Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849, by Various. -- a Project Gutenberg eBook

CONTENTS.
The National Debt and the Stock Exchange,	655
My Peninsular Medal. By an Old Peninsular. Part II.,	678
Spain under Narvaez and Christina,	704
The Green Hand—A "Short" Yarn. Part VI.,	723
The Vision of Sudden Death,	741
Free Trade at its Zenith,	756
Index,	779

The idea of associating history with some specific locality or institution, has long ago occurred to the skilful fabricators of romance. If old walls could speak, what strange secrets might they not reveal! The thought suggests itself spontaneously even to the mind of the boy; and though it is incapable of realisation, writers—good, bad, and indifferent—have seriously applied themselves to the task of extracting sermons from the stones, and have feigned to reproduce an audible voice from the vaults of the dreary ruin. Such was at least the primary idea of Scott, incomparably the greatest master of modern fiction, whilst preparing his materials for the construction of the Heart of Mid-Lothian. Victor Hugo has made the Cathedral of Paris the title and centre-point of his most stirring and animated tale. Harrison Ainsworth, who seems to think that the world can never have too much of a good thing, has assumed the office of historiographer of antiquity, and has treated us in succession to Chronicles of Windsor Castle, the Tower, and Old St Paul's. Those of the Bastile have lately been written by an author of no common power, whose modesty, rarely imitated in these days, has left us ignorant of his name; and we believe that it would be possible to augment the list to a considerable extent. In all those works, however, history was the subsidiary, while romance was the principal ingredient; we have now to deal with a book which professes to abstain from romance, though, in reality, no romance whatever has yet been constructed from materials of deeper interest. We allude, of course, to the work of Mr Francis; Mr Doubleday's treatise is of a graver and a sterner nature.

We dare say, that no inconsiderable portion of those who derive their literary nutriment from Maga, may be at a loss to understand what element of romance can lie in the history of the Stock Exchange. With all our boasted education, we are, in so far as money-matters are concerned, a singularly ignorant people. That which ought to be the study of every citizen, which must be the study of every politician, and without a competent knowledge of which the exercise of the electoral franchise is a blind vote given in the dark, is as unintelligible as the Talmud to many persons of more than ordinary accomplishment and refinement. The learned expounder of Thucydides would be sorely puzzled, if called upon to give an explanation of the present funding system of Great Britain. The man in easy circumstances, who draws his dividend at 656 the Bank, knows little more about the funds than that they mysteriously yield him a certain return for capital previously invested, and that the interest he receives comes, in some shape or other, from the general pocket of the nation. He is aware that consols oscillate, but he does not very well understand why, though he attributes their rise or fall to foreign news. It never occurs to him to inquire for what reason that which yields a certain return, is yet liable to such surprising and violent fluctuations; he shakes his head in despair at the mention of foreign exchanges, and is not ashamed to avow his incapacity to grapple with the recondite question of the currency. And yet it may not only be safely, but it ought to be most broadly averred, that without a due comprehension of the monetary system of this country, and the general commercial principles which regulate the affairs of the world, history is nothing more than a tissue of barren facts and perpetual contradictions, which it is profitless to contemplate, and utterly impossible to reconcile. Nay more, all history which is written by authors, who have failed to acknowledge the tremendous potency of the monetary power in directing the destinies of nations, and who have neglected to scrutinise closely the source and operation of that power, must necessarily be fallacious, and can only mislead the reader, by false pictures of the condition of the present as contrasted with that of a former age. No eloquence, no genius, will avail to compensate for that radical defect, with which some most popular writers are justly chargeable, and a glaring instance of which we propose to examine in the course of the present paper.

The study is said to be a dry one. Certainly, until we have mastered the details, it does look forbidding enough; but, these once mastered, our eyes appear to be touched with fairy ointment. What formerly was confusion, worse than Babel, assumes a definite order. We behold, in tangible form, a power so terribly strong that with a touch it can paralyse armies. We behold it gradually weaving around us a net, from which it is impossible to escape, and claiming with a stern accent, which brooks no denial, a right of property in ourselves, our soil, our earnings, our industry, and our children. To its influence we can trace most of the political changes which perplex mankind, and which seem to baffle explanation. Like the small reptile of the old Northumbrian legend, it has grown into a monstrous dragon, capable of swallowing up both herd and herdsman together. The wisest of our statesmen have tried to check its advance and failed; the worst of them have encouraged its growth, and almost declared it harmless; the most adroit have yielded to its power. Interest after interest has gone down in the vain struggle to oppose it, and yet its appetite still remains as keen and insatiable as ever.

When, in future years, the history of this great nation and its dependencies shall be adequately written, the annalist must, perforce, give due prominence to that power which we weakly and foolishly overlook. He will then see, that the matchless industry displayed by Great Britain is far less the spontaneous result of bold and honest exertion, than the struggle of a dire necessity which compels us to go on, because it is death and ruin to stand still. He will understand the true source of all our marvellous machinery, of that skill in arts which the world never witnessed before, of our powers of production pushed to the utmost possible extent. And he will understand more. He will be able to comprehend why, within the circuit of one island, the most colossal fortunes and the most abject misery should have existed together; why Britain, admitted to be the richest of the European states, and in one sense imagined to be the strongest, should at this moment exercise less influence in the councils of the world than she did in the days of Cromwell, and, though well weaponed, be terrified to strike a blow, lest the recoil should prove fatal to herself. The knowledge of such things is not too difficult for our attainment; and attain it we must, if, like sensible men, we are desirous to ascertain the security or the precariousness of our own position. 657

The history of the Stock Exchange involves, as a matter of necessity, the history of our national debt. From that debt the whole fabric arose; and, interesting as are many of the details connected with stock-jobbing, state-loans, lotteries, and speculative manias, the origin of the mystery appears to us of far higher import. It involves political considerations which ought to be pondered at the present time, because it has lately been averred, by a writer of the very highest talent, that the Revolution of 1688 was the cause of unmingled good to this country. That position we totally deny. Whatever may be thought of the folly of James II., in attempting to force his own religion down the throats of his subjects—however we may brand him as a bigot, or denounce him for an undue exercise of the royal prerogative—he cannot be taxed with financial oppression, or general state extravagance. On the contrary, it is a fact that the revenue levied by the last of the reigning Stuarts was exceedingly moderate in amount, and exceedingly well applied for the public service. It was far less than that levied by the Long Parliament, which has been estimated at the sum of £4,862,700 a-year. The revenue of James, in 1688, amounted only to £2,001,855; and at this charge he kept together a strong and well-appointed fleet, and an army of very nearly twenty thousand men. The nation was neither ground by taxes, nor impoverished by wars; and whatever discontent might have been excited by religious bickerings, and even persecution, it is clear that the great body of the people could not be otherwise than happy, since they were left in undisturbed possession of their own earnings, and at full liberty to enjoy the fruits of their own industry and skill. As very brilliant pictures have been drawn of the improved state of England now, contrasted with its former position under the administration of James, we think it right to exhibit another, which may, possibly, surprise our readers. It is taken, from Mr Doubleday's Financial History of England, a work of absorbing interest and uncommon research: we have tested it minutely, by reference to documents of the time, and we believe it to be strictly true, as it is unquestionably clear in its statements.

The above remarks apply principally to the condition of the middle classes. If they be true, as we see no reason to doubt, it will at once be evident that things have altered for the worse, notwithstanding the enormous spread of our manufactures, the creation of our machinery, and the constant and continuous labour of more than a century and a half. 658 But there are other considerations which we must not keep out of view, if we wish to arrive at a thorough understanding of this matter. Mr Macaulay has devoted the most interesting chapter of his history to an investigation of the social state of England under the Stuarts. Many of his assertions have, as we observe, been challenged; but there is one which, so far as we are aware, has not yet been touched. That is, his picture of the condition of the labouring man. We do not think it necessary to combat his theory, as to the delusion which he maintains to be so common, when we contemplate the times which have gone by, and compare them with our own. There are many kinds of delusion, and we suspect that Mr Macaulay himself is by no means free from the practice of using coloured glasses to assist his natural vision. But there are certain facts which cannot, or ought not, to be perverted, and from those facts we may draw inferences which are almost next to certainty. Mr Macaulay, in estimating the condition of the labouring man in the reign of King James, very properly selects the rate of wages as a sound criterion. Founding upon data which are neither numerous nor distinct, he arrives at the conclusion, that the wages of the agricultural labourer of that time, or rather of the time of Charles II., were about half the amount of the present ordinary rates. At least so we understand him, though he admits that, in some parts of the kingdom, wages were as high as six, or even seven shillings. The value, however, of these shillings—that is, the amount of commodities which they could purchase—must, as Mr Macaulay well knows, be taken into consideration; and here we apprehend that he is utterly wrong in his facts. The following is his summary:—

If this be true, there must be a vast mistake somewhere—a delusion which most assuredly ought to be dispelled, if any amount of examination can serve that purpose. No fact, we believe, has been so well ascertained, or so frequently commented on, as the almost total disappearance of the once national estate of yeomen from the face of the land. How this could have happened, if Mr Macaulay is right, we cannot understand; neither can we account for the phenomenon presented to us, by the exceedingly small amount of the poor-rates levied during the reign of King James. One thing we know, for certain, that, in his calculation of the price of wheat, Mr Macaulay is decidedly wrong—wrong in this way, that the average which he quotes is the highest that he could possibly select during two reigns. Our authority is Adam Smith, and it will be seen that his statement differs most materially from that of the accomplished historian.

In corroboration of this view, if so eminent an authority as Adam Smith requires any corroboration, we subjoin the market prices of wheat at Oxford for the four years of James's reign. The averages are struck from 659 the highest and lowest prices calculated at Lady-day and Michaelmas.

But the Oxford returns are always higher than those of Mark Lane, which latter again are above the average of the whole country. So that, in forming an estimate from such data, of the general price over England, we may be fairly entitled to deduct two shillings a quarter, which will give a result closely approximating to that of Gregory King. We may add, that this calculation was approved of and repeated by Dr Davenant, who is admitted even by Mr Macaulay to be a competent authority.

Keeping the above facts in view, let us attend to Mr Doubleday's statement of the condition of the working men, in those despotic days, when national debts were unknown. It is diametrically opposed in every respect to that of Mr Macaulay: and, from the character and research of the writer, is well entitled to examination:—

We shall fairly confess that we have been much confounded by the dissimilarity of the two pictures; for they probably furnish the strongest instance on record of two historians flatly contradicting each other. The worst of the matter is, that we have in reality few authentic data which can enable us to decide between them. So long as Gregory King speaks to broad facts and prices, he is, we think, accurate enough; but whenever he gives way, as he does exceedingly often, to his speculative and calculating vein, we dare not trust him. For example, he has entered into an elaborate computation of the probable increase of the people of England in succeeding years, and, after a show of figures which might excite envy in the breast of the Editor of The Economist, he demonstrates that the population in the year 1900 cannot exceed 7,350,000 souls. With half a century to run, England has already more than doubled the prescribed number. Now, though King certainly does attempt to frame an estimate of the number of those 660 who, in his time, did not indulge in butcher meat more than once a week, we cannot trust an assertion which was, in point of fact, neither more nor less than a wide guess; but we may, with perfect safety, accept his prices of provisions, which show that high living was clearly within the reach of the very poorest. Beef sold then at 1¹/₃d., and mutton at 2-¹/₄d. per lb.; so that the taste of those viands must have been tolerably well known to the hundreds of thousands of families whom Mr Macaulay has condemned to the coarsest farinaceous diet.

It is unfortunate that we have no clear evidence as to the poor-rates, which can aid us in elucidating this matter. Mr Macaulay, speaking of that impost, says, "It was computed, in the reign of Charles II., at near seven hundred thousand pounds a-year, much more than the produce either of the excise or the customs, and little less than half the entire revenue of the crown. The poor-rate went on increasing rapidly, and appears to have risen in a short time to between eight and nine hundred thousand a-year—that is to say, to one-sixth of what it now is. The population was then less than one-third of what it now is." This view may be correct, but it is certainly not borne out by Mr Porter, who says that, "so recently as the reign of George II., the amount raised within the year for poor-rates and county-rates in England and Wales, was only £730,000. This was the average amount collected in the years 1748, 1749, 1750." To establish anything like a rapid increase, we must assume a much lower figure than that from which Mr Macaulay starts. A rise of £30,000 in some sixty years is no remarkable addition. Mr Doubleday, as we have seen, estimates the amount of the rate at only £300,000.

But even granting that the poor-rate was considered high in the days of James, it bore no proportion to the existing population such as that of the present impost. The population of England has trebled since then, and we have seen the poor-rates rise to the enormous sum of seven millions. Surely that is no token of the superior comfort of our people. We shall not do more than allude to another topic, which, however, might well bear amplification. It is beyond all doubt, that, before the Revolution, the agricultural labourer was the free master of his house and garden, and had, moreover, rights of pasturage and commonty, all which have long ago disappeared. The lesser freeholds, also, have been in a great measure absorbed. When a great national poet put the following lines into the mouth of one of his characters,—

we doubt not that he intended to refer to the virtual extirpation of a race, which has long ago been compelled to part with its birthright, in order to satisfy the demands of inexorable Mammon. Even whilst we are writing, a strong and unexpected corroboration of the correctness of our views has appeared in the public prints. Towards the commencement of the present month, November, a deputation from the agricultural labourers of Wiltshire waited upon the Hon. Sidney Herbert, to represent the misery of their present condition. Their wages, they said, were from six to seven shillings a-week, and they asked, with much reason, how, upon such a pittance, they could be expected to maintain their families. This is precisely the same amount of nominal wage which Mr Macaulay assigns to the labourer of the time of King James. But, in order to equalise the values, we must add a third more to the latter, which is at once decisive of the question. Perhaps Mr Macaulay, in a future edition, will condescend to explain how it is possible that the labourer of our times can be in a better condition than his ancestor, seeing that the price of wheat is nearly doubled, and that of butcher-meat 661 fully quadrupled? We are content to take his own authorities, King and Davenant, as to prices; and the results are now before the reader.

These remarks we have felt ourselves compelled to make, because it is necessary that, before touching upon the institution of the national debt, we should clearly understand what was the true condition of the people. We believe it possible to condense the leading features within the compass of a single sentence. There were few colossal fortunes, because there was no stock gambling; there was little poverty, because taxation was extremely light, the means of labour within the reach of all, prices moderate, and provisions plentiful: there was less luxury, but more comfort, and that comfort was far more equally distributed than now. It is quite true, that if a man breaks his arm at the present day, he can have it better set; but rags and an empty belly are worse evils than indifferent surgical treatment.

We are very far from wishing to attribute this state of national comfort—for we think that is the fittest word—to the personal exertions of James. We give him no credit for it whatever. His bigotry was far greater than his prudence; and he forfeited his throne, and lost the allegiance of the gentlemen of England, in consequence of his insane attempt to thrust Popery upon the nation. But if we regard him simply as a financial monarch, we must admit that he taxed his subjects lightly, used the taxes which he drew judiciously for the public service and establishment, and imposed no burden upon posterity.

The peculiar, and, to them, fatal policy of the Stuart family was this, that they sought to reign as much as possible independent of the control of parliaments. Had they not been blinded by old traditions, they must have seen that, in attempting to do so, they were grasping at the shadow without the possibility of attaining the substance. They came to the English throne too late to command the public purse, and at a period of time when voluntary subsidies were visionary. They looked upon parliaments with an eye of extreme jealousy; and parliaments, in return, were exceedingly chary of voting them the necessary supplies. Corruption, as it afterwards crept into the senate, was never used by the Stuarts as a direct engine of power. The sales of dignities by the first James, detrimental as they proved to the dignity of the crown, were in substitution of direct taxation from the people. When supplies were withheld, or only granted with a niggardly hand, it was but natural in the monarch to attempt to recruit his exchequer by means of extraordinary and often most questionable expedients. The second James, had he chosen to bribe the Commons, might have been utterly too strong for any combination of the nobles. William III. was troubled with no scruples on the score of prerogative. He saw clearly the intimate and indissoluble connexion between power and money: he secured both by acquiescing in a violent change of the constitution as it had hitherto existed; held them during his life, and used them for the furtherance of his own designs; and left us as his legacy, the nucleus of a debt constructed on such a scheme that its influence must be felt to the remotest range of posterity.

That the exigencies of every state must be met by loans, is a proposition which it would be useless to question. Such loans are, however, strictly speaking, merely an anticipation of taxes to be raised from the country and generation which reaps the benefit of the expenditure. Such was the old principle, founded upon law, equity, and reason; and it signifies nothing how many instances of forced loans, and breach of repayment, may be called from our earlier history. Mr Macaulay says, "From a period of immemorial antiquity, it had been the practice of every English government to contract debts. What the Revolution introduced was the practise of honestly paying them." This is epigrammatic, but not sound. From the time when the Commons had the power of granting or withholding supplies, they became the arbiters of what was and what was not properly a state obligation. In order to ascertain the actual value of a debt, and the measure of the creditor's claim, we must necessarily look 662 to the nature of the security granted at the time of borrowing. Forced extortions by kings are not properly debts of the state. The sanction of the people, through its representatives, is required to make repayment binding upon the people. The practice which the Revolution introduced was the contraction of debt, not intended to be liquidated by the borrowing generation, but to be carried over so as to affect the industry of generations unborn; not to make the debtor pay, but to leave the payment to his posterity.

When William and Mary were proclaimed, there was no such thing as a national debt. We may indeed except a comparatively small sum, amounting to above half a million, which had been detained in exchequer by the profligate Charles II., and applied to his own uses. But this was not properly a state debt, nor was it acknowledged as such till a later period.

To those who are capable of appreciating that genius which is never so strongly shown as in connexion with political affairs, the conduct of William is a most interesting study. It would be impossible to exaggerate his qualities of clear-sightedness and decision; or to select a more forcible instance of that ascendency which a man of consummate discernment and forethought may attain, in spite of every opposition. He had, in truth, very difficult cards to play. The different parties, both religious and political, throughout the nation, were so strongly opposed to each other, that it seemed impossible to adopt any line of conduct, which should not, by favouring one, give mortal umbrage to the others. It was reserved for William, by a master-stroke of policy, to create a new party by new means, which in time should absorb the others; and to strengthen his government by attaching to it the commercial classes, by a tie which is ever the strongest—that of deep pecuniary interest in the stability of existing affairs. At the same time he was most desirous, without materially increasing the taxation of England, to raise such sums of money as might enable him to prosecute his darling object of striking a death-blow at the ascendency of France. The scheme answered well—possibly beyond his most sanguine expectation. Nor was it altogether without a precedent.

The worst and most dangerous feature of a permanent national debt is, that, during the earlier stages of its existence, an appearance of factitious prosperity is generated, and the nation consequently blinded to its remote but necessary results. The tendency to such a delusion is inherent in human nature. Après nous le deluge! is a sorry maxim, which has been often acted on, if not quoted by statesmen, who, like a certain notable Scottish provost, being unable to discover anything that posterity has done for them, have thought themselves entitled to deal as they pleased with posterity. The proceeds of the earlier loans enabled William to carry on his wars; and the nation, puffed up with pride, looked upon the new discovery as something far more important and 663 valuable than the opening of another Indies. Nor did William confine himself merely to loans. Lotteries, tontines, long and short annuities, and every species of device for raising money, were patronised and urged on by the former Stadtholder, and the rage for public gambling became uncontrollable and universal. As we have just emerged from one of those periodical fits of speculation which seem epidemical in Great Britain, and which, in fact, have been so ever since the Revolution, it may be interesting to the reader to know, that the introduction of the new system was marked by precisely the same social phenomena which were observable four years ago, when the shares in every bubble railway scheme commanded a ridiculous premium. We quote from the work of Mr Francis:—

It is curious to remark that the Stock Exchange cannot be said to have had any period of minority. It leaped out at once full-armed, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. All the arts of bulling and bearing, of false rumours, of expresses, combinations, squeezings—all that constitute the mystery of Mammon, were known as well to the fathers of the Alley, as they are to their remote representatives. Nay, it would almost appear that the patriarchal jobber had more genius than has since been inherited. William's retinue did not consist only of mercenaries and refugees. Hovering on the skirts of his army came the sons of Israel, with beaks whetted for the prey, and appetites which never can be sated. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona—there were earlier vultures than Nathan Rothschild. The principal negotiators of the first British loan were Jews. They assisted the Stadtholder with their counsel, and a Mephistopheles of the money-making race attached himself even to the side of Marlborough. According to Mr Francis:—"The wealthy Hebrew, Medina, accompanied Marlborough in all his campaigns; administered to the avarice of the great captain by an annuity of six thousand pounds per annum; repaid himself by expresses containing intelligence of those great battles which fire the English blood to hear them named; and Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Blenheim, administered as much to the purse of the Hebrew as they did to the glory of England."

It has been estimated, upon good authority, that from fifteen to twenty per cent of every loan raised in England, has, directly or indirectly, found its way to the coffers of those unconscionable Shylocks; so that it is small wonder if we hear of colossal fortunes coexisting with extreme national depreciation and distress. We might, indeed, estimate their profits at a much higher rate. Dr Charles Davenant, in his essay on the Balance of Trade, written in the earlier part of the last century, remarked—"While these immense debts remain, the necessities of the government will continue, interest must be high, and large premiums will be given. And what encouragement is there for men to think of foreign traffic (whose returns for those commodities that enrich England must bring no great profit to the private adventurers) when they can sit at home, and, without any care or hazard, get from the state, by dealing 664 with the exchequer, fifteen, and sometimes twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty per cent? Is there any commerce abroad so constantly advantageous?" We apprehend not. Capital is defined by the economists as the accumulation of the savings of industry. Such men as Rothschild have no doubt been industrious, but not according to the ordinary acceptation of the term. Their industry is of a wholesale kind. It is confined to a resolute and systematic endeavour to avail themselves of the savings of others; and we need hardly state that, in this pursuit, they have shown themselves most eminently successful.

