Ye laughing waves of Lydia’s lake,

Smile all around! thy master greet

With all thy smiles, my pleasant home!—Ed.]

No. XXXIII.[[291]]

June 25, 1798.

After the splendid account of Buonaparte’s successes in the East, which our readers will find in another part of this paper,[[292]] and which they will peruse with equal wonder and apprehension, it is some consolation to us to have to state, not only from authority, but in verse, that our government has not been behindhand with that of France; but that aware of the wise and enterprising spirit of the enemy, and of the danger which might arise to our distant possessions from the export of learning and learned men being entirely in their hands, ministers have long ago determined on an expedition of a similar nature, and have actually embarked at Portsmouth on board one of the East India Company’s ships taken up for that purpose (the ship Capricorn, Mr. Thomas Truman, Commander), several tons of savans, the growth of this country. The whole was conducted with the utmost secrecy and dispatch, and it was not till we were favoured with the following copy of a letter (obligingly communicated to us by the Tunisian gentleman to whom it is addressed) that we had any suspicion of the extent and nature of the design, or indeed of any such design being in contemplation.

The several great names which are combined to render this Expedition the most surprising and splendid ever undertaken, could not indeed have been spared from the country to which they are an ornament for any other purpose than one the most obviously connected with the interests of the empire, and the most widely beneficial to mankind.

The secrecy with which they have been withdrawn from the British public, without being so much as missed or enquired after, reflects the highest honour on the planners of the enterprise. Even the celebrity of Doctor Parr has not led to any discovery or investigation: the silent admirers of that great man have never once thought of asking what was become of him; till it is now all at once come to light, that he has been for weeks past on shipboard, the brightest star in the bright constellation of talents which stud the quarter-deck of the Capricorn, Mr. T. Truman (as before mentioned), Commander.

The resignation of the late worthy President of a certain Agricultural Board[[293]] might indeed have taught mankind to look for some extraordinary event in the world of science and adventure; and those who had the good fortune to see the deportation from his house, of the several wonderful anomalies which had for years formed its most distinguished inmates,—the stuffed ram, the dried boar, the cow with three horns, and other fanciful productions of a like nature, could not but speculate with some degree of seriousness on the purpose of their removal, and on the place of their destination.

It now appears that there was in truth no light object in view. They were destined, with the rest of the savans, on whom this country prides itself (and long may it have reason to indulge the honest exultation), to undertake a voyage of no less grandeur than peril; to counteract the designs of the Directory, and to frustrate or forestal the conquests of Buonaparte.