I am surprised that Cos was not set down as Stinco rather than Stanco, for if you hail a Coan vessel, and ask whither it is bound, the καραβουκυρι, or skiff-master, would certainly reply στην Κῳ, if Cos were his destination.
I find that both M. Hennin and Mr. Akerman assert that Thebes is now called Stives. I conversed with a noble-looking youth on the ruins of Eleusis, and asking him from what part of the country he came, I shall not easily forget the stately dignity with which he tossed his capote over his shoulder, and answered ειμι Θηβαίος—I am a Theban. The bold Bœotian would have stared in amazement had I spoken to him of Stives, although, if homeward-bound, he would have said he was going 'σ τας Θηβας.
The Turks have made Istambol or Stamboul out of στην πολιν; and we may, perhaps, hear from our friends, the Nepaulese ambassadors, that the capital of England is called Tolondon, and that of France Apari.
L. H. J. T.
"There is no mistake."
—The Duke of Wellington's reply to Mr. Huskisson, "There is no mistake," has become familiar in the mouths of both those who remember the political circumstances that gave rise to it, and those who have received it traditionally, without inquiring into the origin of it. You may perhaps think it worthy of a "Note" that this was not the first occasion on which the Duke used those celebrated words. The Duke (then Earl of Wellington) in a private letter to Lord Bathurst, dated Flores de Avila, 24th July, 1812, writes in the following easy style:
"I hope that you will be pleased with our battle, of which the dispatch contains as accurate an account as I can give you. There was no mistake, everything went on as it ought; and there never was an army so beaten in so short a time."
The whole letter is well deserving of insertion; but my object is simply to draw attention to the occasion on which the Duke first used the sentence now so well known.
F. W. J.