The remarkable change which took place in the monetary system of England, under the auspices of William, could not, of course, have been effected without the concurrence of parliament. That body had certainly no reason to charge him with neglect of their interests. The representatives of the people for the first time began to understand, that there might be certain perquisites arising from their situation as men of trust, which could be made available to them, provided they were not too scrupulous as to the requirements of the crown. The mastiff which had bayed so formidably at James and his predecessors, because none of them would deign to cajole him, became at once amenable to a sop. Mr Macaulay should have written: "The revolution of 1688 did not introduce the practice of regularly summoning parliaments; what it introduced was the practice of regularly bribing them." Mr Francis, though an apologist of King William, who, as he thinks, was compelled to act thus from imperious necessity, is not blind to this stigma on his memory. He also believes that the settled animosity between England and France, which has caused so many wars, and led to such an extravagant expenditure of blood and treasure, is mainly to be attributed to the persevering efforts of William of Orange. The following summary is of much interest:—

These things are elements of importance in considering the political history of the country. They explain the reason why the great bulk of the nation never cordially supported the new succession; and why, for the first time in English history, their own representative house lost caste and credit with the commons. Fifty years later, when Charles Edward penetrated into the heart of England, he met with no opposition. If the inhabitants of the counties through which he passed did not join his standard, they thought as little of making tiny active opposition to his advance; thereby exhibiting an apathy totally at variance with the high national and independent spirit which in all times has characterised the English, and to be accounted for on no other ground than their disgust with the new system which, even then, had swollen the amount of taxation to an extent seriously felt by the commonalty, and which had so corrupted parliament that redress seemed hopeless within the peaceful limits of the constitution. The proclamation issued by the prince, from Edinburgh, bore direct reference to the funded debt, and to the notorious ministerial bribery; and it must have found an echo in the hearts of many, who began to perceive that the cry of civil and religious liberty is the standard stalking-horse for every 665 revolution, but that the result of revolutions is too commonly an imperative demand upon the people for a large augmentation of their burdens, backed too by the very demagogues who were the instigators of the violent change. In this crisis, the moneyed interest, which William had so dexterously created, saved the new dynasty—less, certainly, from patriotism, than from the fear of personal ruin.

It is a memorable fact that, from the very first, the Tory party opposed themselves strenuously to the creation and progress of the national debt. It is well that those who, in our own times, bitterly denounce the system which has landed us in such inextricable difficulties, and which has had the effect of rearing up class interests, irreconcilably opposed to each other, in once-united England, should remember that for all this legacy we are specially indebted to the Whigs. Except by Tory ministers, and in one case by Walpole, no attempt has been made to stem the progress of the current; and this consideration is doubly valuable at this moment, when it is proposed, by a vigorous effort, to make head against the monster grievance, and, by the establishment of an inviolable sinking-fund, to commence that work which liberal and juggling politicians have hitherto shamefully evaded. It is more than probable that "the moneyed interest" will throw the whole weight of their influence in opposition to any such movement; unless, indeed, they should begin already to perceive that there may be worse evils in store for them than a just liquidation of their claims. Matters have now gone so far as to be perilous, if no practicable mode of ultimate extrication can be shown. Real property cannot be taxed any higher—indeed, the landowners have claims for relief from peculiar burdens imposed upon them, which in equity can hardly be gainsaid. The property and income-tax, admittedly an impolitic impost in the time of peace, cannot remain long on its present footing. To tax professional earnings at the same rate as the profits of accumulated capital, is a manifest and gross injustice against which people are beginning to rebel. There is no choice left, except between direct taxation and a recurrence to the system which we have abandoned, of raising the greater part of our revenue by duties upon foreign imports. The former method, now openly advocated by the financial reformers, is, in our opinion, a direct step towards repudiation. Let the fundholders look to it in time, and judge for themselves what results are likely to accrue from such a policy. One thing is clear, that if no effort should be made to redeem any portion of the debt—but if, on the contrary, circumstances should arise, the probability of which is before us even now, to call for its augmentation, and for a corresponding increase of the public revenue—the financial reformers will not be slow to discover that the only interest hitherto unassailed must submit to suffer in its turn. The Whigs are now brought to such a pass, that they cannot hope to see their way to a surplus. We shall have no more of those annual remissions of duties, which for years past have been made the boast of every budget, but to which, in reality, the greater part of our present difficulties is owing. Had a sinking fund been established long ago, and rigidly maintained, and at the same time the revenue kept full, the nation would ere now have been reaping the benefit of such a policy. We should have had the satisfaction of seeing our debt annually diminishing, and the interest of it becoming less; whereas, by the wretched system of fiddling popularity which has been pursued, the debt has augmented in time of peace, the annual burdens absolutely increased, ruinous competition been fostered, and internal jealousies excited. The Whigs, who arrogate for themselves, not only now but in former times, the guardianship of the liberties of Britain, have taken especial pains to conceal the fact that they were, in reality, the authors of our funding system, and the bitterest opponents of those who early descried its remote and ruinous consequences. Their motives cannot be concealed, however it may be their interest at the present time to gloss them over. Lord Bolingbroke thus exposes their occult designs, in his "Letters on the Use of History."

In like manner wrote Swift, and Hume, and Smith; nor need we wonder at their vehemence, when we direct our attention to the rapid increase of the charge. William's legacy was £16,400,000 of debt, at an annual charge to the nation of about £1,311,000. At the death of Queen Anne, the debt amounted to fifty-four millions, and the interest to three millions, three hundred and fifty thousand—being nearly double the whole revenue raised by King James! The total amount of the annual revenue under Queen Anne, was more than five millions and a half. Under George I., singular to relate, there was no increase of the debt. At the close of the reign of George II., it amounted to about a hundred and forty millions; and, in 1793, just one hundred years after the introduction of the funding system in Britain, we find it at two hundred and fifty-two millions, with an interest approaching to ten. Twenty-two years later, that amount was more than trebled. These figures may well awaken grave consideration in the bosoms of all of us. The past is irremediable; and it would be a gross and unpardonable error to conclude, that a large portion of the sum thus raised and expended was uselessly thrown away; or that the corruption employed by the founders of the system, to secure the acquiescence of parliament, was of long continuance. On the contrary, it is undeniable that the result of many of the wars in which Britain engaged has been her commercial, territorial, and political aggrandisement; and that bribery, in a direct form, is now most happily unknown. The days have gone by since the parliamentary guests of Walpole could calculate on finding a note for £500, folded up in their dinner napkins—since great companies, applying for a charter, were compelled to purchase support—or when peace could only be obtained, as in the following instance, by means of purchased votes:—"The peace of 1763," said John Ross Mackay, private secretary to the Earl of Bute, and afterwards Treasurer to the Ordnance, "was carried through, and approved, by a pecuniary distribution. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the money passed. With my own hand I secured above one hundred and twenty votes on that vital question. Eighty thousand pounds was set apart for the purpose. Forty members of the House of Commons received from me a thousand pounds each. To eighty others I paid five hundred pounds a-piece." Still we cannot disguise the fact, that a vast amount of the treasure so levied, and for every shilling of which the industry of the nation was mortgaged, never reached the coffers of the state, 667 but passed in the shape of bonuses, premiums, and exorbitant contracts, to rear up those fortunes which have been the wonder and admiration of the world. Nor is it less palpable that the fortunes so constructed could not have had existence, unless abstracted from the regular industry of the country, to the inevitable detriment of the labourer, whose condition has at all times received by far too little consideration. Add to this the spirit of public gambling, which, since the Revolution, has manifested itself periodically in this country—the sudden fever-fits which seem to possess the middle classes of the community, and, by conjuring up visions of unbounded and unbased wealth, without the necessary preliminary of labour, to extinguish their wonted prudence—and we must conclude that the funding system has been pregnant with social and moral evils which have extended to the whole community. Before we pass from this subject—which we have dwelt upon at considerable length, believing it of deep interest at the present point of our financial history—we would request the attention of our readers to the following extract from the work of Mr Francis, as condemnatory of the policy pursued by recent governments, and as tending to throw light on the ultimate designs of the Financial Reform Associations. It is quite possible that, in matters of detail, we might not agree with the writer—at least, he has given us no means of ascertaining upon what principles he would base an "efficient revision of our taxation;" but we cordially agree with him in thinking that, as we presently stand, the right arm of Great Britain is tied up, and the Bank of England, under its present restrictions, in extreme jeopardy at the first announcement of a war.

Turn we now from the national debt to its eldest offspring, the Exchange. Marvellous indeed are the scenes to which we are introduced, whether we read its history as in the time of William of Orange, enter it at the period when the South Sea bubble had reached its utmost width of distension, or tread its precincts at a more recent date, when railway speculation was at its height, and the Glenmutchkin at a noble premium. John Bunyan could not have had a glimpse of it, for he died in 1688: nevertheless his Vanity Fair is no inaccurate prototype of its doings. No stranger, indeed, may enter the secret place where its prime mysteries are enacted: if any uninitiated wight should by chance or accident set foot within that charmed circle, the alarm is given as rapidly as in Alsatia when a bailiff trespassed upon the sanctuary. With a shout of "Fourteen hundred fives!" the slogan of their clan, Jew, Gentile, and proselyte precipitate themselves upon the rash intruder. In the twinkling of an eye, his hat is battered down, and amidst kicks, cuffs, and bustling, he is ejected from the temple of Mammon. But, lingering in the outer court and vestibule, we can gain some glimpses of the interior worship; imperfect, indeed, but such as may well deter us from aspiring to form part of the congregation.

The creation and transferable character of public funds, necessarily involved the existence of a class of men who deal in such securities. That class multiplied apace, and multiplied so much that, after a time, the commissions exigible for each boná fide transaction could not afford a decent subsistence for all who were engaged in the business. People who buy into the stocks with a view to permanent investment, are not usually in a hurry to sell; and this branch of the profession, though, strictly speaking, the only legitimate one, could not be very lucrative. Gambling was soon introduced. The fluctuations in the price of the funds, which were frequent in those unsettled times, presented an irresistible temptation to buying and selling for the account—a process by means of which a small capital may be made to represent fictitiously an enormous amount of stock: no transfers being required, and in fact no sales created, the real stake being the difference between the buying and the selling prices. But, the natural fluctuations of the stocks not affording a sufficient margin for the avarice of the speculators, all sorts of deep-laid schemes were hatched to elevate or depress them unnaturally. In other words, fraud was resorted to, from a very early period, for the purpose of promoting gain. The following may serve as an example:—"The first political hoax on record occurred in the reign of Anne. Down the Queen's road, riding at a furious rate, ordering turnpikes to be thrown open, and loudly proclaiming the sudden death of the Queen, rode a well-dressed man, sparing neither spur nor steed. From west to east, and from north to south, the news spread. Like wildfire it passed through the desolate fields where palaces now abound, till it reached the City. The train-bands desisted from their exercise, furled their colours, and returned home with their arms reversed. The funds fell with a suddenness which marked the importance of the intelligence; and it was remarked that, while the Christian jobbers stood aloof, almost paralysed with the information, Manasseh Lopez and the Jew interest bought eagerly at the reduced price." The whole thing was a lie, coined by the astute Hebrews, who then, as now, accumulated the greater part of their money in this disgraceful and infamous manner, and doubtless had the audacity even to glory in their shame. A more ingenious 669 trick was played off in 1715, when a sham capture was made in Scotland of a carriage and six, supposed to contain the unfortunate Chevalier St George. The news, being despatched to London, instantly elevated the funds, "and the inventors of the trick laughed in their sleeves as they divided the profit." Modern jobbers will doubtless read these records with a sigh for the glory of departed times, just as a schoolboy bitterly regrets that he was not born in the days of chivalry. Universal rapidity of communication, and the power of the press, have rendered such operations on a large scale almost impossible. The electric telegraph has injured the breed of carrier pigeons, and more than half the poetry of fraudulent stock-jobbing has disappeared.

The range of the jobbers speedily extended itself beyond the comparatively narrow field presented by the funds. Exchequer bills with a variable premium were invented and brought into the market, a large and lucrative business was done in lottery tickets, and even seats in parliament were negotiated on the Stock Exchange. Joint-stock companies next came into play, and these have ever since proved an inexhaustible mine of wealth to the jobbers. Nor were they in the least particular as to the nature of the commodity in which they dealt. Thomas Guy, founder of the hospital called after his name, acquired his fortune by means similar to those which are now made matter of reproach to the Jews of Portsmouth and Plymouth. It is a curious feature in the history of mankind, that money questionably amassed is more often destined to pious uses than the savings of honest industry. The conscience of the usurer becomes alarmed as the hour of dissolution draws nigh. "His principal dealings were in those tickets with which, from the time of the second Charles, the seamen had been remunerated. After years of great endurance, and of greater labour, the defenders of the land were paid with inconvertible paper; and the seamen, too often improvident, were compelled to part with their wages at any discount, which the conscience of the usurer would offer. Men who had gone the round of the world like Drake, or had fought hand to hand with Tromp, were unable to compete with the keen agent of the usurer, who, decoying them into the low haunts of Rotherhithe, purchased their tickets at the lowest possible price; and skilled seamen, the glory of England's navy, were thus robbed, and ruined, and compelled to transfer their services to foreign states. In these tickets did Thomas Guy deal, and on the savings of these men was the vast superstructure of his fortune reared. But jobbing in them was as frequent in the high places of England as in 'Change Alley. The seaman was poor and uninfluential, and the orders which were refused payment to him were paid to the wealthy jobber, who parted with some of his plunder as a premium to the treasury to disgorge the remainder." But frauds and injustice, even when countenanced by governments, have rarely other than a disastrous issue to the state. So in the case of those seamen's tickets. That the wages due to the sailor should have fallen into arrears during the reigns of Charles and of James, need excite little surprise, when we remember that the revenue in their day never exceeded two millions annually. But that the abuse should have been continued after the revolutionary government had discovered its easy method of raising subsidies—more especially when ample proof had been given of the danger of such a system, by the want of alacrity displayed by the English seamen when the Dutch fleet burned our vessels in the Thames and threatened Chatham—is indeed matter of marvel, and speaks volumes as to the gross corruption of the times. So infamous was the neglect, that at length the sailors' tickets had accumulated to the amount of nine millions sterling of arrears. Not one farthing had been provided to meet this huge demand; and in order to stay the clamours of the holders—not now mariners, but men of the stamp of Thomas Guy,—parliament erected them into that body known as the South Sea Company, the transactions of which will ever be memorable in the commercial history of Great Britain.

The existence of this company 670 dates from the reign of Queen Anne; but for some years its operations were conducted on a small scale, and it only assumed importance in 1719, when exclusive privileges of trading within certain latitudes were assured to it. We quote from Mr Doubleday the following particulars, which utterly eclipse the grandeur of modern gambling and duplicity.

We invariably find that the success, whether real or pretended, of any one scheme, gives rise to a host of imitations. If any new company, whatever be its object, is started, and the shares are selling at a premium, we may look with perfect confidence for the announcement of six or seven others before as many days have elapsed. This is, of course, partly owing to the cupidity of the public; but that cupidity could not manifest itself so soon in a tangible form, but for the machinations of certain parties, who see their way to a profit whatever may be the result of the speculation. Amidst the ruin and desolation which invariably follow those seasons of infuriated and infatuated gambling, to which we are now almost habituated, such men preserve a tranquil and a calm demeanour. And no wonder: they have reaped the harvest which the folly of others has sown. At the hottest and most exciting period of the game, they have their senses as completely under control as the sharper who has deliberately dined on chicken and lemonade, with the prospect of encountering afterwards an inebriated victim at Crockford's. They may play largely, but they only do so while their hand is safe; the moment luck changes, they sell out, and leave the whole loss to be borne by the unfortunate dupes, who, believing in their deliberate falsehoods, still continue to hold on, trusting to the advent of those fabulous better times which, in their case, never can arrive. It has been so in our own times, and it was so when the South Sea bubble was expanding on its visionary basis. Multitudes of minor schemes were projected, subscribed for, and driven up to an exorbitant premium. The shares of really solid companies participated in the rise, and mounted correspondingly in the market. The nominal value of all the sorts of stock then afloat was computed at no less than five hundred millions; being exactly double the estimated value of the whole lands, houses, and real property in the kingdom!

The collapse came, and brought ruin to thousands who thought that they held fortune within their grasp. The history of the downfall is not less suggestive than that of the rapid rise. It has had its parallel in our days, when the most rotten and unsubstantial of companies have brazened out their frauds to the last, doctored 671 accounts, declared fictitious dividends, and threatened with legal prosecution those who had the courage and the honesty to expose them.

Mr Francis gives us some interesting anecdotes of the casualties arising from this gigantic scheme of imposture. Gay, the author of the Beggar's Opera, was a holder of stock, and at one time might have sold out with a profit of twenty thousand pounds—an opportunity very rarely vouchsafed to a poet. In spite of shrewd advice, he neglected his chance, and lost every penny. One Hudson, a native of Yorkshire, who had succeeded to a large fortune, went deeply into the scheme. From a millionnaire he became a beggar and insane, and wandered through the streets of London a pitiable object of charity. But it would be work, of supererogation to multiply instances of similar calamity. They are reproduced over and over again at the conclusion of every fit of wild and reckless speculation; and yet the warning, terrible as it is, seems to have no effect in restraining the morbid appetite.

It would, we apprehend, be impossible to find any one who will advocate gambling upon principle; though a multitude of excellent persons, who would shrink with horror were the odious epithet applied to them, are, nevertheless, as much gamblers as if they were staking their money at rouge-et-noir or roulette. The man who buys into a public stock with the intention of selling in a week or a fortnight, in the expectation of doing so at an advanced price, or the other who sells shares which he does not possess, in the confident belief of a speedy fall, is, in everything save decency of appearance, on a par with the haunter of the casino. He may, if he so pleases, designate himself an investor, but, in reality, he is a common gamester. This may be a hard truth, but it is a wholesome one, and it cannot be too often repeated, at a time when general usage, and yielding to temptation, have perverted words from their ordinary significance, and led many of us to justify transactions which, when tried by the standard of morality, and stripped of their disguise, ought to be unhesitatingly condemned. "He that loveth gold shall not be justified," said the son of Sirach. "Many have sinned for a small matter; and he that seeketh for abundance will turn his eyes away. As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones, so doth sin stick close between buying and selling." This spirit, when it becomes general in the nation, cannot be otherwise than most hurtful to its welfare, since it diverts the thoughts of many from those industrial pursuits which are profitable to themselves and others, and leads them astray from that honourable and upright course which is the sure and only road to wealth, happiness, and esteem. This has been, to a certain extent, acknowledged by government, even within our own time. The pernicious effect of the lotteries, originally, a state device, upon the morals and condition of the lower classes, as testified by the vast increase of crime, became at length so glaring, that these detestable engines of fraud were suppressed by act of parliament. They still linger on the Continent, as most of us have reason to know from the annual receipt of documents, copiously circulated by the Jews of Hamburg and Frankfort, offering us, in exchange for a few florins, the chance of becoming proprietors of several chateaux on the Rhine, with boar-forests, mineral springs, vineyards, and other appurtenances. We presume, from 672 the continuity of the circulars, that Israel still finds its dupes; but we never happened, save in one of Charles Lever's novels, to hear of any person lucky enough to stumble on the ticket which secured the right to Henkersberg, Bettlersbad, or Narrenstein. The extent to which lottery gambling was carried in this country seems to us absolutely incredible. Derby sweeps were nothing to it.

A new discovery was presently made, which had a serious effect upon trade. Money-prizes were discontinued, and shopkeepers, parcelling out their goods, disposed of them by lottery. As a matter of course, this business, commenced by disreputable adventurers, proved most injurious to the regular dealer. People refused to buy an article at the regular price, when it might be obtained for next to nothing. They were, however, utterly wrong, for the staple of the prize goods, when inspected, proved to be of the most flimsy description. Tickets in the state lotteries became the subject of pawn, and were so received by the brokers, and even by the bankers. Suicide was rife; forgery grew common; theft increased enormously. Husbands and fathers saw their wives and children reduced to absolute starvation, and weeping bitterly for bread, and yet pawned their last articles of household furniture for one more desperate chance in the lottery. Wives betrayed their husbands, and plundered them, for the same purpose. Servants robbed their masters; commissions and offices were sold. Insurance was resorted to, to accommodate all classes. Those who had not money to pay for tickets might insure a certain number for a small sum, and thus obtain a prize; and so lottery grew upon lottery, and the sphere was indefinitely extended. It was not until 1826 that this abominable system, was finally crushed. The image of the vans, placards, and handbills of Bish is still fresh in our memory; and we pray devoutly that succeeding generations may never behold a similar spectacle.

It would be in vain for us, within the limits of an article, to attempt even the faintest sketch of the speculative manias which, from time to time, have affected the prosperity of Great Britain. Some of these have been quite, as baseless as the South Sea bubble, and may be directly traced to the agency and instigation of the Stock Exchange. Others were founded upon schemes of manifest advantage to the public, and even to the proprietary, if cautiously and wisely carried out; but here again the passion for gambling has been insanely developed, and encouraged by those who sought to make fortunes at the expense of their dupes. There is at all times, in this country, a vast deal of unemployed capital, which, in the cant phrase, "is waiting for investment," and which cannot well be invested in any of the ordinary channels of business. The fact is, that within the area of Britain, it has been long difficult for a capitalist to select a proper field of operation; and the tendency of recent legislation has materially increased the difficulty. The country, in fact, may be considered as entirely made. Agricultural improvement, on a large scale, which implied the possession of a tract of unprofitable country, was considered, even before the repeal of the corn laws, as no hopeful speculation. Since that disastrous event, the chances have naturally diminished; and we suspect that, by this time, very few people have any faith in Sir Robert Peel's proposal for establishing new colonies in Connaught. When we find the Whig 673 Lord Monteagle denouncing free trade as the bane of Ireland, we may be sure that few capitalists will sink their funds in the western bogs, hoping that they may appear again in the shape of golden grain which may defy the competition of the fertile valleys of America. We have quite enough of factories for all the demand which is likely to come for years: instead of building new ones, it is always easy, if any one has a fancy for it, to purchase abandoned mills at a very considerable discount; but we do not find such stock eagerly demanded in the market. Foreign competition has extinguished several branches of industry to which capital might be profitably applied, and materially injured others; so that moneyed men really are at a loss for eligible investment. This want has been felt for a long time; and the uncertain policy of our ministers, with regard to colonial affairs, has undoubtedly had an injurious effect upon the prosperity of these dependencies. We have annihilated much of the capital invested in the West Indies, and have withdrawn a great deal more. It is long since Adam Smith urged the propriety and the policy of identifying some of our more important colonies with Great Britain, by the simple process of incorporation, thus extending materially the field of the capitalist upon security equal to that which he can always command at home. Such an opportunity is at this moment afforded by Canada; but it seems that we will rather run the risk of seeing Canada merge in the United States than make any sacrifice of our pride, even where our interest is concerned. A considerable deal of capital has gone to Australia; but we suspect, from late events, that the future supply will be limited.

