The Creditors of King Charles, K. James, and K. William, having found out and discovered sufficient Funds for securing a perpetual Interest for 4 Millions, without burdening the people, clogging the Trade or impairing the Revenue; and all their debts not amounting to near that Sum; the more to strengthen their interest, and to find the greater favour with the Parliament, have agreed that the Army and Transports Debentures and other Parliament Debts may if they please, joyn with them, and it is not expected that any great Debts shall pay any Charge for carrying on this Act, until it be happily accomplished, and no more will be expected afterwards than what shall be readily agreed to before hand, neither shall any be hindered from taking any other measures, if there should be but a suspicion of miscarriage, which is impossible if they Unite their Interest. They continue to meet by the Parliament Stairs in Old Palace-yard, there is a Note on the Door, where daily attendance is given from 10 in the Morning till 7 at Night; if any are not apprehensive of the certainty of the Success, they may come and have full satisfaction, that they may have their Money if they will.
Nelson
The notice of the battle wherein this illustrious admiral received his death-wound, (on the 21st,) might have been properly accompanied by the following quotation from a work which should be put into the chest of every boy on his going to sea. It is so delightfully written, as to rivet the attention of every reader whether mariner or landsman.
“The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero—the greatest of our own, and of all former times—was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation, would alike have delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have awakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and ‘old men from the chimney corner’ to look upon Nelson, ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson’s surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for while Nelson was living, to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.—There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening the body, that, in the course of nature, he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honours, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory: and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory.”[402]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 48·25.
[402] Southey’s Life of Nelson.