Early Red Poppy. Papaver Argemone.
Dedicated to St. Paschal Babylon.
May 18.
St. Eric, King of Sweden, A. D. 1151. St. Theodotus, Vintner, and Seven Virgins, Martyrs, A. D. 303. St. Venantius, A. D. 250. St. Potamon, Bp. of Heraclea, in Egypt, A. D. 341.
Chronology.
1808. Sir John Carter, knt. died at Portsmouth, his native town, aged sixty-seven. He was an alderman, and nine times mayor of the borough; and a magistrate of the county, for which he also served the office of sheriff in 1784. His name is here introduced to commemorate an essential service that he rendered to his country, by his mild and judicious conduct during the mutiny at Spithead, in the spring of 1797. The sailors having lost three of their body in consequence of the resistance made to their going on board the London, then bearing the flag of admiral Colpoys, wished to bury them in Kingston churchyard, and to carry them in procession through the town of Portsmouth. This request was most positively refused them by the governor. They then applied to sir John Carter to grant their request, who endeavoured to convince the governor of the propriety and necessity of complying with it, declaring that he would be answerable for the peace of the town, and the orderly conduct of the sailors. The governor would not be prevailed on, and prepared for resistance; and resistance on both sides would most probably have been resorted to, had not the calmness, perseverance, and forbearance of sir John Carter at length compromised the affair, by obtaining permission for the sailors to pass through the garrison of Portsmouth in procession, and the bodies to be landed at the Common Hard in Portsea, where the procession was to join them.
So great was sir John Carter’s influence over the sailors, that they most scrupulously adhered to the terms he prescribed to them in their procession to the grave. Two of their comrades having become “a little groggy” after they came on shore, they were carefully locked up in a room by themselves, lest they should become quarrelsome, or be unable to conduct themselves with propriety. It was a most interesting spectacle. Sir John accompanied them himself through the garrison, to prevent any insult being offered to them. At the Common Hard he was joined by Mr. Godwin, the friend and associate of his youth, and also a most worthy magistrate of this borough. They attended the procession till it had passed the fortifications at Portsea: every thing was conducted with the greatest decorum. When the sailors returned, and were sent off to their respective ships, two or three of the managing delegates came to sir John, to inform him that the men were all gone on board, and to thank him for his great goodness to them. Sir John seized the opportunity of inquiring after their admiral, as these delegates belonged to the London. “Do you know him, your honour?” “Yes; I have a great respect for him, and I hope you will not do him any harm.” “No, by G—d, your honour, he shall not be hurt.” It was at that time imagined admiral Colpoys would be hung at the yard-arm, and he had prepared for this event by arranging his affairs and making his will. In this will he had left to the widows of the three men who were so unfortunately killed an annuity of 20l. each. The next morning, however, the admiral was privately, unexpectedly, and safely brought on shore, though pursued by a boat from the Mars, as soon as they suspected what was transacting. The delegates brought him to sir John Carter, and delivered him to his care: they then desired to have a receipt for him, as a proof to their comrades that they had safely delivered him into the hands of the civil power; and this receipt he gave. The admiral himself, in his first appearance at court afterwards, acknowledged to the king that he owed his life to sir John Carter, and assured his majesty that his principles were misinterpreted and his conduct misrepresented, and that he had not a more faithful and worthy subject in his dominions. Notwithstanding this, the duke of Portland, then secretary of state for the home department, received a very strong letter against him, which letter his grace sent to sir John, assuring him at the same time that the government placed the utmost confidence in his honour, integrity, and patriotism, and concluded by proposing to offer a large reward for the discovery of the writer: this, with a dignified consciousness of the purity of his conduct, sir John declined; though, from some well-founded conjectures, the discovery might possibly have been easily made. This inestimable consciousness enabled him to meet with the greatest composure every effort of party rage to sully his reputation and destroy his influence. So pure were his principles, that when in the year 1806 he was offered a baronetage by Mr. Fox, he declined it on the ground that he believed the offer to have been made for his undeviating attachment to Mr. Fox’s politics; and that, to accept it, would be a manifest departure from his principles. In every public and domestic relationship he was uniformly mild, impartial, and upright; nor was he ever deterred by persona, difficulties or inconveniences from a faithful, and even minute attendance on his widely extended duties. The poor in him ever found a friend, and the unfortunate a protector. The peace, comfort, and happiness of others, and not his own interest, were the unwearied objects of his pursuit. Never was there a character in which there was less of self than in his.
MANURES.
Rambling in cultivated spots renders one almost forgetful of cultivating friends. On the subject of “manure,” the editor of the Every-Day Book has no competent knowledge; he has not settled in his own mind whether he should decide for “long straw or short straw,” and as regards himself would willingly dispose of the important question by “drawing cuts;” all he can at present do for his country readers, is to tell them what lord Bacon affirms; his lordship says that “muck should be spread.” This would make a capital text or vignette for a dissertation; but there is no space here to dissertate, and if Messrs. Taylor and Hessey’s London Magazine, for May, had not suggested the subject, it would scarcely have occurred. There the reviewer of “Gaieties and Gravities” has extracted some points from that work, which are almost equal to the quantity of useful information derivable from more solid books—here they are:—