Before the railways opened to capitalists a channel of investment which appeared exceedingly plausible, and which was, in a great measure, guaranteed by the result of experiment, vast masses of realised wealth accumulated from time to time. Upon these hoards the members, myrmidons, and jobbers of the Stock Exchange, cast a covetous eye: they whispered to each other, in the language of King John—

Acting upon this principle, they made their business to find out new channels of investment—an easier task than the discovery of a north-western passage in the arctic regions—and to represent these in all the glowing colours which are peculiar to the artists of 'Change Alley.

The year 1823 was remarkable for the commencement of an epidemic which proved, in its effects, even more disastrous than the South Sea delusion. It would be tedious to enumerate or discuss the causes which led to this sudden outburst; some of them have been indirectly traced to the operation of Sir Robert Peel's famous Currency Act of 1819, which fettered the Bank of England, whilst it left the country bankers free to issue unlimited paper, and to the respite of the smaller notes which had been previously doomed to extinction. Whatever may have been the cause, speculation began and increased at a rate which was quite unprecedented. All kinds of ridiculous schemes found favour in the public eye: nothing was too absurd or preposterous to scare away applicants for shares. Mining, building, shipping, insurance, railway, colonising, and washing companies were established: even an association for the making of gold was subscribed for to the full amount, and doubtless a balloon company for lunar purposes would have been equally popular. This period was marked by the apparition of an entirely new animal in the precincts of the Stock Exchange. Bulls, bears, and even lame ducks, were creatures coeval with its existence; but the "stag," in its humanised form, first appeared in 1823. The following sketch might pass for a view of Capel Court some two-and-twenty years later:—

The sketch is not over-coloured. No one can have forgotten the sudden swarm of flesh-flies, called from corruption into existence during the heat of the railway mania, and the ridiculous airs of importance which they assumed. A convulsion of this kind—for it can be styled nothing else—does infinite injury to society; for the common greed of gain too often breaks down the barriers which morality, education, and refinement have reared up, and proves that speculation, as well as poverty, has a tendency to make men acquainted with strange companions.

There were, however, features in the mania of 1823 which distinguish it from every other. The joint-stock companies established for domestic bubble purposes engrossed but a limited share of the public attention; though the extent of that limitation may be estimated by the fact, that five hundred and thirty-two new companies were projected, with a nominal subscribed capital of £441,649,600. Of course only a mere fraction of this money was actually put down; still the gambling in the shares was enormous. The greater part of the capital actually abstracted from the country went in the shape of foreign loans, of which there were no less than twenty-six contracted during that disastrous period, or very shortly before, to an amount of about fifty-six millions. On sixteen of these loans interest has ceased to be paid. We find among the borrowers such states as Chili, Buenos Ayres, Colombia, Guatemala, Gunduljava, Mexico, and Peru, not to mention Greece, Portugal, and Spain, countries which have set to Europe a scandalous example of repudiation. Most of these loans purported to bear interest at the rate of six per cent, and some of them were contracted for at so low a figure as 68; nevertheless, with all these seeming advantages, it appears marvellous that people should have lent their money on such slender security as the new republics could offer. We observe that Mr Francis has revived the antiquated scandal touching Joseph Hume's "mistake" with regard to the Greek bonds, a story which has been a sore thorn in the side of the veteran reformer. We think he might have let it alone. The real mistake lay on the part of those who assumed that Joseph's philanthropic interest in the Greek cause was so intense as to suffer him for one moment 675 to lose sight of his own. His anxiety to back out of a bad bargain was perfectly natural. He never was an Epaminondas, and he felt justly irritated at the foolishness of the Greeks in persisting that he should sustain the heroic character, at the expense of his privy purse, when the stock had fallen to a discount. If, when it rose again to par, the Greek deputies were weak enough to repay him the amount of his loss, with the uttermost farthing of interest, that was their concern. When a senatorial sympathiser gives the aid of his lungs to the cause of suffering humanity, he has surely done enough. Why mulct him further from the pocket?

Those foreign loans, and the drain of bullion which they occasioned, speedily brought on the crisis. It was a very fearful one, and for the second time, at least, the Bank of England was in danger. It was then that mighty establishment owed its safety to the discovery of a neglected box of one pound notes, which, according to the evidence of Mr Harman, one of the principal directors, saved the credit of the country. The coffers of the bank were exhausted, almost to the last sovereign; and but for that most fortunate box, cash payments must have been suspended in December 1825, a position of affairs the issue of which no human intelligence could predicate. Subsequent legislation has not been able to guard us against the possibility of a similar recurrence. All that has been done is to insure the certainty of an earlier and more frequent panic, and to clog the wheels of commerce by rendering discounts impracticable at periods when no speculation is on foot. But as far as regards the stability of the Bank of England, under our present monetary laws, no provision has been made, in any way commensurate to the additional risk occasioned by the absorption of the twenty millions and upwards lodged in the savings-banks, all which must, when required, be repaid in the precious metals; and in case of any convulsion, or violent alarm, it is clear that such a demand would be made. The experience of 1832 has clearly demonstrated how the fate of a ministry may be made to depend upon the position of the establishment in Threadneedle Street.

It is perhaps not to be wondered at that, in a commercial country like ours, wealth should command that respect and homage which, in other times, was accorded to the possessors of nobler attributes. We make every allowance for the altered circumstances of the age. High and heroic valour, as it existed before, and undoubtedly still does exist, has not the same field for its display as in the days when Christendom was leagued against the Infidel, or even in those, comparatively later, when contending factions made their appeal to arms. Our wars, when they do occur, are matters of tactics and generalship; and physical courage and daring has ceased to be the path to more than common renown. Where most are loyal, and no treason is at hand, loyalty is no conspicuous virtue. Those who are distinguished in the walks of literature and science need not covet adulation, and very seldom can command it. Their fame is of too noble and enduring a quality to be affected by ephemeral applause; and it is good for them to work on in patience and in silence, trusting for their reward hereafter. The substantiality of wealth, the power and patronage which it commands, will inevitably make its possessor more conspicuous in the eyes of the community, than if he were adorned with the highest mental attributes. All things are measured by money: and when money is acknowledged as the chief motive power, he who knows best how to amass it cannot fail to be the object of attention. But the marked and indiscriminate homage which is paid to wealth alone, without regard to the character of the possessor, or the means through which that wealth has been acquired, is, in our estimation, a feature disgraceful to the age, and, were it altogether new, would justify us in thinking that the spirit of independence had declined. We shall hold ourselves excused from illustrating our meaning by making special reference to a recent but striking instance, in which wealth suddenly acquired, though by most iniquitous means, raised its owner, for a time, to the pinnacle of public observation. We prefer selecting from the pages of 676 Mr Francis the portrait of a man whose character displayed nothing that was great, generous, benevolent, or noble; whose whole life and whole energies were devoted to the acquisition of pelf; whose manners were coarse; whose person was unprepossessing; whose mind never ranged beyond its own contracted and money-making sphere; and who yet commanded, in this England of ours, a homage greater than was ever paid to virtue, intellect, or valour. Such a man was Nathan Meyer Rothschild, the famous Jew capitalist.

Originally from Frankfort, this remarkable man came over to England towards the close of last century, and commenced operations in Manchester, where he is said to have speedily trebled his first capital of £20,000:—

Rothschild was, in fact, a usurer to the state, as greedy and unconscionable as the humbler Hebrew who discounts the bill of a spendthrift at forty per cent, and, instead of handing over the balance in cash to his victim, forces him to accept the moiety in coals, pictures, or cigars. His information was minute, exclusive, and ramified. All the arts which had been employed on the Stock Exchange in earlier times were revived by him, and new "dodges" introduced to depress or to raise the market.

The morality of the ring has sometimes been called in question; but we freely confess, that we would rather trust ourselves implicitly to the tender mercies of the veriest leg that ever bartered horse-flesh, than to those of such a man as "the first baron of Jewry"—a title which was given him by a foreign potentate, to the profanation of a noble Christian order.

Such were the doings of Rothschild: let us now see him in person. "He was a mark for the satirists of the day. His huge and somewhat slovenly appearance; the lounging attitude he assumed, as he leaned against his pillar in the Royal Exchange; his rough and rugged speech; his foreign accent and idiom, made caricature mark him as its own; while even caricature lost all power over a subject which defied its utmost skill. His person was made an object of ridicule; but his form and features were from God. His mind and manners were fashioned by circumstances; his acts alone were public property, and by these we have a right to judge him. No great benevolence lit up his path; no great charity is related of him. The press, ever ready to chronicle liberal deeds, was 677 almost silent upon the point; and the fine feeling which marked the path of an Abraham Goldsmid, and which brightens the career of many of the same creed, is unrecorded by the power which alone could give it publicity."

Mr Disraeli, in some of his clever novels, has drawn the portrait of a great Jew financier in colours at once brilliant and pleasing. His Sidonia, whilst deeply engaged in money-making pursuits, is represented as a man of boundless accomplishment, expanded intellect, varied information, and princely generosity. He is the very Paladin of the Exchange—a compound of Orlando and Sir Moses Montefiore. The extravagance of the conception does not prevent us from admiring the consummate skill of the author, in adapting his materials so as to elevate our ideas and estimate of the Hebrew idiosyncrasy. Sidonia is as much at home in the palace as in the counting-room; his great wealth ceases to be the prominent feature, and becomes the mere accessory of the polished and intellectual man; avarice never for one moment is permitted to appear; on the contrary, the prodigality of the munificent Hebrew is something more than Oriental. We may refuse to believe in the reality of such a character, which implies a combination of the most antagonistic pursuits, and a union of mental attributes which could not possibly coexist; but, this difficulty once surmounted, we cannot challenge the right of so eminently gifted an individual to take his place among the true nobility of the earth. We fear, however, that such a phœnix of Palestine has no existence, save on paper. Certain it is, that Rothschild was not the man; and yet Rothschild, in his day, commanded as much homage as the novelist has claimed for Sidonia. Great is the power of money! Princes feasted with him; ambassadors attended him to the tomb; and yet, for all we can learn, he was not equal, in moral worth, to the meanest pauper in the workhouse. He would at times give a guinea to a street beggar, not for the object of relieving his wants, but to enjoy the joke of seeing him run away, under the apprehension that the donor had been mistaken in the coin! His wealth was gained by chicanery, and augmented by systematic deceit; and yet attend to the words of the chronicler:—

Poor as Lazarus may be, let him not envy the position of Dives. Even in this world, riches cannot purchase happiness. Any pecuniary loss was enough to drive Rothschild to despair. His existence was further embittered by the dread of assassination—no uncommon symptom, when the mind is rarely at ease; and those who knew him best, said that he was often troubled with such thoughts, and that they haunted him at moments when he 678 would willingly have forgotten them. "Happy!" he said, in reply to the compliment of a guest—"me happy! what! happy when, just as you are going to dine, you have a letter placed in your hands, saying, 'If you do not send me £500, I will blow your brains out?' Happy!—me happy!" We are not compassionate enough to wish that it had been otherwise. Such thoughts are the foreshadowing of the end of those who have prospered beyond their deserts, and have failed in making even that negative expiation, which conscience sometimes extorts from the apprehensions of unscrupulous men.

And here we shall close our remarks. There is still a fertile field before us, on which we might be tempted to enter; but that discussion would bring us too near our own days, and involve the resumption of topics which have already been handled in Maga. The time doubtless will come, when, after the cessation of some new fit of speculation, and when men are cursing their folly, and attempting by late industry to repair their shattered fortunes, some historian like Mr Francis shall take up the pen, and chronicle our weakness, as that of our fathers is already chronicled. In the meantime, it would be well for all of us seriously to lay to heart the lesson which may be drawn from this interesting record. Speculation, carried beyond due bounds, is neither more nor less than a repetition of the old game of Beggar my Neighbour, under another form. To fair and legitimate enterprise we owe much of our modern improvement; which has been further rendered necessary by the pressure which has increased, and is increasing upon us. To unfair and illegitimate enterprise, undertaken for the sole purpose of immediate gain, we owe nothing save periods of great misery and desolation. The game of Beggar my Neighbour may be played privately or publicly. Some of us have taken a hand in it privately, with what results we shall keep to ourselves. For several years back, our statesmen have played the public game, and played it well. They have succeeded in inflicting successively a blow upon each great interest of the country, by dealing with each separately, and by alienating the sympathy of the others. The game is now pretty well played out; and when we come to reckon our counters, it is evident from the result, that not one of the parties so dealt with has been a winner! Who, then, are the gainers? We think the answer is plain. They are the Capitalist and the Foreigner.

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART II.

CHAPTER IV.

We held our course, after parting with our friends in the boat, and were soon at the harbour's mouth. The breeze continued to freshen, and the swell to increase. Our little Wilhelmina now began to give us a specimen of her qualities as a sea-boat. Labouring through the curled and crested seas, creaking, groaning, vibrating from stem to stern; now balancing, with her keel half bare, on the summit of a lofty surge, now deep in a liquid trough; now kicking up behind, now running her nose bang into a bank of water; now pointing skywards, as if bound to the moon, and not to Lisbon; now pitching, now jig-jigging it, she simulated the paces of a Spanish genet—a great deal of action, very little progress.

By the time we were clear of the harbour, and in comparatively smooth water, the wind had shifted to the north-west; our course lay south, and, being sheltered by the land, we soon exchanged the jig-jigging of our exit from port for a far more agreeable, because more equable motion, as we drove over ocean's swell. It had already become palpably evident that none of our military friends were good sailors. Now, however, they were all able to stand without holding—all, I should say, but one unhappy 679 individual, and that was Mr Commissary Capsicum, who had been reduced to a miserable state of disorder by the active movements of the brig, and whose actual symptoms were by no means those of convalescence.

Night closed in. It was past twilight, yet not wholly dark—in short, that interval between twilight and perfect night, for which in English we have no word, but which the richer language of Burns expressively designates as "the gloaming." Little more than enough of it to fill the sails and give the vessel way, the wind was soft, and at times scarcely perceptible. The waves heaved lazily; the ship surmounted them with measured rise and fall; and, though the heavens were overcast, a light, different from that of day, clear but faint, was equably diffused on all sides. The tremulous surface of the ocean, dark, but distinguishable to the horizon, was there sharply outlined against the pale but still luminous sky.

Since we left port in the morning, what with showers and spray, wind and sunshine, I had been more than once wet through and dry again. The consequences were now perceptible. I shivered inwardly. My mind, too, was ill at ease. After much reflection, and some self-examination, I came to this conclusion: that something was requisite, something was indispensable, in my actual condition both of mind and body. What that something was, did not instantly occur to me. I asked myself the question point-blank—I answered it. The problem was solved: I wanted—a nightcap. Down I rushed into the cabin. "Steward, bring me some hot water and a little brandy."—"Yes, sir; a glass of hot brandy and water, sir; coming directly, sir."—"No, no, steward; that's not what I called for. Bring the brandy and the hot water separate. I'll mix for myself."

"Quite right," growled a feeble voice. It was poor, unhappy, still-very-far-from-perfectly-recovered Mr Capsicum's. The falling of the wind had so far abated the ship's movements, that his worst symptoms were now relieved. Still, however, he was far, very far, from well. Most of the passengers had turned in; but there, by lamplight, sat poor Capsicum at the cabin table, from sheer listlessness, destitute of sufficient energies to put himself to bed, a lamentable spectacle.

"Can't, can't," said he, plaintively. "Couldn't get it down, if I knew it would make me well this instant. Wish I could. I'll see you take yours, though. That'll be some comfort, anyhow."

The steward now brought hot water, half a lemon, lump-sugar, tumbler half full of capital brandy.—"Here, steward, you may take the lemon away with you. Don't want it."

"Quite right," grunted Capsicum, who thought himself a connoisseur in all things eatable and drinkable. "Quite right; no rum, no lemon." Spite of his pitiful plight, he now, con amore, set himself to watch my operations critically; as if, from the brewing, he would form an estimate of my judgment, capabilities, taste, character, and general attainments.

With the silver tongs I extracted a lump of crystal sugar, the largest in the basin. The present "without" system was not then in vogue, nor have I adopted it yet. But now there was a hitch—how to melt the sugar. In the tumbler it must not go—there was the brandy: that had been an infringement of all the laws of potatory combination. I felt that I was under observation, and that my character was at stake. I placed the sugar in the spoon. "Quite right," said Capsicum.

Yet neither, according to the modern practice, did I wash the sugar, half melted, from the spoon into the tumbler, with a stream of hot water. That, I submit, is an approximation to the error of immersing the sugar in the unmixed brandy. No, no. Holding the spoon over the tumbler, I carefully dropped upon the sugar three drops of the boiling water. It was enough. The sugar gradually subsided into a pellucid liquid, which filled the spoon. Capsicum, who, sick as he was, still watched my proceedings with the deepest interest, and with a patronising air of mild benignity, repeated his testimonial—"Quite right." 680

Waiting till the sugar was wholly dissolved, I then at length infused sufficient hot water to scald the raw spirits, then added the sugar. Two or three stirs sufficed; not a bead floated on the surface. The mixture was made—tumbler about half an inch from full—a "stiff un." Capsicum raised himself from the table on which he had been leaning, with folded arms, like a cat watching a mouse, and gave a snort of approbation.

"The connexion is quite recent, as I tell you," said I; "but I certainly don't mean to cut it. Hope to dine with him at headquarters, every day I'm disengaged."

"Dine with him at headquarters?" replied Capsicum. "You'll do nothing of the kind, I can tell you that, sir. That is, you'll dine with him at my table; pretty often, too, I trust. Hope I shall frequently have the pleasure of seeing you both. But at his own table, if you're twenty years at headquarters, you won't dine with him once; take my word for that. John Barrymore wouldn't suffer it." Here was a blow!

"Well then, I must make you understand it," replied Capsicum. "You are going out on an appointment as clerk in John Barrymore's Department. Isn't it so?" I bowed assent.

"Very well. That white chap does business in commissariat bills. When he gets a bill, he's dying to get the cash. Your Department pays the cash. Don't you see, my dear sir? It wouldn't do. It would be utterly at variance with all the rules of propriety, for any man in your Department to be on terms of intimacy with any man who does business in bills. Besides, it would be contrary to headquarters etiquette; everybody would talk about it. Now," added Capsicum, with a self-approving air, "now I've done my duty by John Barrymore. Noticed you were very thick. Thought I'd tell you, the first opportunity. Oh me! oh me!" (sighing, panting, gasping, pressing his hands on his stomach, and swaying his head from side to side,) "how very ill I do, feel! Such a horrid sensation! a don't-know-howishness—a sort of a come-overishness! The exertion of talking has made me quite bad again. Here, steward! steward! I must go on deck this instant." He turned ghastly green.

"Yet," said I, hoping he would soon be better, "Mr Gingham, it seems, can dine with you, without any breach of propriety."

"Yes, yes, to be sure he can," said Capsicum; "and so can you. Our Department don't finger the cash. Don't you see? That makes all the difference. Hope you'll both dine with me often."

"Shall be very happy," replied I: "much obliged for your kind invitation. But still I can't understand. Mr Gingham has been at headquarters before, and knows headquarters. He also knows, I suppose, that your humble servant is a clerk of the military chest. Yet it was he himself who made the proposal that he and I should campaign together."

"Can't explain that," said Capsicum; "must leave him to explain that as he can. Oh! here he comes."

Gingham, before he turned in, had been on deck, to take a last look at the weather, to commune with the silent night, to scrutinise the horizon, to soliloquise with the clouds, and perhaps for some better and more solemn purposes: for Gingham, with all his oddities, was a man of religious principle, and of devotional feeling, and cared not who knew it. He now approached, and seated himself with us at the cabin table.

"At Canton?" said Capsicum. "Saw me at Canton? Did you, though? Come, come, now you're joking, you know. Did you though, really? How was I dressed?"

"You were dressed like what you were; not exactly as you are dressed now. You had a long, taper pigtail, 681 reaching down to your heels; no hair on your head besides. You had slippers, scarlet and gold, turned up at the toes. You carried a fan; and didn't I once or twice see you followed by a fellow who carried a parasol over your head at the top of a long pole? You had—"

"I'll tell you what," said Capsicum precipitately; "I'm a Christian for all that, and my father was an Englishman. True, I was bred at Canton; but I wasn't born there. Born at Macao. My mother—"

Here, in a voice which ran through all the notes of the gamut, not however in due order, but like the cat's minuet, high and low alternately, Gingham struck up a strange outlandish sort of utterance, whether talking or singing I could not tell; but, if singing, it was the rummest song I ever heard—a jumping, dissonant compound of bass and treble. Capsicum responded in a similar fugue. The two funny rogues were speaking Chinese! The discovery of Capsicum's semi-gentile extraction tickled my fancy not a little.

"So," said Capsicum to Gingham, "you and Johnny intend to make a joint concern of it at headquarters."

"Can't be," said Capsicum. "Thought you knew all headquarters' rules, regulations, and observances."

"Well, then," replied Capsicum, "don't you know what department young Johnny here belongs to?"

"Your department, the commissariat department, I always understood," replied Gingham; "saw his name put down so in the list of passengers per packet at Falmouth. If Mr Y— will oblige me by referring to a document, which I had the honour of handing him before dinner, he will find himself there designated accordingly."

Sure enough, so it was: "G. Y—, Esq., Commissary-General's Department, in A. C., with Gingham Gingham."

"But didn't you happen to know that Mr Y—, as you call him," said Capsicum, "was John Barrymore's own nephew?"

