Chiswick, Wednesday, August, 8, 1827, (A. M.)
Mr. Canning expired this morning, without pain, at ten minutes before four o'clock.
MISCELLANIES.
BLACK BEARD.
There are few persons who reside on the Atlantic ocean and rivers of North America who are not familiar with the name of Black Beard, whom traditionary history represents as a pirate, who acquired immense wealth in his predatory voyages, and was accustomed to bury his treasures in the banks of creeks and rivers. For a period as low down as the American revolution, it was common for the ignorant and credulous to dig along these banks in search of hidden treasures; and impostors found an ample basis in these current rumours for schemes of delusion. Black Beard, though tradition says a great deal more of him than is true, was yet a real person, who acquired no small fame by his maritime exploits during the first part of the eighteenth century. Among many authentic and recorded particulars concerning him, the following account of his death may gratify curiosity:—
From the nature of Black Beard's position in a sloop of little draught of water, on a coast abounding with creeks, and remarkable for the number and intricacy of its shoals, with which he had made himself intimately acquainted, it was deemed impossible to approach him in vessels of any force. Two hired sloops were therefore manned from the Pearl and Lime frigates, in the Chesapeake, and put under the command of Lieutenant Maynard, with instructions to hunt down and destroy this pirate wherever he should be found. On the 17th of November, in the year 1718, this force sailed from James River, and in the evening of the 21st came to an inlet in North Carolina, where Black Beard was discovered at a distance, lying in wait for his prey. The sudden appearance of an enemy, preparing to attack him, occasioned some surprise; but his sloop mounting several guns, and being manned with twenty-five of his desperate followers, he determined to make a resolute defence; and, having prepared his vessel over night for action, sat down to his bottle, stimulating his spirits to that pitch of frenzy by which only he could rescue himself in a contest for his life. The navigation of the inlet was so difficult, that Maynard's sloops were repeatedly grounded in their approach, and the pirate, with his experience of the soundings, possessed considerable advantage in manoeuvring, which enabled him for some time to maintain a running fight. His vessel, however, in her turn, having at length grounded, and the close engagement becoming now inevitable, he reserved her guns to pour in a destructive fire on the sloops as they advanced to board him. This he so successfully executed, that twenty-nine men of Maynard's small number were either killed or wounded by the first broadside, and one of the sloops for a time disabled. But notwithstanding this severe loss, the lieutenant persevered in his resolution to grapple with his enemy, or perish in the attempt. Observing that his own sloop, which was still fit for action, drew more water than the pirate's, he ordered all her ballast to be thrown out, and, directing his men to conceal themselves between decks, took the helm in person, and steered directly aboard of his antagonist, who continued inextricably fixed on the shoal. This desperate wretch, previously aware of his danger, and determined never to expiate his crimes in the hands of justice, had posted one of his banditti, with a lighted match, over his powder-magazine, to blow up his vessel in the last extremity. Luckily in this design he was disappointed by his own ardour and want of circumspection; for, as Maynard approached, having begun the encounter at close quarters, by throwing upon his antagonist a number of hand-grenadoes of his own composition, which produced only a thick smoke, and conceiving that, from their destructive agency, the sloop's deck had, been completely cleared, he leaped over her bows, followed by twelve of his men, and advanced upon the lieutenant, who was the only person then in view; but the men instantly springing up to the relief of their commander, who was now furiously beset, and in imminent danger of his life, a violent contest ensued. Black Beard, after seeing the greater part of his men destroyed at his side, and receiving himself repeated wounds, at length, stepping back to cock, a pistol, fainted with the loss of blood, and expired on the spot. Maynard completed his victory, by securing the remainder of these desperate wretches, who were compelled to sue for mercy, and a short respite from a less honourable death at the hands of the executioner.
ISLANDS PRODUCED BY INSECTS.
The whole group of the Thousand Islands, and indeed the greater part of all those whose surfaces are flat, in the neighbourhood of the equator, owe their origin to the labours of that order of marine worms which Linnaeus has arranged under the name of Zoophyta. These little animals, in a most surprising manner, construct their calcareous habitations, under an infinite variety of forms, yet with that order and regularity, each after its own manner, which to the minute inquirer, is so discernable in every part of the creation. But, although the eye may be convinced of the fact, it is difficult for the human mind to conceive the possibility of insects so small being endued with the power, much less of being furnished in their own bodies with the materials of constructing the immense fabrics which, in almost every part of the Eastern and Pacific Oceans lying between the tropics, are met with in the shape of detached rocks, or reefs of great extent, just even with the surface, or islands already clothed with plants, whose bases are fixed at the bottom of the sea, several hundred feet in depth, where light and heat, so very essential to animal life, if not excluded, are sparingly received and feebly felt. Thousands of such rocks, and reefs, and islands, are known to exist in the eastern ocean, within, and even beyond, the limits of the tropics. The eastern coast of New Holland is almost wholly girt with reefs and islands of coral rock, rising perpendicularly from the bottom of the abyss. Captain Kent, of the Buffalo, speaking of a coral reef of many miles in extent, on the south-west coast of New Caledonia, observes, that "it is level with the water's edge, and towards the sea, as steep to as a wall of a house; that he sounded frequently within twice the ship's length of it with a line of one hundred and fifty fathoms, or nine hundred feet, without being able to reach the bottom." How wonderful, how inconceivable, that such stupendous fabrics should rise into existence from the silent but incessant, and almost imperceptible, labours of such insignificant worms!
To buy books, as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor.—Pope.