sought to follow up those triumphs of his prowess on the sea by peaceful victories at home over private jealousy, official intrigue, and political wrong-doing, and thereby he brought on himself opposition which, boldly resented, caused the unjust forfeiture of the rewards that were his due, and weighed him down with a terrible load of disappointed hope and undeserved reproach. Seeking relief from these grievous sufferings, and opportunity of further work in a profession very dear to him and in generous aid of nations striving to throw off the tyranny to which they had long been subjected, he entered the service of three foreign states in succession. But in helping others he only brought fresh trouble on himself. He rescued Chili and Peru from Spanish thraldom, only to find that the people whom he had freed therefrom were themselves enthralled by passions which even he could do nothing to overcome, and which drove him from their shores, barely thanked and quite unrecompensed. He fought the battles of the young empire of Brazil against Portugal, doubled her territories, and more than doubled her opportunities of future development, only to be cruelly spurned by the faction then in power, and denied the fulfilment of national pledges which a later generation has but tardily and slightly regarded. Harder yet was his treatment by the Greeks, who, having asked him to lead them in their contest with their Turkish masters, refused to follow his leadership, gave him no assistance in his plans for fighting on their behalf, and, in return for the services which, in spite of all the difficulties in his way, he was able to render them, offered him little but insult. Thus more than half his life was wasted—wasted as far as he himself was concerned, though the gain to others from every one of his achievements was great indeed. Returning then to peaceful work in England, he chiefly spent the years remaining to him in efforts to win back the justice of which he had been deprived, and in efforts, yet more zealous, to benefit his country by exercise of the inventive talents in which he was almost as eminent as in warlike powers. But those talents were slighted, though from them has, in part, resulted an entire and wholly beneficial revolution in the science and practice of naval warfare. And, though many of his personal wrongs were redressed, he was allowed to die without the complete wiping out of the stain that had been put upon his honour.

Of this long course of suffering, it must be admitted, he was himself in some measure the cause. Endowed, as few others have been endowed, with the highest mental qualities, he lacked other qualities necessary to worldly advancement and the prosperous enjoyment of life. Truth and justice he made the guiding principles of all his actions; but he knew nothing of expediency, and was no adept in the arts of prudence. Unrivalled strategy was displayed by him in all his warlike enterprises; but against the strategy of his fellow-workers he was utterly defenceless. He made enemies where a cautious man might have made friends, and he allowed those enemies to assail him, and to inflict upon him injuries almost irreparable, with weapons and by onslaughts which a cautious man would easily have warded off. Judged by the harshest rules of worldly wisdom, however, it must be acknowledged that these faults brought upon him far heavier punishment than he merited. And perhaps it will be deemed by posterity that they were faults very nearly akin to virtues.

The same want of prudence caused trouble to him in other respects. It led him, in furtherance of the inventions and other projects by which he sought to benefit the world, into expenses by which his scanty sources of income were very heavily taxed. It also sometimes made him the victim of others. Guileless himself, he was not proof against the guile of many with whom he came in contact. Every kind word sounded in his ear, every kind act appeared in his eye, as if it proceeded from a heart as full of kindness as his own, and he often lavished sympathy and gratitude on unworthy objects. But shall we blame him for this?

Kindness, indeed, was as much a characteristic of him as valour. While the world was full of the fame of his warlike achievements, all who came within the circle of his acquaintance marvelled to find a man so simple, so tender, so generous, and so courteous. When he was bowed down by sorrows that nearly crushed him, he sought comfort in zealous efforts for alleviating the sufferings of others.

Fortunate circumstances would have placed him in a station of universal honour, which he could have occupied to the admiration of all on-lookers. But the circumstances of his life were unfortunate; and therefore he had to endure such hardship as falls to the lot of few. The harsh judgment by which he suffered has already been reversed. It will be atoned for when his worth is properly acknowledged by his fellow-men.

APPENDIX.