"Of that circumstance I was not cognisant," replied Gingham, "till I happened to become aware of it by the conversation during dinner. Still I retained my former impression, that Mr Y— belonged to your department, not to the military chest."

"The long and the short of it," said I to Gingham, "is this. Shirty here, I am sorry to say, gives me to understand that, at headquarters, as I am attached to the military chest, and not to the commissariat, I cannot have the pleasure of stretching my legs under your table, when you give a spread. My regret is undissembled and profound."

"Nor," said Gingham, "while we both retain our present positions, can we be more than common acquaintance."

The shock of this dénouement was diverted by Capsicum. Spite of his sea-sickness he had purpled up; his eyes flashed and twinkled beneath his massive and contracted brows; he growled, he grunted, he wheezed, he snorted, he puffed; for a time he could not articulate. Either he performed admirably, or he was regularly riled. At length, recovering his breath, not once looking at me, but leaning over to Gingham on the table, he whispered hurriedly, "What does he mean by that? Shirty? Who's Shirty?" Again he turned very green, and sat back in his chair, panting, and swaying his head, like a man ready to faint.

I was sorry to see him so ill, and begged to apologise. He with the greatest propriety might call me "Johnny Newcome," yet it ill became me to call him "Shirty." The name was casually suggested by his profusion of frill, &c. &c. &c.

"I'll tell you what, Mr Johnny," said Capsicum, "it's well for you I'm so bad as I am: wish I was better, for your sake. Wouldn't I pitch into you at once, and give you a precious good hiding? Oh dear! oh me! I am so very bad!" Then, rallying again: "Ah, I wish you did belong to my department! Wouldn't I detach you on outpost duty? Wouldn't I make you ride till you had no leather left? Wouldn't I send you bullock-hunting over the sierras? Oh, dreadful! dreadful! What a horrid sensation this 682 sea-sickness is! Well, good night. I suppose I shall be called Shirty as long as I live." He tottled off to his berth.

"Yes, you may say that," said Joey, from behind his curtain. Joey was right. Ten years after, I heard an old Peninsular speak of Capsicum by the name of Shirty.

There is certainly something very adhesive in a sobriquet; that is, if it happens to stick when first applied. A lubberly big boy once gave me a thrashing at school; and I gave him the only redress in my power, as we were not allowed to throw stones—the name of "Buttons." He had cheated me at the game; and he had many on his jacket. "Buttons" was his name, to his dying day.

Gingham and I remained at the table. "Mr Capsicum is quite right," said Gingham. "Very proper it should be so. Not the less sorry on that account. At Lisbon, you will, in fact, have joined. From the time we land, then, our communications must be limited to the ordinary civilities of social life: until," he added, with a confidential look, "having digested my grand financial project, with Lisbon as the basis of my operations, I am prepared to promulgate it, as authorised, at the headquarters of the British army. Then," said he, proudly, "I shall take such an entirely different footing, so high above the vulgar imputations which always attach to a dealer in bills, that, without exposing either you or myself to criticism, I may again permit myself the pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance, on our present terms of friendship—I may say, intimacy. At any rate, while we remain on board the packet, that intimacy, I trust, will experience no diminution. Good night, sir."

Left alone in the cabin, leaning on the table, the night-lamp shedding a dim and dubious light, my small modicum of brandy-and-water expended, and the time gone by for brewing another, as the steward had turned in, I sat and ruminated. Gingham, watching his opportunity, had benevolently endeavoured to make me sensible, that, as a clerk on actual service, I should soon be engaged in duties which could not be performed to my own credit, without care and circumspection; and that I might find myself, ere long, in some responsible situation, demanding the utmost caution and energy, to compensate my inexperience. Since the morning, for we had been much together during the day, through his friendly suggestions, I had, in a measure, become conscious of all this: I was beginning to feel the value of such a monitor; and now, it appeared, he was lost to me in that character! Then there were other considerations of a deeper kind. I remembered the dinner at the hotel; I remembered the breakfast; I thought of the travelling store-closet. To have lost such a companion of my first campaign—it was, indeed, a loss! Had I never dined with him, I could have better borne it!

At length I came to this conclusion; that, as all the other passengers had retired to rest, I—had better do the same. I was about to put my decision in execution, when my attention was arrested by a lamentable cry, which issued from the berth of poor Mr Commissary Capsicum. "I can't—I can't—I'm stuck!—weak as a rat! Oh, I am so very bad! Here, steward! steward!—ah! oh!" Having heard his monody to the end, and waited in vain for a second stave, I flew to his assistance.

Poor Mr Commissary Capsicum had contrived to divest himself of his diurnal habiliments; and was now embellished with a red bonnet de nuit; and an elegant night-shirt, which fitted—as if it had been made for him. I found him—in what an attitude! One leg he had contrived to hoist into his berth. Quoad that leg, he was kneeling on the mattress. The other leg was stretched towards the floor, which he barely touched with his extended and agonised toe. In this painful position, he was clawing with both hands at the board intended to keep him in bed, equally unable to advance and to recede. Something—either the wooden tester—or the proximity of his shake-down to the deck above—or what else, I cannot pretend to say—prevented his further movements. He wanted 683 strength; there he was, literally, as he expressed it, stuck. I expressed the deepest sympathy.

Joey whipped on his drawers and dressing-gown, and was with us in a twinkling. Joey, seeing all other expedients vain, brought his shoulder to bear, and commenced a series of well-directed hoists, each hoist accompanied with a musical "Yeo-heave-ho." I laughed; Joey laughed; poor Capsicum himself caught the infection: his whining and whimpering gradually glided into a deep pectoral chuckle. The object was at length effected. Capsicum was stowed for the night; but not without vigorous and long-continued efforts, both on Joey's part and mine. "Can't imagine what caused the obstruction," said I; "it's prodigious; it's incredible." "Incredible, but true," replied Joey; "suppose we call it 'A tail founded on facts.'" "Good night. Good night, Mr Capsicum." "Good night, Mr Capsicum; good night." "Good night; ah! oh! what shall I do? Suppose I should be taken bad again before morning! Thank you both. Goodnight. Two impudent, unfeeling young hounds. Good night."

CHAPTER V.

It has been intelligently remarked, that, in writing travels by land or by sea, the traveller has only to jot down everything just as it occurs, and he will be sure to produce a book worth reading. This rule may be excellent in theory; but, gentle reader, it will not do. Only look here. I have not jotted down one tithe of the incidents of the first ten hours since we left harbour; and see what a long yarn it makes. A man who, in travelling, really registered everything, would yarn away at the rate of a quarto a week.

There is, however, an observation which is much more to the purpose; namely, that one day at sea is very like another. This we certainly found out, in our voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon. For, with the exception of changes in wind and weather, little occurred to vary our daily existence; at least till we got off Oporto, and took in fresh passengers. During the first night after we left Falmouth, the wind got round to the S.W. We had three days of it, regular Channel weather: thick, cloudy, squally—much rain—the ship pitching, labouring, creaking, straining, groaning—going every way but the way we wanted to go—all the passengers, except Joey, more or less indisposed—and nobody pleased but the skipper, who whistled a perpetual "Yankee doodle" rondo, and seemed to exult in our miseries. "I calculate," said Joey, "if this lasts much longer, we shall come to anchor in the Downs." For want of anything to relate, and for the benefit of the reader, should he cross "the Bay," I shall here beg leave to say a few words respecting that horrid malady to which landsmen are subject on board ship, and respecting my own mode of dealing with it. Experto crede.

My case resembles that of many other persons; i.e., in foul weather on board ship, you do not, we will say, at once get thoroughly ill; but certain disagreeable sensations, quite sufficient to call a man's attention to himself, such as giddiness, prostration of strength, awful depression of the whole system, and still more awful sensations at the pit of the stomach, induce the painful consciousness that you are very, very far from well, and in some danger of being worse before you are better. In this state of the case, the "indication," as the doctors say, is to keep off daddy Neptune's last outrage, the detested crisis. Don't give ear to the good-natured friend who says, "You had better be ill at once, and get it over." That may do very well in a sail from West Cowes to Allum Bay; but it won't answer if you are a fortnight at sea. You may be "ill at once," if you please; but don't be certain "you'll get it over;" if once you begin, you may go on for a week. Keep well, then, if you can.

Now, as long as you can keep your 684 legs, and keep on deck, you can generally effect this. In your berth, also, in a recumbent posture, you may manage to escape the dire catastrophe. The real difficulty is this: that, in passing from one of these states to the other, e.g., in turning in at night, or turning out in the morning, in all human probability you become a miserable victim. You must dress—you must undress—and, in the course of doffing or donning, ten to one your worst apprehensions become a reality. What, then, is the remedy? Now, don't stare, but be advised. Till you are fairly seasoned, which you probably will be in three or four days if you do as I tell you, don't doff or don at all. Keep on deck all day, get thoroughly cold, tired, and drowsy, rush below at night, throw yourself on your mattress as you are, go to sleep at once. In the morning, the moment you turn out, rush on deck. No shaving; no titivating. You must wash, must you? Go forwards, then; wash in the open air; wash anywhere but below. "Beastly, though, to go day after day without a change." Beastly, I admit; but not so beastly as day after day of convulsive paroxysms and horrid heavings; and, depend upon it, if once you begin, there is no telling how long it may last. Whereas follow my plan, and in three or four days you are all right—you are seasoned—the ship may dance a polka, and you not the worse for it. You may then go below, and stay below, with perfect impunity—treat yourself to a grand universal scrub and a clean shirt—and, if you are a shaver, shave—only remember you are shaving on board ship, and mind you don't cut off your nose. After all, it's a matter of taste, I admit: and tastes are various. If you consider a three-days' shirt, and a rough chin, greater evils than vomitory agonies, and spasms of the diaphragm, why, do as you like; shave, titivate, change, your linen, and retch your heart up.

During the three days of foul weather, wind S.W., I contrived to keep about, by following the method indicated above. On the fourth, the wind returned to the N.W., with an occasional brash of rain; and we were again able to hold our course. I was then myself again, past the power of sea-sickness; and could walk the deck with Joey, cast accounts with Gingham, sit out the dinner without declining soup, respectfully ogle the lovely Juno, and occasionally extort a giggle. On the morning of this same day, impelled by curiosity, I approached the berth where lay deposited the unhappy Capsicum, and drew his curtain. Ah! is that Capsicum? Alas, how changed! He looked like death. I spoke to him. His lips moved, but his voice was inaudible. I felt his pulse. It was scarcely perceptible. He was in a state of collapse!

Deeming the exigency cogent, I fetched Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget. Pledget, after due examination, pronounced it a serious case, prescribed a restorative, departed to compound, and soon came back with it—only about half a pint. With some difficulty, poor Capsicum was got up in his berth, and the restorative was got down. Anticipating recalcitration, Pledget had come provided with a small horn. Having swallowed the dose, Capsicum found his voice. "Ah me!" he feebly whined, with a look of inexpressible horror and disgust, and his hand pressed upon the pit of his stomach; "ah me! is it an aperient?" Then, in a low and indignant growl, "Never took physic before, in all my life." He lay back on his bolster, with closed eyes, in feeble and sulky silence. Pledget withdrew, and I remained.

Presently, reopening his eyes, he cautiously looked around. "Is that fellow gone?" he whispered. I nodded. "Look in the cabin," he whispered again.

"Gone on deck," said I; "not quite right yet, himself. Do you want him? Shall I call him back?"

"No, no; nonsense! I say, you mix me a glass of that—you know what—the same you took yourself t'other night."

I hesitated. There was no doubt in the world it would do him a deal of good. But then he was under treatment; he was medically ill. What was I to do?

He looked at me appealingly, coaxingly, touchingly. "I'd do as much for you," said he. 685

There was no standing that. I clancularly gave my orders to the steward. The steward grinned, and brought the materials. In due time the mixture was made; and, in a very short time after, the patient had stowed it away. "I shall get up," said he. "Just help me out." I sent the steward to request the aid of Joey.

By unshipping the board at the side, we got Capsicum out of his crib, far more easily than we had got him in. But, alas, his legs doubled under him; he was helpless as an infant, and almost fainted away. At length we managed to dress him; and seated him in full fig at the cabin table, with his enormous snuff-box open before him. At dinner, that day, he managed the wing of a chicken and a slice of tongue. Couldn't a currant dumpling, though—was set against it by the wine sauce. Pledget had the credit of the cure.

I omit to relate, in extenso, how we were chased by what we took for an American sloop of war, but what proved to be an English frigate; how the arm-chest was got upon deck when we expected to be brought to action; and how the muskets were found, like poor Capsicum, stuck—rusted together into a mass, for want of looking after; how badly the said frigate threw her shot, sending the first, which ought to have gone ahead of us, slap through our topsail, and the second, which should have been a more direct communication, half a quarter of a mile wide; how the Major and Captain Gabion saw the said shot as they were coming, while I saw nothing but the splash in the water; how our leisure hours were solaced by two combative drakes, shut up together in the same coop, which fought incessantly, day and night, from the beginning to the end of the voyage—if you held a lantern to them in the dark, they were still fighting; how, when one hen laid an egg, the others pecked at it, and gobbled it up; how the skipper was rude to everybody on board—to the Major, it appeared, grossly so. These particulars, with many others, I defer to my quarto edition.

Yet let me not omit the skipper's confidence to Joey; how he thought passengers should be victualled on board ship. "Fust, good flabby pea-soup, as thick as batter—plenty on it—let 'em blow out their jeckits with that. When it's took away, why, then perpose a glass of bottled porter all round. Fust dinner aboard; won't it make some on 'em bolt?"

Perhaps, my dear madam, the best way of giving you a general idea of our voyage, will be to present you with a description of our mode of life from day to day. The rule with our military friends was, to take fun out of everything; and they proved themselves perfect adepts in all the means and methods, thereto available; hoaxing, quizzing, shaving, imitating, trotting, cajoling, bamboozling. Pledget could not make it out—wondered what it all meant; and one day gravely asked me, if I could explain the nature and cause of laughter. Laughter he viewed as a psychological problem; we had plenty on board; but he could not solve it. The best thing was, that Pledget himself caught the infection at last, and began to laugh. It was curious to watch the first stirrings of nascent humour in Pledget's mind. Towards the close of the voyage he had actually, though by slow degrees, concocted a joke; and, had our passage been to the West Indies, and not to Lisbon, he would perhaps have got so far as to try it on. The victim of the said joke was to be Capsicum. Capsicum's birth at Macao, and breeding at Canton, had transpired through Joey. Pledget's primary idea was, that Capsicum might possibly have a penchant for a dish of stewed puppies. This bold, ingenious, and comical conception, as he fed on it from hour to hour, and from day to day, in about three days' time began to grow in his mind; and, as it grew, it ramified. From one thing to another, at length it came to this: that, with my co-operation, Joey's, and the steward's, Capsicum was to be persuaded that a batch of puppies had actually been littered on board. Capsicum, kept momentarily cognisant of the progress of Pledget's plot, by the treachery of those to whom it was confided, was prepared to humour the joke, whenever Pledget commenced operations. Pledget, big with his own idea, walked the deck for hours 686 together, rubbing his hands in an ecstasy, and laughing till he whimpered. When Joey or I took a turn, he was soon by our side, screeching in a rapidly ascending gamut, with pungent delight, and much cachinnation, "Puppies! puppies! Oh, sir, won't they be nice? Poor old Capsicum!—puppies! puppies!"

The day before we made the coast of Spain, I was fairly "trotted." You must know, I fancied in those days I could sing. Item, my dear father had brought home, from the Peninsula, some very pretty Portuguese airs, of the kind called modinhas—which modinhas I had at my fingers' ends. Now, there are two very distinct ideas, which young people are apt to confound. If they happen to know a pleasing song, they fancy themselves pleasing singers: often quite the reverse; the finer the song, the fouler the butchery. I wish singing was visible, and not audible; for then we could keep it out by shutting our eyes. Well, this is how it was: leaning, as I was wont, over the ship's side, my face to the horizon, my back to the company, I won't pretend to say that I exactly sang for their benefit: oh no; I sang, as I had right to do, for my own amusement; though I certainly did sing loud enough to be heard, without being listened to. Presently by my side leaned Captain Gabion. I ceased. He hummed a mellifluous song of Lusitania.

"Pity the Lisbon music-sellers don't print their music," said he; "Write it all. Quite a fuss, sometimes, to get a song you fancy."

"That explains something I never understood before," said I. "All the songs I have received from Portugal are in manuscript. Pray, what is a modinha, strictly speaking?"

"Why, a modinha," replied he, "in common parlance, means any song that you happen to like. Modinha: a little mode; a little fashion; any little fashionable song. But the grand, regular music of the Portuguese—oh! that's magnificent—their church music for instance. You must know, once a-year, in one of the Lisbon churches, they sing a grand mass for the souls of deceased musicians. Of course, on such an occasion, all the living forces of the musical world are put in requisition. The last time I was at Lisbon, I attended—advise you, as a musical man, to do the same. Oh! wasn't that a grand harmonious crash? Extraordinary fellows, some of those singing monks and friars! Fancy one whole side of an immense church, from the floor to the roof, a grand bank of chorus-singers, as high as Shakspeare's Cliff; each bellowing like a bull; yet each with a voice as finely modulated as the richest violoncello, touched by a master's hand. Then there was one fellow, a bass, who stood up to sing a solo. Never heard anything like that. He struck off, deep down in his throat—yes, sir; and deeper down in the scale, too, than I ever heard any man go before—with a grand magnificent double shake, like—like—like the flutter of an eagle. Then down—down—down the villain dropped, four notes lower, and gave such another. I advised him to go to England. His name was Naldi. But let me see—oh—we were talking about modinhas. Why, sir, the fact is this—if you want to hear what I call the vernacular basis of the modinha, you must go up among the hills, a few leagues out of Lisbon."

"Yes," replied he; "any one in Lisbon will show you the booking office: unless, by the bye, you prefer palanquin, in which case I would advise you to order relays of black bearers from Jigitononha; or, you might do it on two donkeys. Well, sir; when you're up there in the mountains, among the goats, wolves, wild buffaloes and rhododendrons, the altitude about corresponding to latitude 66° N. in Europe, and to—let me see—latitude—say latitude 50° in the United States—of course you'll feel hungry. Step into the first hotel. But I'd advise you—don't order three courses; you'll find it come expensive; better rough it with something light—say a beef-steak and a bottle of port. That buffalo beef, capital. Port—let me see—are you particular in your port? Better ask for the Algarve sort. Well, sir; after you have dined, just step out into the village—walk into the first wine-shop. You'll probably find half-a-dozen peasants there—big, 687 muscular, broad-chested, good-humoured-looking fellows—goatherds and all that kind of thing. Look out for the chap with the guitar—you'll be sure to find him in the wine-shop; order a quart tumbler of wine—just taste it yourself—then hand it to him—and tell him to play. The moment he has tossed off the tipple, he begins tinkling. The other six fellows stand up; throw back their shoulders; bulge out their chests; and begin smirking, winking their little black eyes, snapping their fingers, and screwing their backs in such an extraordinary manner as you never beheld—all in cadence to the guitar. That's the first access of the musical œstrum. The guitar goes on—strum—strum—strum—a low monotonous jingle, just two or three chords. That's the accompaniment to the singing that's about to begin. At length, one of the fellows commences—air and words both extempore; perhaps something amatory, Minha Maria, minha querida; or, it may be, something satirical, if they see anything quizzable—something about yourself. While that first fellow is singing, the chap next him stands, still winking, screwing, smirking, snapping his fingers; and begins, as soon as the other has done. So it goes on, till all the half-dozen have had their turn. But the curious thing is this: though all the songs are different, different in the tema, different in the style, different in the compass of voice, different in the pitch, different in the words, the same accompaniment does duty for all: the chap with the guitar goes on, just tinkling the same chords, till the whole is finished. Then, if you want it da capo, give him another tumbler of wine. If you've had enough, why, then, you know, you can just fork out a moidore or two, tell them to divide it, and take your leave,—that is, if you don't want to see the fight for the money: but that's not worth your while; mere rough and tumble, with a little knifing. Only mind; don't give dollars or patacas. They prefer gold."

I really thought I was now trotting Captain Gabion, who was a musical amateur. Villain! he was operating to clap the saddle on me, in a way I little suspected. "Then," said I, "each of these fellows, I suppose, has sung a modinha."

"Why, no; not exactly that, neither," said the Captain. "I'll tell you. Curious sort of music it is, though; the national music, in fact. When you see one of those big athletic fellows expanding his chest, sucking his breath, his whole pulmonary region heaving, labouring with the song he is going to sing, why, of course you'd expect him to break out like a clap of thunder. But, instead of that, forth comes from his big throat a very mouse-like issue of those mountain throes; an attenuated stream, not altogether unmusical though, of growling, grunting, squeaking cadences—for the compass of their voices is perfectly astonishing—a string of wild and rapid trills, very short notes, very long notes, mostly slurred, never staccato; and, if you should happen to notice, similar, in its intervals, to the music of Scotland. With your musical knowledge, of course you understand what I mean by intervals. Well, sir; that sort of mountain music is what I call the national basis of the Portuguese modinha. Take one of those wild airs, arrange it scientifically, with suitable symphonies, accompaniment, and all that sort of thing—no difficulty to you—the modinha is then complete."

This was by no means a bad theory of the modinha of those days; an Italian graft upon the native stock; a scientific modification of the music of the peasantry; so wild, so expressive, so sweet, so thrilling, never have I heard songs to compare with those old modinhas. Once, at a party in the house of a Lisbon lady, we persuaded her married daughter to sing; a round, fat, rosy-brunette little dump of a woman, famous for singing modinhas. She kindly took her guitar, spat in her handkerchief, and gave us them in such style as I have never but once heard since—and then the fair vocalist was not a Portuguese. What rich expression, what rises and falls, what rapid execution, what accurate intonation, what power, what tenderness, what point, in that soft, flexible, delicate, yet rich, full, brilliant, and highly-cultivated voice! Alas, the modinha of that day is rapidly passing into oblivion. It has yielded in Lisbon 688 society to a new style of songs, still called modinhas, the words generally native, as they used to be; but the music, modern Italian—utterly destitute of sentiment; a constant straining at effect, and a constant failure.

"I understand," said I, "that in every part of the Peninsula you meet with a kind of songs that may be called local."

"Yes," said the Captain; "all, if I may so say, provincial; all peculiar; all highly characteristic; and all excellent. Even the occasional songs are good as compositions; that is to say, songs which refer to politics, passing events, and so forth. Did you ever hear this?" He gave Ya vienen los Ingleses.

"Very pleasing, and very lively," said I. "This is in the same style." I began to strike up Quando el Pepe José.

"Don't let's have any more Spanish," said the Captain. "Sing something Portuguese." I gave Os soldados do comercio.

"Quite humorous," said he, "but very pleasing music. This is the Portuguese national song." He gave Eis, Principe excelso.

"Some of the satirical songs," said I, "are very well set." I gave Estas senhoras da moda. The Captain, I observed, looked at his watch. Little dreamt I the traitor was working against time.

"This, now," said he, "is what may be called the sentimental style; short, but expressive, like the serious epigram of the Greek Anthology." He gave Tu me chamas tua vida.

"The finest I have heard, though," said I, "in that style, is the Spanish song—"

"No, no," said the Captain; "give us something Portuguese; something by an old Padre. They are the fellows that knock off the best modinhas." I gave Fui me confessar.

The conclusion of this my third song was followed by loud shouts of laughter, a general clapping of hands, and cries of "Encore! encore! bravo! viva! encore! encore!" I turned, and stood the centre of a semicircle! Around me were ranged the delighted, applauding passengers; the Colonel, the Major, Capsicum, Pledget, Gingham, Mr Belvidere, Joey, and, oh! leaning on Joey's arm, the lovely Juno; the whole Party, at my expense, in the highest possible state of hilarity. The skipper in the background, leaning on the binnacle, stood surveying the whole transaction with his face set in a sarcastic scowl, as though it had first been cast in plaster of Paris, and then painted with red ochre. Kitty's bonnet appeared on the level of the deck, projecting from the cabin stairs. Near her, profuse in soft attentions, stood the Colonel's flunkey, lavishing winks and winning simpers. Immediately above me, in the shrouds, with his face downwards, like a monkey in a tree, hung Snowball the nigger; his two eyes, full of wonder and delight, gloating like a basilisk's, and projecting like a skinned rabbit's; his mouth extended across his face in so broad a grin, you'd have thought his throat had been cut from ear to ear. The applause having a little subsided, each in turn paid me a compliment. Juno, the enchanting saucy witch, dropped me a demure and very low curtsy, begged to thank me, and precipitately put her handkerchief to her face. Gingham advised me to cultivate my voice; begged to assure me I had very good taste, and only wanted modulation, flexibility, accuracy, and execution, with a little attention to time and tune, and care to avoid passing into the wrong key—nay, had no doubt, if I took pains, I should some day acquire an ear. Just when I was annoyed past bearing, Pledget, tittering with ecstasy, whispered at my elbow, "Capital joke! the Captain did it admirably. Almost as good as puppies!—puppies!—puppies!"

"Your compliment last, sir," said I, "comes in the proper place. Allow me to designate it as it deserves—the ass's kick."

Pledget turned a little pale, and drew up; said something that seemed to stick in his throat, about "lions roaring, and asses braying."

We were on the edge of a regular tiff. The general garrulity dropped into a dead silence, and the whole party looked concerned. The Colonel at once interposed, and insisted on our shaking hands. This operation was performed accordingly, as in such 689 cases provided, with immense cordiality on both sides.

"What do you mean by lost?" said Captain Gabion. "Didn't I make Mr Y— sing three songs within the given time? Hadn't I two minutes over, when he finished the last? Weren't they all three Portuguese? I took good care of that. Wasn't that our bet?"

"Yes, Captain; all right," said the Major. "But one of your songs was Spanish. That was an infringement."

"Didn't understand any condition of that sort," replied Captain Gabion. "All the party heard the bet. Let the company decide."

One said one thing, one another. By common consent it was referred to Gingham, who had held his tongue. Gingham decided that the Captain had lost.

"Very well," said the Captain, "then I have had all my trouble for nothing. Rather hard, though, to sing three songs yourself; get three more out of a gentleman that has a particular objection to singing, in forty minutes; and then have to pay a dollar besides. However, book it, Major. Very kind of you, though, Mr Y—: equally obliged. Trust you'll often favour us." We all went below to prepare for dinner; but I had not heard the last of my singing.

We were now on the look-out for Cape Villano, and began to feel the N. wind which blows down the W. coast of the Spanish Peninsula ten months in the year. This wind, as you get further to the S., is generally attended with a clear sky. But in our present latitude, meeting the upper or S.W. current of air, which comes charged with the vapours of the Atlantic, it produced incessant rain. The rain commenced, as indeed rain often does commence, about three o'clock P.M., and kept us below all the evening; obliging us also to lay-to till daybreak, as the skipper did not like to run nearer in by night, with such weather.

From dinner to tea we managed to crack on, without finding the time hang heavy on our hands. After tea the conversation was resumed, but in the course of an hour or two began to flag; when Gingham enlivened it by volunteering his services in brewing a bowl of punch. The offer was received with tumultuous applause; except that Capsicum, who thought nobody understood brewing so well as himself, politely expressed a doubt as to Gingham's capabilities. Gingham avowed, with much seriousness, that he "yielded in punch-making to no man." A discussion arose, in the course of which I ventured to move, and it was carried, that a bowl of punch should be brewed by each, and that the company should award the palm after finishing both.

Capsicum brewed first. The materials were not wanting. The steward brought rum, brandy, lemons, all the etceteras. Gingham, chivalrous in his rivalry, tendered limes in lieu of lemons: "always took a few when he travelled—got them in Pudding Lane." Capsicum's sense of honour would have declined the limes; but the company ruled otherwise. The bowl was brewed—a perfect nosegay—and stood smoking in the centre of the table. In a very short time after, each man had his quantum before him.

"Now, gentlemen," said the Colonel, (chairman,) "punch is nothing without harmony. I beg leave to call on Mr Y— for a song." Much applause. "Hear! hear! hear! A song by Mr Y—! hear! hear! hear!"

I had not quite recovered the adventure of the morning, and was far from disposed to sing. Had sung enough for one day—felt rather hoarse—begged to decline—but all in vain: the company would take no denial. I was obstinate. Joey began to talk of keelhauling; the Major suggested the old mess fine, a sugared oyster; while a soft admonition was heard in the distance, "The bird that can sing, and that won't sing, must be made to sing."

Not to sing was just then a principle as fixed in my mind as any theorem in the first six books of Euclid. The company became peremptory. At length, tired of saying no, I rose, and begged leave to ask 690 the chairman whether, if I sang, I should have the usual privilege of calling on any other gentleman present. The chairman hesitated to reply. He saw his position: I might call upon him. I now had the best of it. The chairman laughed, leaned over to Capsicum, and whispered a remark about "generalship." Capsicum growled out something, of which I could only distinguish "jockey" and "young fox."

I was still on my legs, and continued,—"Well, Mr Chairman, as my very equitable proposal is not met so promptly as I anticipated, would it not be better if the company resolve, instead of extorting a solitary song from an individual who has already contributed largely this day to the common stock of amusement," (hear! hear! hear!) "that every person present should either sing a song, or tell a story?"

CHAPTER VI.

The Colonel looked quite relieved; the company, also, appeared content. "Well, gentlemen," said he, "as it seems to meet your approval, suppose we accept Mr Y—'s proposition. I will begin. Sooner, any day, tell a dozen stories, than sing one song. My story, at any rate, like Captain Gabion's last song this morning, when he had only twelve minutes to spare, will have the merit of being short.—A little more punch, if you please.—Allow me, then, to break ground, by relating an anecdote of my esteemed and much-lamented friend

MAJOR KRAUSS.

Some of you knew the Major well—are doubtless aware, also, that in a fit of excitement, which led to temporary insanity, he fell by his own hand. The circumstances, however, which gave occasion to that melancholy event were known only to myself. At the time when we were forming and drilling the Portuguese army, which afterwards proved so effective in the field, the Major and I were both stationed in winter-quarters at L—. In the same town were two regiments of newly-raised Portuguese cavalry, which it was requisite to have in complete efficiency against the opening of the campaign in the spring. The Major—a stiff hand I need not say, a regular Titan of the German school—was appointed to drill one; and I, for want of something to do, undertook the other. In this duty, there sprang up between us a little rivalry, amicable of course, as to which of us should first have his regiment ready. The Major had his own ideas; and, I thought, teazed his men, and exacted too much. He had an eye to a field-day; I had an eye to actual service. Foreigners say, we teach our cavalry everything, except pulling up. But I can tell you, before an enemy superior in force, and pressing you too close, nothing acts more effectually as a check, than riding through them. Well, we both drilled according to our views. One morning the Major announced to me, that he considered his regiment perfect, and that I must go with him and inspect it. We went. He put them through; I looked on; they performed admirably. Finally, he drew them up in line. Riding to the front, he surveyed his work with pride. Then, taking a flank position, he made me notice how accurate the perspective—every sabre sloped at the same angle, everything in its place—you might have stretched a gardening line from one end of the regiment to the other. Just then, unfortunately, a new idea entered the Major's mind: he proposed riding to the rear. Away we went. Alas! his discipline had not extended to the horses' tails! Every tail was whisking: horses, Spanish and Portuguese—all long tails, no cock-tails—every tail in motion. In front, they stood like a wall: in the rear, it was whisk, whisk, whisk,—swirl, swirl, swirl—switch, switch, switch—all down the line. It was too much for the poor Major. He was perfectly dumfounded—looked like a man out of his wits—took a hasty leave—rode home to his billet, and shot himself. I now beg leave to call on Mr Y—, for either a story or a song."

"Mr Capsicum," said the Colonel, "have the kindness to fill Mr Pledget a bumper. Always the fine, you know, if any one calls a statement in question, when story-telling is going on. Now, if you please, Mr Y—."

"Gentlemen," I said, "I have seen nothing of service, and little of the world. Perhaps, therefore, you will permit me to relate an anecdote, which I had from a near relative of mine, a naval officer; and which remarkably illustrates the characteristic coolness of British seamen. It was the act of a common sailor, who bore among his messmates, in consequence, the name of

SLUICY SAM.

It was at the evacuation of Toulon. My aforesaid relative was then a lieutenant, and had been landed with a party from his ship, to take charge of one of the forts in the harbour. When Buonaparte, through the remissness of our Spanish allies, took the hill which commanded the anchorage, and we were forced to withdraw, the lieutenant received orders to bring off his party, and the ammunition which had been landed from the ship. There were several barrels of gunpowder to be brought away. These were stowed in the after part of the boat, between the officers and the men, to be under inspection; and were set on end, to save room. In pulling for the ship, the boat had to pass another fort, which was on fire. The English, you know, on coming away, burnt everything they could—that is, I mean, everything connected with the public service, ships, stores, storehouses, buildings. Just as the boat was passing, the fort blew up. The fragments of the explosion filled the air; and a rafter charred with fire fell into the boat, stove in the head of one of the powder-barrels, and stood upright in the powder. Its superior extremity was still burning. There was a dead silence. The men went on pulling, as if nothing had happened. In an instant they might all be blown to atoms. It seemed the easiest thing in the world to seize the smoking and crackling brand, pluck it out of the powder, and throw it into the sea. But that, doubtless, would have been instant destruction; one spark, shaken off in the operation and falling, would have done the business. Everybody saw the hitch. Still the men pulled away. It wouldn't do to stir the brand; and it evidently wouldn't do to leave it where it was. "Ship your oar, Sam," said the lieutenant. Sam, did so. Not a word more was spoken, or necessary. Sam coolly took off his hat, dipped it into the sea, filled it, carefully and thoroughly sluiced the whole surface of the exposed powder in the barrel; and then, having in this way made all safe, slowly drew the rafter out of the barrel, and pitched it overboard.—I beg here to call on Mr Commissary Capsicum."

"Well, gentlemen," said Capsicum, "I will tell you another boat-story; and though the care of Providence was singularly illustrated in the wonderful preservation which Johnny has just related, I think it appeared quite as remarkably in the case which I am about to relate, of

THE MAN THAT WASN'T DROWNED.

I am now a military commissary; I was once a naval one. I made my debut in the British service as a captain's clerk, and sailed in that capacity on board the Negotiator, 74, which was under orders for Lisbon. On our arrival in the Tagus, we found there the Protocol, 120, the Pacificator, 100, the Persuasive, 80, the Conciliator, 74, the Preliminary, 50, the Envoy, bomb, and the Intervention, fire-ship. The next day, the captain of the Protocol came on board, and was invited by our own skipper to stay and dine. But he knew the Lisbon weather too well—foresaw a gale; and, not relishing the idea of getting a wet jacket in returning at night to his ship, persuaded our skipper to go and dine with him. The Negotiator's boat was to fetch the skipper. Sure enough, the wind freshened about sunset, and in an hour or two it began to blow great guns. Our boat went, however, as arranged. Nasty work, boating at Lisbon. You may think it's nothing, in harbour. But I can tell you this—whenever there's a storm at sea, there's sure to be a little hurricane in the Tagus. No matter what's the direction of the wind outside—in the Tagus you have 692 it right up or right down. Well, gentlemen, Protocol advised Negotiator not to think of returning such a night as that—offered him a shake-down on board—assured him he'd be swamped—all to no purpose; Negotiator would go, as his boat was come. Just as they were leaving the ship's side, one of the boat's crew fell overboard. Every effort was made to recover him, but with what success you may easily suppose. The tide was running down like a torrent; the wind came roaring up from the bar, and lashed the water into froth and fury; the spray half filled the boat; it was pitch-dark. All was done that could be done, but to no purpose: the man was given up for lost; the boat returned to the ship. The skipper came into the cabin quite sorrowful-like, that he had lost one of his best men, but didn't forget to tell me to jump down into the boat, and see to the handing up of half-a-dozen fine melons, presented to him by Protocol. Down I went, in the dark, over the ship's side, got into the boat, groped about, found five melons and handed them up; couldn't find the sixth. I was just stepping out of the boat to return on board, when the thought struck me, what a blowing-up I should get from the skipper, when I told him a melon was missing. I paused, renewed my search, happened to put my hand down to the gunnel of the boat, to support myself in stooping. My hand lighted upon something; it wasn't the gunnel. I felt it—pitch-dark; couldn't see the tip of my own nose. It was a man's foot! I felt further—a man's leg! Someone was hanging on, outside the boat, with his heel uppermost, and his head under water. I held him fast by the leg, and sung out for help. The man was got on board insensible, and to all appearance past recovery. When he fell overboard alongside the Protocol, he had hooked on by his foot, and in that way had been dragged under water all the time they had been rowing about in the dark to find him, as well as afterwards, while they were pulling for the ship. We all thought him a dead man. The doctor said, 'No: if he had been, he would have let go.' Doctor ordered a sailor's flannel shirt and a kettle of boiling water; had the patient stripped, and laid in hot blankets; rolled up the flannel shirt into a ball, poured into it the boiling water, and clapt it to the pit of his stomach." (Here Pledget took out his tablets, and made a note.) "What with this, and other gentle restoratives," continued Capsicum, "the man recovered. The skipper, glad as he was when the doctor reported it, didn't forget to give me a good blowing-up for the melon, which I suppose one of the boat's crew had grabbed in the dark."

"Of course he didn't forget that," said Joey, who had listened to this narrative with professional interest. "Pray, do you happen to know what time elapsed from the man's falling overboard till he was unhooked?"

"What little dog?" said Joey eagerly. "I am quite an animal man. I am particularly fond of dogs."

"The little dog whose tail curled so tight, that it lifted him off his hind legs. Will you oblige us, Mr. Gingham?"

"It is extraordinary enough, gentlemen," said Gingham, "that though three most interesting anecdotes have been related, we have not yet had either a ghost story, a love story, or a touch of the pathetic. The first of these omissions I will now endeavour to supply, by relating an occurrence which befel me during the short time I was at school, and in which the party most prominent was a strange sort of an individual, who went among the boys by the name of

THE CONJUROR.

He was our writing-master. He was our ciphering-master. He was also our drawing-master. He was a foreigner. Not a boy in the school knew whence he came; but he certainly was not an Englishman. In person he was gaunt and uncouth. He was a mild, quiet sort of a man; but his eye had a sinister expression, and he was savage when provoked. It was commonly reported among the boys, not only that he could do extraordinary conjuring tricks, but that he was a master of magic, far deeper and darker than 693 legerdemain. He lived alone in a solitary cottage, which, with its garden and long shrubbery, skirted the road, about a mile out of the town where was our school. This cottage had never been entered by any of the boys; strange stories were told about it; and we viewed it with a sort of awe. You must know the gentleman in question had a remarkable habit of sitting. When he came to us at one o'clock, he immediately took his seat at his desk; and never rose till his two hours were up. This circumstance suggested to my mind a conjuring trick, to be played off on the conjuror. One day, just before his arrival, I spread some shoemakers' wax on his bench; and afterwards, when he was fairly seated, I gave out among the boys that I had conjured the conjuror, and that at three o'clock he wouldn't be able to go. The boys were all expectation. It struck three. He attempted to rise—an unseen power held him fast. At length, amidst much tittering, he contrived to get free; but only by extricating himself from that part of his habiliments which was in immediate contact with the bench. He did not exactly pull them off; but, poor man! he was obliged to pull himself out of them. The master lent him another pair; he went home filled with rage, but perfectly cool, having first contrived to identify the culprit; and his own, having been carefully detached with a hot knife by the master's daughter, Miss Quintilian, as the boys called her, were sent after him with a message of kind condolence, packed by her fair hands in a brown paper parcel, into which I contrived to slip a fig-leaf. Next day he reappeared at the usual hour. All went on smoothly for about a fortnight. At the end of that time, one afternoon when I was showing up my sum, he addressed me, observing that I had always been particularly diligent with my arithmetic, and that, as the holidays were at hand, he hoped I would do him the favour of drinking tea with him that evening. Some of the boys tried to frighten me—said he bottled the thunder and lightning, and kept it corked down, ready for use—oh, wouldn't he give me a touch of it? Others encouraged me. I went. Tea over, he told me that he had contrived a little exhibition for my amusement; then flung open the folding doors of the parlour, and disclosed a large sheet, hanging as a curtain in the doorway. 'I must go into the next room,' said he, 'and take the candles with me, or you will not be able to see the exhibition.' He withdrew, leaving me alone in the dark, went into the next room, and commenced the exhibition—a sort of phantasmagoria—to me, sufficiently surprising; for the phantasmagoria had not at that time been brought before the public. One of the figures was a whole-length likeness of myself, which suddenly vanished, and was replaced by a skeleton. The exhibition finished, the conjuror returned with the lights; and, by way of supper, treated me to a glass of negus and a slice of seed-cake. He then intimated that it was time for me to think of playing the Bedfordshire march, but that before I went he had something to say to me, if I would follow him into the next room. We adjourned: and there, amongst other strange sights, I saw one of the identical bottles containing the thunder and lightning—expected to be blown up sky-high. The conjuror now addressed me. Alluding to the unfortunate affair of the wax, he remarked that his conduct to me had been uniformly kind; that he had always encouraged me, commended my diligence, and helped me in my difficulties. Then, in an appealing tone, he inquired how I could have made such an ungrateful return, as to play him that horrid trick of the wax. At the same time opening a drawer, and producing his corduroys, he pointed out to me their damaged condition, and put it to my best feelings, whether that was the way to recompense kindness such as his. I felt at once that my conduct had been immeasurably bad, and most humbly expressed my compunction. 'No,' said he, 'that is not sufficient. The offence was public, so should be also the reparation. Promise me that to-morrow, before the whole school, you will come up to my desk and apologise.' Perhaps this was only just; but I hesitated. He pressed me; but I would make no such promise. 694 'Very well,' said he, 'it is now time for you to think of returning. You will be sorry for your obstinacy, perhaps, before you get back to the school.' He then accompanied me into the passage, and kindly helped me on with my greatcoat. 'The front door,' said he, 'is fastened for the night. Here, step out this way.' He led me through the back passage into the garden, and opened the garden-gate, outside of which was a field. 'There,' said he, 'follow that path, which runs along by the side of the shrubbery. When you have got to the end of it you will find a gate, which will let you into the road. Good night.'

The night was splendid—a sky without a cloud. The full moon, high up in the heavens, shed a lustre which gave to every prominent object the distinctness of day. But the shrubbery, as I skirted it to gain the road, was dark—dark—dark. At its extremity, however, the moment I emerged from the garden into the field, I descried the gate; and to that point, with my eyes fixed upon it, I directed my steps. Suddenly, to my no small surprise, the gate began to clatter and rattle, as if violently shaken by the wind. This was the more extraordinary, because the night was as calm as it was brilliant; not a breath of air was stirring. Nor was any creature visible; yet still the gate went on, rattle, rattle, clatter, clatter, as if shaking itself for its own amusement. Presently, as though violently pushed by invisible hands, the gate swung wide open; then began swinging backwards and forwards, swing, swing, backwards and forwards, first into the road, then into the field, with a bang of the latch at every swing. The last time it swung fieldways, it stood open of itself; suddenly fixed by an unseen power at its utmost range. Then appeared a tall dark form, gliding into the field through the gateway from the road, and descending towards me by the path. It was the form of the conjuror himself! Yet, in its appearance, there was something appalling, and, I may say, unearthly. It did not step out, neither did it altogether glide. With a motion compounded of the two, it first advanced one leg, then, after a long interval, the other, still moving towards me at a slow, uniform rate. One arm was solemnly extended, with the forefinger pointing to the moon: and, as the tall image approached and passed me, I could distinctly discern the uplifted visage of the conjuror, stern but calm, his head turned slightly on one side, his brow knit, his eyes fixed upon the moon. Without looking behind me to see what became of him after he passed, I hurried on; and had already arrived within about fifty paces of the gate, when it again began to rattle and swing as violently as at first—again stood open—and again the same form appeared, gliding, as before, from the road into the field, and descending towards me down the path. The arm was still extended; the finger still pointed majestically to the moon; the movement also, a mixture of striding and sliding, was still the same. But the conjuror's face, not turned as before towards the moon, was this time directed towards me. The eyes glared full in mine—but, oh, what eyes! They had stolen the gleam of the luminary on which they were fixed before; each eye was a moon! the window of a brain that glowed internally with a white heat! With a look of horrid vacuity fixed on my face, again it passed; and I, not at all coveting a third interview, cut away for the gate, and up the road homewards. I had no recollection of what occurred afterwards, till I was roused from my slumbers next morning by Miss Quintilian, who stood by my bedside with a lump of sugar and something nice in a teacup, which, she said, her pa had ordered me to take. We broke up, returned to school after the holidays, and found a new writing-master, the conjuror's cottage shut up, and the conjuror himself gone—nobody knew whither. Miss Quintilian said she would tell me how he went, if I promised not to mention it to her pa:—she had seen him with her own eyes, riding away over the church, astride on a broomstick.—Now, sir," added Gingham, bowing to Mr Belvidere, "I trust that you will favour us. By the bye, Colonel, before We proceed, hadn't I better brew my promised bowl of punch?"

"My story will be a very short 695 one," said Mr Belvidere, who spoke little, and, as it afterwards appeared, had a mighty matter on his mind.

The chairman, governed by the evident sense of the company, awarded priority to the punch. Gingham stepped aside, the steward was smart with the kettle, and in less than two minutes a fresh bowl was on the table. With such punch in Olympus, suffice it to say, nectar had soon become a drug. The chairman now called on Mr Belvidere, who proceeded forthwith to relate

THE TRIAL.

"I was once staying at Bath, about fifteen years ago, and, while there, became very thick with the officers of an English cavalry regiment. One day, when I dined at the mess, it so happened that there was also present a young gentleman, a sub, who had joined that morning. It was a practice in many regiments, in those days, I suppose I need not mention, when a sub joined, to take the first opportunity of trying him, as it was called—that is, trying his mettle. In the present instance, the time fixed was dinner. The youth was quiet and well-bred, a little reserved, and apparently not quite at home. Doubts were expressed whether he would show pluck. When dinner was on table, and we were all assembled, the senior officer present politely requested the young stranger to take the office of vice; and he, with equal politeness assenting, seated himself at the bottom of the table. A grim-looking countryman of mine, the major of the regiment, a jovial red-faced off-hand sort of a personage, full of whisky and waggery, was the individual appointed to make the customary trial, and took his seat at table to the vice-president's left. Soup and fish removed, an attendant placed before the young gentleman a boiled leg of mutton. Presently the major, addressing him, said, 'I'll thank you for a bit of that vale.'—'I beg your pardon,' said Mr Vice; 'I rather think it's mutton, not veal: shall I have the pleasure of helping you?' The major made no reply. Presently the major began again: 'I'll thank you for a bit of that vale.'—'I tell you,' said the sub, 'it's not veal; it's mutton. Shall I give you some?' Again the major was silent. After a pause, the major renewed the attack: 'I'll thank you for a bit of that vale.'—'I'll soon let you know whether it's veal or mutton,' said the newly-arrived, jumping up. Then, with one hand seizing the leg of mutton by the knuckle, with the other the major by the collar, and wielding the gigot like a club, he banged it about the major's sconce till the company interposed. The major, fairly basted with half-raw gravy, and dripping with caper-sauce, flung up both his arms above his head, in an ecstasy of delight, and, exultingly waving his hands, exclaimed at the top of his voice, 'He'll do! he'll do!' Perhaps we shall now be favoured with a story or a song by Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget."

"Yes, yes," said the Colonel, laughing, "the old major took it all with a very good grace; a capital fellow he was, too. Sorry to say, one of his peepers got a little damaged, though, on the occasion. I could not do that, now that I am minus a claw."

"Why, Colonel d'Arbley!" said Mr Belvidere, looking the Colonel very hard in the face, "I really ought to apologise. Wasn't at all aware that the hero of my story was sitting at the head of the table. Ah, I see—I recollect. The same features; yes, exactly. I think, though, Colonel, you were not then quite so tall."

"Well," replied the Colonel, "I'm not quite sure that I had done growing. I entered the service young. Now, Mr Pledget, sir, if you please."

"I really feel quite at a loss, sir," said Pledget. "I have served in different parts of the world; but I positively never met with anything half so curious and interesting as the extraordinary incidents which I have heard this evening."

"Why, Pledget, man," said the Major, "you were on the expedition to Buenos Ayres. Come, tell us something about those lassoing fellows, or the lovely señoras, with their fine-turned ankles and slaughtering eyes."

"I'll tell you," said Pledget, "something that I picked up at the Cape, on the passage. It relates to a celebrated 696 traveller, who was generally known at Cape Town by the name of

THE NATURALIST.

While we were lying at Table Bay, I resided for a few days on shore. It so happened that I took up my residence in the same lodgings which had formerly been occupied by the traveller in question, the well-known Mons. V—. The landlord, antiquated, good-humoured old Dutchman, delighted to talk of his illustrious guest, and told me anecdotes of him. V—, it appears, afforded the household much amusement. One day he had found what he considered a very curious green bug, which he placed, alive, in a paper box. The green bug, however, thought fit to make its escape from the box, and walked away. V—, soon missing the fugitive, was in an agony—searched the room—searched the house—ran about, asking everybody he met, had they seen his green bug? Meanwhile, watching an opportunity while V—'s back was turned, the landlord's son took a hair-pencil of green paint, and painted on a panel of the apartment an exact fac-simile of the green bug. Presently, in a perfect fever of excitement, the naturalist returned, still inquiring eagerly for his green bug. The family looked innocent, shook their heads, and said nothing. V— again began to search the room, till at length his eyes lighted on the panel. 'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'my green bug! Ah, I have finded you now, my dear little naughty green bug!' 'Ah non!' he added, after two or three ineffectual attempts to pick the picture off the panel—'ah non! it not is my little green bug!' Whether V— was near-sighted, I know not. But, if so, I can easily account for his mistaking a painted green bug for a real one; for, gentlemen, I am slightly near-sighted myself," said Pledget; "and last autumn, I do assure you, while I was out shooting on my brother's estate in Kent, a humble-bee got up right under my nose, and I actually blazed away at it with both barrels, mistaking it for a pheasant. I know it was nothing but a humble-bee; for my shooting companion, a young Oxonian, my own nephew in fact, positively assured me. I can't help thinking I must be a little near-sighted. Well, but that is not all about V—. The Dutchman one day, observing him so very curious in entomology, collected a variety of richly-coloured filaments from the plumage of birds, shreds of silk, &c.; then caught some fine blue-bottles; fastened the filaments to the blue-bottles with gum; and, when V— was out, turned the blue-bottles loose in his bedroom. V— came home—went direct to his sleeping apartment—the whole household, assembled and listening, stood outside in the passage. Presently the row began. V— was heard within, first uttering cries of astonishment and delight, then flouncing about the room, jumping over the bed, capsizing the water-jug, in hot pursuit of the nondescript varieties of the blue-bottle. At length a heavy bang was followed by a dead silence; then came a cry of piteous lamentation. The family entered, with sympathising looks. Poor V— had broken his shin, in an attempt to leap the table. The females rushed for brown paper and vinegar. The wounded man was extricated from the upturned legs of the table, and led out limping into the common apartment, to be doctored. The landlord, profiting by the opportunity, opened the bedroom window, and the blue-bottles escaped. The naturalist, who never knew by what means he had been beguiled, made frequent, and I need not say vain, inquiries, for similar 'prit littel bottle blue homing-beards.'—I beg leave to call on my friend the Major."

"I," said the Major, "as well as Captain Gabion, was on the retreat to Corunna, and now beg leave to relate an incident connected with

THE EMBARKATION.

After we had served out the French, on the heights there, just above the town, we had no farther trouble to signify, so far as they were concerned—a pretty deal, though, in getting our own army embarked. I was the last man on shore but two. Towards the close of the business, I went down to the place of embarkation—found old Blue Breeches (a sobriquet which I had in the morning been scandalised by hearing applied to my honoured father) there, the officer in 697 charge, superintending. There he was, up to his knees in the surf, giving his orders, helping the wounded into the boats with his own hands, directing everything. Such a precious scene of noise and confusion I never witnessed. 'Hadn't you better embark at once, sir?' said he. 'No—I'd rather wait a while,' said I. 'Hadn't you better go in this boat?' said he. 'No, sir; I'll go in the boat you go in,' said I. 'Then you'll have to wait quite to the last; I intend to be the last man off,' said he. 'Very well,' said I. 'If you really mean to wait, sir, I shall have to request your assistance,' said he. Didn't quite understand what that meant, but determined to stick to Old Blue Breeches. Don't you see? It was my best card. You don't suppose I was going to be boated off to a transport, when I could go home in a seventy-four? Well, sir, at length the men were all embarked—the sick, the wounded, every man John of them. The last boat-load had shoved off, and there now only remained the captain's own gig, ready to take us on board. Of course, I expected we should be off, like the rest, without delay. No, no; Old Blue Breeches had a different way of doing business. He turns round to me, and says, 'I am, going to take a walk through the town, sir. Will you favour me with your company?' 'Should hardly think there was time for that, sir,' said I; 'but if it will answer any purpose, and you really mean to go, I shall be happy to go with you.' Thought some of the French might have got in. 'I want to look into the different wine-houses,' said he, 'just to see if there are any stragglers. Am ordered to bring all off: shouldn't like to leave a man behind.' Away we went—he, I, and old Powers, the Irish coxswain, almost as rum an old chap as Old Blue Breeches himself. He searched all the wine-shops for stragglers—found none. Besides our three selves, there wasn't an Englishman in Corunna. Came back through the sally-port that opened on the place of embarkation. At the sally-port Old Blue Breeches made a halt, rummaged in his pocket, brought out the key. 'Took care to secure this yesterday,' said he: 'just wait a moment, while I lock the door.' He locked it, and brought away the key. Down we went to the boat. I hung behind, wanting to be the last man off. Old Powers was playing the same game, but it wouldn't do. 'Now, sir, if you please,' said Old Blue Breeches; 'company first.' In I got. 'Won't I help yer honour in?' said Powers to Old Blue Breeches. 'No, no, old fellow,' said he; 'that won't do, you know. Get in first yourself, and help me in afterwards.' Powers grinned, and tumbled in over the stern. Old Blue Breeches got in last. We shoved off. 'Three cheers, yer honour?' said Powers, as he took his seat by the tiller. 'Ay, ay; three cheers,' said Old Blue Breeches; 'and may the French soon catch such another whopping.' Three hearty cheers by the boat's crew, and away we pulled for the ship. Old Blue Breeches and I, both of us pretty considerably done up. Neither spoke for some minutes. Thought I should like to have that key; took a fancy to it. 'I suppose you mean to keep the key?' said I. 'Indeed you may say that,' said he. 'I do mean to keep it; and I have got another to put to it. Last mail ashore here at Corunna; so I was at Toulon, in 1793. Then, also, I locked the gate, and brought away the key.' Now that's what I call cool.—Will you favour us, Captain Gabion?"

"I should esteem it a favor," replied the Captain, "if I might be permitted to tell my story last. Perhaps the gentleman opposite to me," (bowing to Joey,) "will have the kindness to take his turn now. Mine will then be the only one remaining. Mr Chairman, will you sanction this arrangement?" The chairman bowed. Joey began:—

"A previous narrator remarked, that no one had told either a ghost-story, a love story, or a pathetic story. The first deficiency he himself supplied; and, though I cannot say that I ever saw a ghost, I certainly never experienced anything so like seeing one, as while I listened to that extraordinary and appalling narrative. I, gentlemen, have no love story to tell, but I have a story of true pathos; and you shall hear it, if such is your pleasure." 698

In token of my acquiescence, I stepped to my berth, took out two white pocket-handkerchiefs, handed one to Joey, and kept the other ready for use.

"Gentlemen," said Joey, depositing the disregarded cambric on the table, "I will tell my story, but only on one condition. It is no fiction; and what I stipulate is this—that, since I relate it with a heart still wrung by recollection, as to men of manly feeling, and in perfect good faith, so you will listen with seriousness and sympathy."

We looked at each other. Each made up a face; all were grave, or appeared so; and Joey, with great earnestness of manner, and a voice husky with emotion, commenced the narrative of

THE MONKEY AND THE CAT.

"While I was serving on board the East India Company's cruiser the Jackal, we were one time employed surveying in the Persian Gulf. Being infested with rats, we one day requested our interpreter, when he went ashore, to bring off with him a cat from the nearest village. He returned, bearing in his arms, gentlemen, such an extraordinary specimen of feline beauty as, I will venture to say, has never graced a British menagerie, or sat upon any hearth-rug in the United Empire. Her elegance, her gentleness, her symmetry, I will not wrong, by attempting to describe: I should feel the poverty of the English language. Her two eyes had each a charm peculiar to itself. One was a pure celestial blue, the other green as an emerald. It was at once felt, by every officer on board, that a creature so superb was not to be employed in the vulgar office of catching rats. Our only thought was, to treat her with the care and tenderness which her beauty merited. As she was unquestionably the princess of cats, and as her coat was a soft tawny, in hue somewhat resembling the odoriferous powder of which our friend Mr Capsicum makes such copious use—combining the two circumstances, we agreed to call her Princeza. Princeza at once established herself as the pet of the ship. What wonder? We had no other domestic animal on board, save one solitary monkey—his name Jocko, his character, I grieve to say, a revolting compound of artifice, egotism, and low malignity.

But now a new circumstance arose, which increased our interest in the lovely Princeza. Almost immediately she arrived on board, it became evident, from unmistakable indications, that she was about to be a mother. Her interesting situation, indeed, might have been detected by an observant eye, when she first embarked. In anticipation of the earnestly expected event, it was decided that Princeza should be provided with every accommodation in the officers' cabin. A basket, appropriated to her use, was lined and half-filled with the warmest and softest materials; and in the cabin this basket was deposited. Not that we apprehended injury from the crew. Oh no! our only fear was, that Princeza and her expected little ones would be over-nursed, over-petted, over-fed—in short, killed with kindness. Judge, gentlemen, what were my emotions, when, one morning early, returning to the cabin from my duty on deck, I heard Princeza purring in her basket with more than usual vehemence, and discovered, on examination, that she had become the happy mother of four dear little lovely kittens." Here Joey's voice quite broke down. At length, mastering his emotions, he proceeded: "Well, gentlemen; anxious to examine the little interesting accessions, I softly introduced my hand into the basket. But Princeza was now a mother, and had a mother's feelings. Doubtless apprehending injury to her little offspring—ah! could I have injured them?—in an instant, poor thing, she got my hand in chancery. Her foreclaws, struck deep, held me faster than a vice; with her hind claws she rasped away the flesh, spurring like a kangaroo; while, with her formidable teeth, she masticated my knuckles. After admiring awhile this affecting illustration of maternal tenderness, I attempted to withdraw my hand. But, ah, gentle creature! she only struck her claws the deeper, spurred more vigorously, and chewed with redoubled energy. Only by assistance was I extricated; nor was 699 my hand perfectly recovered, till a fortnight after Princeza was herself no more! Well, gentlemen; for greater security it was now resolved that, every night at eight o'clock, Princeza's basket should be set on the cabin table. There it was placed the first night; and next morning, one of the kittens was found—can I utter it?—dead! No malice was suspected: the disaster was attributed to natural causes. Another night came. We used no precautions. In the morning, we found another kitten—dead! Suspicion was now awake, but overlooked the real culprit. The third night, I determined to watch. The basket stood, as before, upon the table: Princeza, with her two remaining little ones, lay snug and warm within: a lamp, burning near the entrance, shed its light throughout the cabin; and I, with my curtain all but closed, kept watch within my berth. In the dead of the night, when all between decks was quiet, save the snoring of the men, the flitting of a shadow made me sensible that some one, or something, was moving in the cabin. Presently, approaching stealthily, like Tarquin, or Shakspeare's wolf, appeared—gentlemen, I saw it with my eyes—the form of Jocko! With silent grimaces, advancing on all fours, stealthily, stealthily, a step at a time, he approached, he reached the table. There awhile he paused; then threw a somerset, and alighted upon it. The moment he was landed, the pricked ears and anxious face of Princeza appeared above the basket. He approached. She stirred not, but continued to observe him, with all a mother's fears depicted in her countenance. Jocko now laid one paw upon the basket's edge. Still Princeza moved not. Blackest of villains! he cuffed her—cuffed her again—again;—in short, repeated his cuffs, till, terrified and bewildered, the unhappy mother leaped from the basket on the table, from the table on the floor, and flew out of the cabin. Then did that monster in a monkey's form quietly take her place, and settle himself down for a night's rest, in the midst of the warmth and comfort from which he had ejected the lawful tenant. All was now discovered. The double murderer of the two preceding nights lay housed and genial in that basket. Anxious to see and know the whole, up to this moment I had controlled myself. But now, too hastily, I rushed from my berth, to seize the detected culprit. The noise alarmed him. Snatching up a kitten in one paw he sprang from the cabin—on deck—up the rigging. Pursued, though it was night, he dodged his pursuers, taking advantage of the gloom. At length, hard pressed, seeing his retreat cut off and his capture inevitable, he dashed the kitten into the briny deep, and suffered himself to be taken. With difficulty I preserved him from the fury of the men. Suffice it to say, that night he was kept close prisoner in a hencoop, and, next morning, hanged. But oh, how shall I relate the sequel? The remaining kitten was found severely injured, crushed doubtless by Jocko's incumbent weight, and died within eight-and-forty hours. The mother, bereaved of all her little ones, went mewing about the ship as if in search of them, languished and pined away, refused all consolation, and expired about eight days after. We now became sensible of our loss in its full extent: and this, gentlemen, was felt by all on board to be the acme of our grief—the ship was left without a pet! Oh, could we have recalled Princeza and her kittens! Oh, could we have recalled even Jocko!"

At the conclusion of this tragic narrative, which was recounted to the end with unaffected feeling, the company awhile remained silent, respecting Joey's sensibilities. Joey looked very much as if my tender of the cambric had not been altogether superfluous. At length the conversation was renewed by Gingham.

"Your truly affecting story has a moral, sir. I am an observer of the habits of animals. Monkeys are very fond of warmth."

"Well, sir," replied Joey, with a deep-drawn sigh, "I should like to hear your moral at any rate."

"The fact is, sir," said Gingham, "on board ship, what is a poor wretch of a monkey to do? At night, probably, he is driven to the rigging. He would gladly nestle with the men, but the men won't have him; for, to 700 say nothing of the general ridicule a fellow would incur by having a monkey for his bedfellow, ten to one the poor wretch is swarming with fleas as big as jackasses, to say nothing of enormous ticks in the creases of his dirty skin. Monkeys, sir, like dogs, scratch themselves a great deal, but cleanse themselves very little. Now depend upon it, when the weather is cold and the wind high, monkeys never sleep in trees. Is it likely then, on board ship, that they prefer sleeping aloft?—that is, if a monkey ever sleeps. Did you ever see a monkey asleep?"

"Can't say I ever did," replied Joey. "I have seen them nodding. But the moral?"

"The moral," said Gingham, "is simply this. The next time you sail with a monkey and a cat on board, if you provide a basket for the cat, provide another for the monkey."

"Obviously!" replied Joey. "Would we had thought of that on board the Jackal! Obviously!"

"Exactly," said Gingham; "so I conjectured. Otherwise I should consider the hanging of a monkey no easy matter."

"The punch is nearly out," replied the Captain, "and, if I might be excused, I should really feel thankful for the indulgence. I have nothing to tell but an ugly dream; and that dream relates to a subject which, as I believe my military friends here present are aware, is constantly and painfully present to my mind. The less said about it the better."

"Come, come, Captain Gabion," said the Colonel; "never think of that, man. You'll see Old England again, I tell you, and rise to rank in the service. Come, give us your story."

It is well known that, among the officers who embarked for the Peninsula, there was occasionally one who quitted his native shores with a strong presentiment that he should never see them again, but fall in action. In such instances the mind retained the impression almost constantly. It was not the coward's fear of death—far from it. If ever it was forgotten, the moment was that of conflict and peril; and then, it was sometimes realised.

The Captain was about to reply, when a musical voice, pitched in alto, was heard from the state-cabin:—"Kitty, Kitty, come down; come down, I tell you. You'll catch your death o' cold, standing there in the draught without your bonnet. Come down, child, this instant."

Kitty was now seen gliding from the foot of the cabin stairs into her mistress's apartment. The Colonel's keen eye glanced in that direction; ours took the same. A pair of legs was distinctly visible at the bottom of the stairs.

"Cupid, you villain! Cupid!" shouted the Colonel, "come here; come directly, sir. Aboard or ashore, that rascal never misses an opportunity of making love. Here, Cupid! Cupid!"

The Colonel's gentleman, with innocence pictured in his countenance, now entered, stepped quietly up to the foot of the table, and respectfully twitched his forelock.

"What are you about there on the cabin stairs, sir?" said the Colonel. "Can't you let the young woman be quiet, and be hanged to ye?"

"I vos owny a-cummin down into the cab'n, yer honour, jist to see if yer honour vaunted hennythink!"

The Colonel's gentleman, I ought to have stated before this, was an old light dragoon, and a Cockney. He had lost an eye, on the same occasion when the Colonel lost an arm; obtained his discharge; and from that time followed the Colonel's fortunes. His loss, I presume, had gained him the name of Cupid. He was a civil, well-behaved, handy fellow enough; had that particular way of speaking, emphatic, and gesticulatory, which distinguishes old soldiers who have got their discharge; made himself universally useful to the Colonel, and helped him to dress and undress, morning and evening, the Colonel being dependent from the loss of a fin. Cupid, in consequence, was a privileged person: 701 had the entrée of the cabin at all times and seasons; and, being ready and sometimes sentimental in his replies, seldom made his appearance amongst us without being assailed with questions on all sides. The Colonel was now about to give him a regular jobation, but the Major struck in.

"I say, Cupid, very convenient for courtship those cabin stairs in rainy weather. Eh, Cupid?"

"Courtship, yer honour!" said Cupid. "I vosn't not a-doin nothink of the kind. I vos owny a-meditatin, like."

"Oh, meditating were you, though, Cupid?" said Captain Gabion. "Well, pray what were you meditating about? Come, tell us your thoughts."

"Vhy, sir," replied Cupid, "I vos a-meditatin upon the hair and upon the sea. Got plenty of bofe vhere ve now are; nothink helse, has I can see; so it vos owny natral I should meditate. And I vos jist a-thinkin this: that the hair is made for men, and the sea is made for fishes, heach for heach; and t'other von't do for nayther. Pull a fish hout of his own heliment hinto the hair, and he dies. And pitch a man hout of his own heliment hinto the sea, and he's drownded."

"Really, Cupid," said Capsicum, "that never struck me before. It's very curious."

"Wherry," said Cupid. "But, please yer honour, I thought of somethink helse, vitch I consider it's more kew-russer still. And that's this: that, though too much vorter drownds a man, and too much hair kills a fish, yit a fish can't do vithout a little hair, and a man can't do vithout a little drink." Cupid's eye, as if he had said too much, dropped, and fell upon the punch-bowl.

Amidst the general applause and merriment excited by this appeal, I pushed over a tumbler to Joey, who took up the punch-bowl, and soon transferred its remaining contents into the glass, which he handed, brimming, to Cupid. The next moment it stood empty on the table. Cupid smacked his lips.

"Cupid," said the Colonel in a tone of authority, "what's your opinion of that punch?"

"Pertickerly obleeged to yer honour," replied Cupid, "and to haul the company vot's present." Cupid then made a nip at his knee, as if suddenly bit; and, availing himself of the stoop, whispered Joey: "Please, sir, did the Cornal brew it hisself?" With a twitch of the mouth, and a twist of the eye, Joey indicated Gingham.

"Come, Cupid," said the Colonel, "I want a direct answer. Tell me your opinion of that punch." The Colonel had a plot.

"Vell, yer honour," said Cupid, "I haulvays speaks the troof, except I'm hordered the contary. Pleasant tipple, wherry. But if so be I hadn't not a' seed it in the punch-bowl, vhy, I shouldn't not a' knowed it vos punch, not no how."

"What drink do you like best, Cupid?" said the Major. "What d'ye think of water, now?"

"Vhy, I think this, yer honour," replied Cupid: "I'm a pertickler dislike to vorter; that's vot I think. I vouldn't ride no oss into no vorter, no, not for nothink."

"The fact is, gentlemen," said the Colonel, "Cupid thinks no man can brew a bowl of punch like himself. What say you?—shall we give him a trial?"

Capsicum consented—Gingham consented—we all consented. The third bowl of punch was carried by acclamation. Cupid retired to brew.

"If he beats mine," said Capsicum, "I'll give him half-a-guinea for the recipe."

"A guinea," said the Colonel, "with a promise not to communicate. Cupid never takes less."

Cupid returned with the punch-bowl, having executed the arcana aside. His punch had the aroma of arrack, though not arrack punch in the strict sense of the word. Capsicum's was a nosegay; Gingham's beat nectar; but Cupid's put them both out of court, by consent of the company. "Now, Captain Gabion," said the Colonel, "we'll trouble you for your story." 702

"Without disparagement of our previous brewers," said the Captain, "my feeling at the present moment is just this, that I never drank punch before. Well, gentlemen, if you will have it so, I proceed to relate

MY DREAM.

Some of the friends here assembled are well aware—why should I conceal it?—that, for several months past, a load has been pressing on my mind. They are also aware of the cause. I certainly have an impression that I shall never see England again. But how that impression began, they are not aware. What I am now about to relate will afford the explanation. Yet what is the subject of my narrative? A dream—a mere dream; and a dream easily accounted for by the circumstances in which it was dreamt. So it is. Colonel d'Arbley knows, the Major knows, that I never shrank from peril. I have faced death; to all appearance, certain death. And, unless I felt prepared to do the like again, I should not have been now returning to the army;—no, I would rather have quitted the service. Death I am prepared at any time to meet; yet this presentiment of death is a burden upon my spirits. By the bye, my glass is empty. Hadn't I better replenish it ere I begin?

You are aware, sir, that ill health, the effect of hard service and hard knocks, obliged me to return to England last spring. In the course of the autumn, I quitted Cheltenham, and resided at Woolwich. There, I was at a military party. We kept it up all night. Next morning, I was unexpectedly summoned to London; and, on my arrival, found work cut out for me,—papers to be prepared—public offices to be visited—lots of going about—lots of writing—all wanted instantly. Some parliamentary wretch had moved for returns, and I was to get them up. In short, the work could be done in time only by my again sitting up all night. It was on the day after these two sleepless nights that I had my dream. Where, do you think? And at what hour? At noon, with the sun shining above my head, on a bench in St James's Park.

I had just been calling in at the Horse-Guards for a chat, my business completed, the excitement over, and was proceeding westward on foot along the Birdcage Walk, when I began to feel nervous and done up. All at once, my faculties experienced a sort of collapse. My whole frame was seized with a deadly chill; I shivered spasmodically; my strength seemed gone; and I became most enormously drowsy. Just at that moment—I suppose it was some anniversary, a birthday perhaps—bang, bang, the Park guns commenced firing, close at hand. In the midst of the firing, I sat down on a bench, and, in no time, dropped asleep. Then began my dream.

It was a general action. The curious circumstance is, that I was still in the Park. The guns firing a holiday salute became the French position, which occupied the plateau of a low range of hills. At the foot of this range, in an avenue extending along its foot, was I alone. The firing went on, bang-banging, now no longer a feu-de-joie—the report was that of shotted guns. I heard not only their discharge, but the moan of the balls, and the whisk of the grape; yes, and the rattle of musketry, the shouts of men charging, and all that kind of thing. I saw the dust, the smoke, the occasional flash, quite as much as you can see of any battle if you're in it. Yet, all this time, I knew I was in the Birdcage Walk. Presently, in the direction of the Green Park, I heard a more distant cannonade, which was that of the British position. It was now time to change mine; for some of the shot from our guns began to pass up the avenue, close to me, tearing, rasping up the gravel, crashing among the trees, cutting down boughs, and rifting the trunks. Yet something kept me fixed. At length, looking in the direction of the British position, I distinctly saw a round-shot come hopping up the avenue—hop—hop—hop—nearer and nearer—but slowly—slowly—slowly; it seemed all but spent. Just when I thought it had done hopping, it took one more jump, and, with a heavy pitch, fetched me an awful polt in the right side. That moment I felt that I was a dead man; killed in action, yet by a friendly ball, and while sitting on a bench in St James's Park! The vision now 703 passed. The noise and firing ceased; troops, smoke, dust—all the concomitants of combat vanished; the Birdcage Walk and its beautiful environs resumed their ordinary appearance.

Presently, while still sitting on the bench, I was accosted by a tall sallow-looking gentleman in black, who smirked, bowed, and handed me a letter with a broad black border—the seal, a tombstone and a weeping willow. It was addressed to myself—an invitation to attend a funeral. I pleaded my engagements—wanted to get back to Woolwich—begged to be excused. 'Sir,' said he, in courteous accents, 'you really must oblige us. Unless you are present, the funeral cannot take place. Hope you won't disappoint us, sir. I am the undertaker, sir.' I somehow felt that I had no choice, and went. The gentleman in black met me at the door.

Other parties were assembled at the mansion; but not one of the company—I thought it rather strange—either spoke to me, or looked at me, or showed the least consciousness of my presence. The undertaker was all attention; handed round black kid gloves; fitted first one with a hatband, then another; and, last of all, addressed me: 'Now, sir, if you please, this way, sir; we only wait for you, sir.' I followed him. He led me into an adjoining apartment, where stood the coffin, surrounded by mutes. I wished to read the name on the lid, but was prevented by the pall.

How we got to the place of interment, I recollect not. The only thing I remember is this: as I saw the coffin carried down stairs, hoisted into the hearse, conveyed, hoisted out, and at last deposited by the side of the grave—every movement, every jolt, every thump, seemed to jar my whole system with a peculiar and horrid thrill. The service was performed, the coffin was lowered, the grating of the ropes grated upon my very soul; and the dust sprinkled by the sexton on its lid blew into my mouth and eyes, as I stood by the brink of the grave, and looked on. The service concluded, the undertaker, attendants, and company withdrew; and, what d'ye think?—there was I left remaining in the burial-ground, with no companion but a solitary gravedigger! He set to work, and began shovelling in the clods, to fill the grave. I heard their thud; I seemed to feel it, as they rattled in quick succession on the lid of the coffin.

'You'll soon be filled in and all right, old feller,' said the gravedigger, as he proceeded with his work.

A strange idea had gradually occupied my mind. It seemed absurd—impossible; and yet it offered the only conceivable solution of my sensations at that horrid moment. I addressed the gravedigger,—

'Whose funeral?' replied the gravedigger. 'Come, that's a good un. Vhy, it's YOUR OWN.'—I'll trouble you for a little more punch." 704

SPAIN UNDER NARVAEZ AND CHRISTINA.

The condition of Spain since the last French revolution, and especially since the commencement of the present year, has been taken as a theme of unbounded self-gratulation by persons who ascribe her tranquillity and alleged prosperity to their own patriotism and skill. For many months past, the friends, organs, and adherents of the dominant Camarilla have not ceased to call attention to the flourishing state of the country; repeatedly challenging the Continent to produce such another example of good government, internal happiness, and external dignity, as is now afforded by the fortunate land which their patrons and masters rule. When so many European states are revolutionised and unsettled, it is indeed pleasant to hear this good report of one which we have not been accustomed to consider a model for the imitation of its neighbours. Delightful it is to learn that Spain has cast her blood-stained slough of misrule, discord, and corruption, and glitters in renovated comeliness, an example to the nations, a credit and a blessing to herself, a monument of the disinterested exertions and unwearied self-devotion of her sage and virtuous rulers. We are anxious to believe that these glowing accounts are based upon fact, and worthy of credence—not a delusion and a blind; and that the happiness and prosperity so ostentatiously vaunted exist elsewhere than in the invention of those interested in proclaiming them. But we cannot forget that the evidence produced is entirely ex-parte, or lose sight of the great facility with which the French and English press and public accord credit and praise to the present government of Spain, simply on its own or its partisans' assertions of the great things it has done, and is about to do. It is not easy to obtain a correct knowledge of the condition of the bulk of the Spanish nation. That the country prospers means, in the mouths of the schemers and place-hunters of Madrid, and of the smugglers of the frontier, that there is a brisk flow of coin into their own pockets. That it is tranquil signifies that no rebellious banner is openly displayed in its territory. No matter that the government is carried on by shifts, by forced loans and forestalled taxes and ruinous contracts; that the public servants of all grades, irregularly paid, and with bad examples before them, peculate and take bribes; that the widow and the orphan, the maimed soldier and the superannuated pensioner, continually with long arrears due to them, are in rags, misery, and starvation; that to the foreign creditor is given, almost as a favour, no part of the interest due upon the capital he has disbursed, but the interest on a small portion of the accumulation of unpaid dividends; that the streets and highways swarm with mendicants, and are perilous from the multitude of robbers; that the insecurity of life and property in country-places drives the rich proprietors into the towns, and prevents their expending their capital in the improvement of their property; and that the peasantry, deprived of instruction, example, and encouragement, deprived too, by the badness and scarcity of the communications, of an advantageous market for their produce, sink, as a natural consequence, daily deeper into sloth, ignorance, and vice. What matter all these things? The miseries of the suffering many are lightly passed over by the prosperous few: in Spain the multitude have no voice, no remedy but open and armed resistance. Thus it is that Spanish revolutions and popular outbreaks startle by their suddenness. Until the victim openly rebels, his murmurs are unheard: the report of his musket is the first intimation of his misery. In England and in France, abuses, oppression, and injustice, of whatever kind, cannot long be kept from the light. It is very different in Spain, under the present régime. There the liberty of the press is purely nominal, and no newspaper dares denounce an abuse, however flagrant, or speak above its breath on subjects whose discussion is unpleasing to the governing powers. On the first indication of such presumption, number after number of the 705 offending journal is seized, fines are inflicted, and if the editors audaciously persevere, they may reckon with tolerable certainty on exile or a prison. On the other hand, the ministerial and Camarilla organs, those of the Duke of Valencia and of Señor Sartorius, and of the dowager queen, and even of the dowager's husband—for his Grace of Rianzares follows the fashion, and has a paper at his beck, (partly for his assistance in those stock exchange transactions whose pursuit has more than once dilapidated his wife's savings,)—papers of this stamp, we say, carefully disguise or distort all facts whose honest revelation would be unpleasant or discreditable to their employers. From the garbled and imperfect statements of these journals, which few Frenchmen, and scarcely any Englishmen, ever see, the "Madrid correspondents" of French and English newspapers—not a few of whom reside in Paris or London—compile their letters, and editors derive their data (for want of better sources) when discussing the condition and prospects of Spain. Hence spring misapprehension and delusion. Spain is declared to be prosperous and happy; and Spanish bondholders flatter themselves, for the hundredth time, with, the hope of a satisfactory arrangement—to which their great patience certainly entitles them, and which they might as certainly obtain were the ill-administered revenues of Spain so directed as to flow into the public coffers, and not into the bottomless pockets of a few illustrious swindlers, and of the legion of corrupt underlings who prop a system founded on immorality and fraud. The system is rotten to the core, and the prosperity of Spain is a phantom and a fallacy. Not that she is deficient in the elements of prosperity: on the contrary, the country has abundant vitality and resource, and its revenue has been for years increasing, in the teeth of misgovernment, and of a prohibitive tariff, which renders the customs' revenue almost nominal. But it matters little how many millions are collected, if they be intercepted on their way to the exchequer, or squandered and misappropriated as soon as gathered in.

In the absence of better evidence as to the real state of the country than that whose untrustworthiness we have denounced, the narrative of an unprejudiced and intelligent traveller in Spain has its value; and although the title of a recently published book by Mr Dundas Murray,2 proclaimed it to refer but to one province, yet, as that province comprises many of the principal Spanish posts and cities, we hoped to have found in his pages confirmation or correction of our opinion as to the true condition of the nation, and more particularly of those middling and lower classes whose welfare is too frequently lost sight of in the struggles and projects of political factions. Since those pleasant "Gatherings" in which many home-truths were told with a playful and witty pen, no book on Spain worth naming has appeared; and if Mr Murray's visit be recent, which he does not enable us to decide, he had abundant opportunity during his pretty long residence and active rambles—aided, as we learn he was, by thorough familiarity with the language—to collect materials for a work of no common interest and importance. He has preferred, however, to skim the surface: the romantic and the picaresque, sketches on the road and traditions of Moorish Spain, are evidently more to his taste than an investigation of the condition of the people, and an exposure of social sores and official corruption. His book is a slight but unaffected production, containing much that has been said before, a little that has not, some tolerable descriptions of scenery, a number of legends borrowed from Conde and other chroniclers, and here and there a little personal incident which may almost pass muster as an adventure. Young Englishmen of Mr Murray's class and standard of ability, who start on a tour in Spain, are of course on the look-out for the picturesque, and think it incumbent on them to embody their experiences and observations in a book. Such narratives are usually praiseworthy for good 706 feeling and gentlemanly tone; and indeed would be almost perfect, did they combine with those qualities the equally desirable ones of vigour and originality. But doubtless we shall do well to take them as they come, and be thankful; for it is not every one who has fortitude and courage to travel for any length of time in the flea-and-robber-ridden land of Spain. And as we cannot expect to meet every day with a Widdrington, a Carnarvon, or a Ford, so we must welcome a Murray when he presents himself, look leniently upon his repetitions, and be grateful if he occasionally affords us a hint or a text. It is perhaps a pity that Englishmen do not more frequently turn their steps towards the Peninsula, instead of pertinaciously pursuing the beaten tracks of Italy, Switzerland, the Levant; the furthest of which is now within the leave-of-absence ramble of a desultory guardsman or jaded journalist, covetous of purer air than Fleet Street or St James's afford. Spain, we can assure all who are rovingly inclined—and Mr Murray, we are certain, will corroborate our word—has at least as much to interest as any of the above regions, and much more than most of them. And assuredly an influx of British travellers would, by putting piastres into the pockets of the aborigines, do more than anything else towards improving roads, towards cleansing ventas of the chinches and other light cavalry, against whose assaults Mr Murray was fain to cuirass himself in a flannel bag, towards ameliorating the Iberian cuisine, and diminishing the numbers and audacity of the knights of the road. For, as regards the last-named peril, greatly increased by the dispersion of the republican and Carlist bands, and by the misery prevalent in the country, Englishmen, if they have the reputation of travelling with well-filled pockets and portmanteaus, have also that of fighting stoutly in defence of their property; and if they would make it a rule to travel two or three together, with light purses, a sharp look-out, and a revolver a-piece—or, as Mr Murray and his companion did, each with a double-barrel on his shoulder—they might rest assured there are not many bands of brigands on Spanish roads bold enough to bid them, in the classical phrase of those gentry, "Boca abajo!" which means, freely interpreted, "Down in the dust, and with the dust!" But let the traveller be on his guard against a surprise, and, to that end, avoid as much as possible all night-travelling, especially by diligence, which to many may seem the safest, on account of the society it insures, but which is in reality the most dangerous mode of journeying, for there the pusillanimous hamper and impede the resistance contemplated by the bold, and the bravest man can do little when jammed in amongst screaming women and terrified priests, with a carbine pointing in at each window of the vehicle. We find Mr Murray and his friend riding unmolested through an ambuscade where, a couple of hours later, three calesas full of travellers, including a colonel in the army, were assailed by no more than three highwaymen, and deliberately and unresistingly plundered. For the traveller in Spain there is nothing like the saddle, whether for safety, independence, or comfort; and as to time, why, if he is short of that, he had better not visit the country, for there all things go despacio, which means not with despatch but leisurely, and for one "to-day" he will get twenty "to-morrows," and most of these will never come. And, above all, let him put no faith in the word police, which, in Spain, is a mere figure of speech, the thing it indicates never appearing until it is not wanted; and let him not reckon on an escort, which is rarely to be obtained even by paying, and on roads notoriously dangerous, except by tedious formality of application, to which few will have patience to submit. And even if granted, it usually, as in the case of the calesas above cited, is either too weak to be useful, or lags behind, or fairly turns tail. To which prudent course it is more than suspected that the faithless guards, who are mostly pardoned robbers, are frequently stimulated by promise of a share of the spoil. Nor are they, if all tales be true, the only class in Spain whose duty it is to protect the public, and who foully betray their trust. During this present year of 1849, cited as 707 so prosperous a one in Spain, robberies in the capital, and on the roads within a radius of twenty leagues around it, have been so numerous and audacious, and perpetrated with such impunity, that the finger of public suspicion has pointed very high, and the strangest tales—which to English ears would sound incredible—have been circulated of the collusion of personages whose rank and position would, in any other country, preclude the idea of participation, however secret and indirect, in gains so lawless and iniquitous. But in this, as in many other matters peculiar to the Peninsula, although the few may be convinced, the many will always doubt, and proof it is of course scarcely possible to obtain. In so extensive and thinly peopled a land as Spain, and which has been so long a prey to civil war and insurrection, security of travelling in rural districts, and on cross roads, is only to be obtained by increased cultivation of the soil, and by improving the condition of the peasantry. But in the capital, and on the roads leading to it, and in the towns and villages, some degree of law and order might be expected to prevail. A glance at the Spanish papers, any time for the last six months, proves the contrary to be the case. Their columns are filled with accounts of atrocious assassinations and barefaced robberies in the very streets of Madrid; of diligences stopped, and travellers plundered and abused; of farmers and others carried off to the mountains in open day, and detained until ransomed; and with letters from all parts of the country, complaining of the insecurity of life and property, and of the sluggishness and inefficiency of the authorities. Such statements are of course rarely admitted into the ministerial prints, to read which one would imagine that the very last malefactor in the country had just fallen into the hands of the guardias civiles, and that a virgin might conduct a gold-laden mule from Santander to Cadiz, unguarded and unmolested.

Since the death of Ferdinand, no such opportunity of improving and regenerating Spain has been afforded to a Spanish ministry, really solicitous of their country's good, as during the present year. It opened inauspiciously enough; with an impoverished exchequer, a ruinously expensive army, Cabrera and ten thousand Carlists in arms in eastern Spain, and with insurgent bands, of various political denominations, springing up in Navarre and other provinces. There was every prospect of a bloody civil war in early spring. But causes, similar to those which, on former occasions, had frustrated their efforts, again proved fatal to the hopes of the Carlist party. With great difficulty, and with little aid beyond that of contributions levied in Catalonia, Cabrera had subsisted his troops through the winter. But, when spring approached, money was needed for other purposes besides mere rations. In the civil wars of Spain, gold has often been far more efficacious than steel to overcome difficulties and gain a point. But gold was hard to obtain. Revolutions had raised its value; and those who possessed it were loath to embark it in so hazardous a speculation as the restoration of Count Montemolin. This prince, who, for a Spanish Bourbon, is not deficient in natural ability, has one unfortunate defect, which more than counterbalances his good qualities. Infirm of purpose, he is led by a clique of selfish and unworthy advisers, some of whom—evil counsellors handed down to him by his father—have retained all the influence they acquired over him in his childhood. Amidst the petty wranglings and deplorable indecisions of these men, time wore away. A sum of money (no very large one) was all that was needed to achieve a great object, which would at once have multiplied fifty-fold the prestige of the Montemolinist cause, and have placed vast resources at the disposal of its partisans. Between the sum required and the advantage certain to be obtained, the disproportion was enormous. Letter after letter was received from Cabrera and other promoters of the Montemolinist cause in France and Spain, urging and imploring that, at any sacrifice, the money should be procured. But this was beyond the power of the incapable ojalateros who surrounded the young pretender. Without conduct, energy, or dignity, they had not a single quality 708 calculated to obtain credit or induce confidence. In all their attempts they miserably failed. At last, towards the end of March, a rumour was spread abroad that Count Montemolin was on his way to Catalonia, to head his faithful adherents. Soon this was confirmed by newspaper paragraphs, and presently came a romantic account of his arrest on the frontier, when about to enter Spain. The next news was that of his return to England, which was almost immediately followed by an article in a London paper, denying point-blank that he had ever left this country, declaring that the journey was a hoax, and that the Spanish prince had been arrested by proxy. And although this article, which was extensively copied by the press of England and the Continent, elicited an angry contradiction from a hanger-on of Count Montemolin, yet many persons, of those most versed in the intricacies of Spanish intrigue, were convinced that its statements were founded on fact, and that the Count was in reality secreted in London at the very time he was supposed to be travelling towards the Pyrenees. And some of his own partisans, who credited the reality of the journey, declared their conviction from the first to have been, that he would be betrayed before he got through France, since by that means only could certain individuals, who dared not refuse to accompany him, hope to return to the flesh-pots and security of their London home, and to avoid encountering the perils and hardships of mountain warfare. The abortive journey or clumsy hoax, whichever it was, gave the finishing stroke to the Catalonian insurrection. Cabrera, seeing plainly that nothing was to be hoped from the feeble and pusillanimous junta of advisers who swayed and bewildered Count Montemolin by their intrigues and dissensions, found it necessary, after sending repeated and indignant letters and messages to London, to abandon a contest which it was impossible for him to maintain single-handed, and from which many subordinate chiefs, and a large portion of his troops, had already seceded. His little army fell to pieces, and he himself fell into the hands of the French authorities, by whom, after a brief detention, he was allowed to go at large. The game was now good for General Concha and his fifty thousand men. The scattering and hunting down of the broken bands of insurgents was exactly the sort of amusement they liked; a fine pretext for magnificent bulletins, and the easiest possible way of gaining praise, honours, and decorations. Before summer came, Catalonia was quiet. The most vigorous effort made by the Carlists since the Convention of Bergara; the one offering the best chances of success, and on which the very last resources of the party, (even, it is said, to a few jewels and pictures of price—the last relics of princely splendour,) had been expended; the effort, in short, of whose happy issue such sanguine expectations were entertained, that some of the leading adherents of the cause declared that, "if they failed this time, they deserved never to succeed," had terminated in complete abortion. On the sierras of Spain not a Carlist cockade was to be seen; in the coffers of the party not a dollar remained. Many of its most valued members, disgusted by the weakness of their prince, and by the baseness of his councillors, withdrew from its ranks, and made their peace with the existing government. And now the most steadfast well-wishers of Count Montemolin are compelled to admit, that few contingencies are less probable than his installation on the Spanish throne.

Delivered from the disquietude and expense of civil war, backed by an overwhelming majority in the Chambers, and having no longer anything to fear from that "English influence," of which the organs of Christina and Louis Philippe had made such a bugbear, the Spanish government, it was expected, would deem the moment favourable for those reforms so greatly needed by the country. It was full time, and it was now quite practicable, to adopt extensive and systematic measures of retrenchment in the various departments of the administration; to reduce the army; to regularise and lessen the expense of collecting the revenue, which, like a crop intrusted to negligent and dishonest reapers, is wasted and pillaged in the 709 gathering; to encourage labour and industry; to stimulate private enterprise, to which the tranquillity of Spain was sure to give a first impetus; to encourage and co-operate in the formation of roads and canals, so essential to agriculture, which there languishes for want of them; to give a death-blow to smuggling by an honest and sweeping reform of the absurd tariff; and, if they could not give money to the public creditor, at least to come to a loyal understanding and arrangement with him, instead of vexatiously deluding him with fair promises, never kept. Instead of at once, and in good faith, setting about these, and many other equally requisite reforms, in whose prosecution they would have been supported by a large number of their present political opponents; instead of riveting their attention on the internal maladies and necessities of the country, and striving strenuously for their cure,—turning a deaf ear to the clamorous voices abroad in Europe, and thanking heaven that the position and weakness of their country allowed her to stand aloof from the struggles of her neighbours—what did the Spanish government? They acted like a needy spendthrift who, having suddenly come into possession of a little gold, fancies himself a Crœsus, and squanders it in luxurious superfluities. They had come into possession of a little tranquillity—in Spain a treasure far rarer and more precious than gold—and, instead of using it for their necessities, they lavished it abroad. Aping wealthy and powerful nations, they aspire to interfere in the domestic affairs of others, before thinking of putting their own house in order. Rome is to be the scene of their exploits, religion their pretext, the Pope the gainer by their exertions. From their eagerness in the crusade, it might be supposed that Rome and the pontiff had some great and peculiar claim on the gratitude and exertions of Spain; with which country, on the contrary, ever since the death of Ferdinand of petticoat-making memory, until quite recently, they have been on the worst possible terms—the Holy See having openly supported the cause of Don Carlos, refused the recognition of Isabella, and the investiture of the prelates she appointed, and played a variety of unfriendly pranks, of no material consequence, but yet exceedingly painful and galling to the bigoted portion of the nation, who considered their chances of salvation not a little compromised, so long as their government was thus in evil odour and non-communication with the head of the Church. Altogether, the attitude assumed by Rome towards Spain, since 1833, was most detrimental to Queen Isabella, because it sent a vast number of priests (always active and influential partisans) to the side of the Pretender. Considering these circumstances, when Rome at last, at its own good time, and in consideration of concessions, and also because it suffered pecuniarily by the duration of the rupture, again took Spain into favour, and acknowledged her queen as Most Catholic, Spain, in her impoverished condition, would surely have sufficiently responded by her best wishes for the prosperity of the Pope, and for the safety of his pontifical throne. She might also, if it was desired, have sent that poetical statesman, M. Martinez de la Rosa, to display his eloquence in Italian counsels. But Spanish pride, the bigotry of the queen-mother and her son-in-law, the fanaticism of some, and the hypocrisy of others, could not be contented with this. Pinched, starved, indebted, as Spain is, nothing would serve but to despatch to Italy, at heavy cost, a useless corps d'armée. Little enough has it achieved. The troops have got a bad name by their excesses, and the generals have been treated slightingly, almost contemptuously, by the French commanders, who, doubtless, at sight of the half-disciplined Dons, felt old animosities revive, and thought how much they should prefer a trip to the Trocadero to this inglorious and unprofitable Italian campaign. To console General Cordova and his staff, however, for the necessity of playing second fiddle to the French, they have been praised, and caressed, and decorated by his Holiness, and by that enlightened monarch, Ferdinand of Naples; and they have been allowed to send an aide-de-camp to Barcelona for three nice little Spanish uniforms, which they are to have the honour of 710 presenting to three nice little Neapolitan princes. Whilst this popinjay general and his men-at-arms idle their time, and spend their pay, in Italian quarters, the Moors besiege and cannonade the Spanish possessions in Africa, within sight of the Andalusian coast, whence not a soldier is sent to the assistance of the beleaguered garrisons. A most characteristic sample of "things of Spain." In this country we are blind to the propriety of leaving your own barn to be pulled down, whilst you build up your neighbour's mansion. And, to our matter-of-fact comprehension, it seems dishonest to waste money in a frivolous foreign expedition, when starving creditors are knocking at the door. But we are a shop-keeping people, and it is folly to subject Spanish chivalry to the gauge of such grovelling, mercantile ideas.

Notwithstanding the draft of troops to Italy, the Spanish government has ventured to decree an extensive reduction in the army. In view of the penury of the exchequer, of the total suppression of the Carlist insurrection, and of the small probability of any fresh outbreak in a country worn out as Spain is by civil wars and commotions, they could not, in common decency, avoid some such economical measure. So a third of the army has been formed into a reserve, which means that the officers retain their full pay—with the exception of those who voluntarily exchange from the active army into the reserve, thereby putting themselves on half-pay—and that the sergeants and privates, with the exception of a skeleton staff, return to their homes, and no longer receive pay or rations; but are to hold themselves in readiness, until the regular expiration of their term of service, to join their colours when required. From this measure the government anticipates a great saving, and their partisans hint a million sterling as its probable amount. But it is a peculiarity of Spanish administration that the real economy of a change of this kind can never be ascertained, even approximatively, until it has been for some time in force. By a strange fatality, the most brilliant theoretical retrenchments crumble into dust when reduced to practice. This has been so repeatedly the case in Spain, that we receive such announcements with natural distrust. In this instance, however, it is impossible to doubt that there will be a considerable saving, although far less than would at first sight be expected from the reduction, by nearly one-third, of an army of 120,000 men. The reduction will de facto be confined to the soldiers and non-commissioned officers; for, half-pay in Spain being a wretched pittance, and usually many months in arrear, few officers are likely to avail themselves of the option afforded them. With reference to this subject, we shall quote an extract from a Madrid newspaper, a strenuous opponent of the present government, but whose statistics we have never found otherwise than trustworthy; and which, in this case, would hardly venture to mis-state facts so easy of investigation. "Calculating," says the Clamor Publico of the 30th October 1849, "that the reduction in the active army amounts to 40,000 men, there still remain 80,000, too great a number for a nation which yields no more than 90,000 electors of deputies to the Cortes; besides which there should also be reductions in the staff. In Spain there is a general for every four hundred soldiers—[we believe the Clamor to be mistaken, and the proportions of generals to be even larger than here stated;] and although we do not possess any great magazines of clothing, arms, ammunition and other military stores, our army is yet the dearest of the whole European continent, as is proved by the following statement. [A statement follows of the annual cost of a soldier in the principal Continental services, showing the Spanish soldier to be the most expensive of all.] From all which we infer that the economy decreed is by no means that required by the condition of the treasury, and permitted by our present state of profound peace. The Spanish nation cannot maintain the immense army with which it is burdened. Retain, by all means, the artillery, the engineers, the staff-corps, and the other elements of war which cannot be created at brief notice. Keep up, on full pay, the framework of officers necessary to form, at two months' notice, an army of one hundred thousand men on a war establishment, whenever it may be 711 necessary; but, whilst we are at peace, restore to agriculture and the arts a portion of the men now employed in carrying arms." Under the regency of Espartero, the Spanish army was reduced to 50,000 men, and that when the country was far less tranquil than at present, when a Moderado junta was plotting, at Paris, the downfall of the government, and Christina and Louis Philippe furnished abundant means of corruption. Then such an army was too small; now it might well be deemed ample for a country that at most contains thirteen or fourteen millions of inhabitants, with few fortresses to garrison, few large towns in which to guard against insurrection, and, above all, with a population that would evidently rather submit to misgovernment than plunge again into war. From external foes Spain has nothing to fear; and, even if she had, we are by no means sure that, paradoxical as it may seem, a reduction in her army would not be one of the best means of guarding against them. For retrenchments that would enable her to acquit herself, at least in part, towards her foreign creditors, would assuredly procure her, in the hour of need, friends and allies far more efficient in her defence than her own armies could possibly be. For however prone the Spaniards as a people are to exaggerate their power and means of self-defence, it must surely be patent to the sensible portion of the nation that, in case of aggression from without, they must look for aid to France or England. And although it will doubtless confirm the opinion of Spanish Moderados and French Orleanists as to the invariably mercenary motives of Great Britain, we will not conceal our conviction that the readiness of this country to succour Spain would be much greater if she were paying her debt to English bondholders, than if she were still in her present state of disreputable insolvency. At least we are quite certain that "the pressure from without" would be materially influenced by such a consideration. And this reflection naturally leads us to ask in what position Spain would have found herself, had the projected expedition from the United States against Cuba taken place and succeeded. The danger appears at an end for the present; but it may recur, under the rule of an American president who will not interfere to prevent the piratical enterprise. As to its chances of success, we find some striking facts whereon to base an opinion, in a recently published book on Cuba, the work of an intelligent and practical man, on whose statements and opinions we are disposed to set a high value.3 From Mr Madden's evidence it is quite plain that the Spanish colonial government is admirably calculated to excite a desire of independence, or, failing that, of annexation to America, in the breasts of the people of the Havana; and what is more, that it has already done so, and that a body of liberators from the States might confidently reckon on being received with open arms by a very considerable fraction of the inhabitants. When the mother country is deplorably misruled, it is not to be expected that the dependencies should be models of good government.

In 1841, the same writer says, Cuba yielded a net revenue to Spain of a million and a quarter sterling, furnished timber and stores largely for the Spanish navy, and entirely supported the Spanish army in Cuba. From the amount here stated, deductions had to be made, or else the revenue has diminished since that date; for Mr Madden subsequently sums up by saying, that "Cuba produces a revenue of from ten to fifteen millions of dollars; of this amount, upwards of three millions (£600,000 sterling) are remitted to Madrid; and these three millions of taxes are paid by a class not exceeding four hundred thousand inhabitants, of free persons of all complexions." A Spanish writer estimates the revenue, in 1839, at eleven millions of dollars;4 and an English one, who had good opportunities of obtaining information, although he is sometimes rather loose in his statements, declared, six years later, that "Cuba contributes fifty millions of reals, or £500,000 sterling, of clear annual revenue to the Spanish crown."5 From this concurrent testimony, the sum annually pocketed by the mother country may be estimated at £500,000 to £600,000 sterling; an important item in the receipts of the Madrid government—more so, even, from its liquid and available nature, than from its amount. Moreover the revenues of Cuba, like the mines of Almaden, are a ready resource as security for a loan. But how has Spain requited the services of her richest colony? Of course with gross ingratitude. Strange to say, the equality of rights sanctioned by the despotic Ferdinand was arbitrarily wrenched from Cuba by the liberal government that succeeded him.

Now, it appears that by one of those strange absurdities which are of no unfrequent occurrence in Spanish governments, American settlers in Cuba have been, and still are, exempt from a variety of personal contributions and other imposts, which the natives have to pay. The laws of the island forbid the establishment of foreigners in Cuba; and though the settlement of Americans has been connived at, out of respect to the laws the settlers were supposed, by a curious fiction, not to exist. Hence the exemption.

These are the opinions of a man several years resident in Cuba, evidently a shrewd observer, and who can hardly be suspected of misrepresentation on this head; and we do not hesitate to place confidence in them in preference to the rose-tinted accounts of the Madrid Heraldo, and other official prints, according to which the present happiness, prosperity, and loyalty of the Havaneros are such as were never surpassed in the annals of colonies. Mr Madden, we have seen, is of opinion that the Creoles and resident Americans, if guaranteed from foreign intervention, are of themselves a match for Spain, and could throw off her yoke and defy her efforts to reimpose it. What, then, would be the state of affairs, if three or four thousand Yankee volunteers, who, by themselves, we suspect, could give occupation to all the disposable part of the sixteen thousand Spaniards in garrison, were suddenly to drop upon the Cuban shore, by preconcerted arrangement with the disaffected? In 1849 this has been within an ace of occurring; in a future year, not very remote, it may actually occur. What would Spain do, when news were brought her that the red-and-yellow banner was replaced by the speckled bunting of the States? Would she declare war against America, on the strength of the war-steamers she has been lately building with her creditors' money? Brother Jonathan, we suspect, would mightily chuckle at the notion, and immediately seize Puerto Rico, and perhaps make a dash at the Philippines. But the Spanish government, loud as they can bluster when sure of impunity, would hardly render themselves so ridiculous. No; in the hour of their distress they would piteously look abroad for succour, and turn their discomfited countenance to the old ally to whom, in their brief day of seeming prosperity, they forgot their numerous obligations. It is our belief their appeal would not be made in vain. But although this country, being great and powerful, could afford to forget its cause of complaint—as a man overlooks the petulance of a froward child—it would be right and fitting that an amende honorable should previously be exacted from Spain, and that humiliation should be inflicted on her arrogant government, for an insult which, let them mis-state the circumstances as they like, was far from justified by the alleged provocation. And moreover, before a move was made, or a note transmitted by the British government on behalf of Spain-robbed-of-its-Cuba, a solid guarantee should unquestionably be exacted for an equitable and speedy adjustment of the claims of the ill-used holders of Spanish bonds.

These gentlemen, roused at last by a long series of neglect and broken promises to depart from the suaviter in modo, and to substitute an energetic remonstrance for the honeyed and complimentary epistles they have been wont to address to the president of the Spanish council, are raising a fund to be employed in the advocacy of their claims by an agent in Madrid. 714 Although the gradual progress of the subscription does not bespeak the fund-holders very sanguine in their hopes, they may rest assured that this is a step in the right direction. Their only hope is in agitation—in keeping their just and shamefully-neglected claims before the world, and in such a conjunction of circumstances as may enable the cabinet of St James's to put on the screw, and compel the Spanish government to be honest. As to an appeal to arms, however, it might be justified in equity, and by references to Vatel and other great authorities, it would hardly be consonant with prudence, or with the spirit of the times: but other means may be devised; and in the event of a European war, we can imagine more than one circumstance in which, as in the case of the seizure of Cuba by America, Spain would be too happy to subscribe to the just conditions this country might impose for the settlement of English claims. But there is danger in delay; and if we are unwilling to believe that Spain is, in the words of one who knows her well, "irremediably insolvent,"7 there is no doubt she must speedily become so, unless some radical change takes place in the views and system of her rulers. What she needs is an honest government, composed of men who will make their own advantage subservient to their country's weal. "My firm conviction," says Marliani, "is, that when the day comes that men of heart and head shall seize, with a firm grasp, the rudder of this vessel now abandoned to the uncertain movement of the political waves, they will take her into port. Spain is in the best possible position to make a giant's stride in the path of prosperity. She offers to the foreigner a thousand honourable and profitable speculations; the application of capital to public works, to agriculture, to mines, will be an inexhaustible source of profit."8 When M. Marliani wrote this, capitalists were more prone to embark their money in distant speculations than at the present day. But still the principle holds good; and there can be no question in the minds of any who have studied Spain, that an honest and moderately able government is all that is wanted to develop her vast resources, and enable her to come to an honourable compromise with her creditors, who, there can be little doubt, would show themselves accommodating, if they saw evidence of a desire to pay, and had some certainty that, when they had accepted an arrangement advantageous to Spain, it would not be broken in a few months, leaving them in worse plight than before. How this has been repeatedly done was lately clearly exhibited in a letter addressed by a Spanish bondholder to the Times, of which we here quote a portion:—

It is not very easy to get at information 715 about the amount of Spanish debts, accumulated dividends, and so forth; but the above lucid statement of the liabilities to foreign creditors, combined with the testimony of other authorities before us, leads to an aggregate estimate of the whole debt, external and internal, at upwards of one hundred and twenty millions sterling,—probably at the present time nearly or quite one hundred and thirty millions, unpaid interest being added. Without entering into the intricate complications of the question, we shall not be very wide of the mark in asserting, that less than three millions sterling per annum, in the shape of dividends, would constitute an arrangement surpassing the wildest dreams in which, for a long time past, sane bondholders can possibly have indulged; in fact that, considering the amount of passive stock, and the concessions that would willingly be made, it would pay what would pass muster as the full dividends. An enormous sum for Spain—will be the remark of many. We beg to differ from this opinion. An enormous sum, certainly, for a dishonest Spanish government. Charity begins at home in Spain as much as anywhere; and if people squander their cash in paying creditors, how shall they enjoy their little comforts and luxuries, and make up a purse for a rainy day? How shall the royal family of a poor and insolvent kingdom have a civil list of half a million sterling, besides crown property and appanages to Infantes?—how shall Queen Christina and her uncle, the ex-king of the French, be repaid the sums they lavished to oust Espartero, and to bring about the infamous Spanish marriages?—how shall the same illustrious lady make her investments in foreign funds, and add to her hoard of jewellery, already, it is said, the most valuable in Europe?—how shall Duke Muñoz play at bulls and bears on the Bolsa, and give millions of francs for French salt-works?—how shall the Spanish ministers, men sprung from nothing, and who the other day were penniless, maintain a sumptuous state and realise princely fortunes?—how, finally, shall the government exercise such influence at elections as to reduce the numerous and powerful party opposed to them in the country to utter numerical insignificance in the legislative assembly, and to fill every municipal office with their own creatures and adherents? It is a very singular fact that, although for many years past the revenue of Spain has been steadily increasing, the annual deficit always continues about the same. Thus much can be discerned even through the habitual exaggerations and hocus-pocus of Spanish financial statements. M. Mendizabal, in his budget for 1837, (in the very heat and fury of the Carlist war,) showed a deficiency of seven millions sterling, the revenue then being about £8,700,000 sterling. In 1840, the minister of finance stated the deficit at £6,800,000 sterling, the revenue having then risen to upwards of ten millions.10 And since then the deficiency has averaged about five millions sterling; and even now, that Spain is declared so prosperous, will not be rightly stated at a much lower figure, although finance ministers resort to the most ingenious devices to prove it much less. But if it is so trifling as they would have us believe, why do they not pay their dividends? Forced loans, anticipated imposts, unpaid pensions, and shabby shifts of every kind, show us how far we are to credit their balance-sheets. One financier—that very slippery person, Señor Carrasco—actually showed a surplus—upon paper. "The present revenue," wrote Mr Ford in 1846, "may be taken at about twelve or thirteen millions sterling. But money is compared by Spaniards to oil—a little will stick to the fingers of those who measure it out; and such is the robbing and jobbing, the official mystification and peculation, that it is difficult to get at facts when cash is in question." The sum stated, however, is about the mark, and bears out Lord Clarendon's often-quoted declaration in the House of Lords, that the Spanish revenue is one-half greater than it was ever before known to be. Few men have had better opportunities than Lord Clarendon of acquiring information on the affairs of Spain; and his well-known friendly feeling towards her present 716 rulers precludes the suspicion of his giving a higher colouring than the strictest truth demands to any statement likely to be prejudicial or unpleasant to them. It is a fact that the revenue is still upon the increase; and it has augmented, in the last fifteen years, by more than one-half, for in 1835 it was but seven hundred and fifty-nine millions of reals, or, in round numbers, £7,600,000 sterling. It certainly seems strange that, with an increase of revenue of at least four millions, the decrease of deficit should barely amount to two, although the country, at the former period, was plunged in a most expensive war, and had an enormous army on foot; the estimate for the war department alone, for 1837—according to Mr Mendizabal's budget already quoted, presented to the Cortes—being upwards of seven and a-half millions sterling, or within one million of the total amount of estimated revenue. Thus we see that Spain presents the curious phenomenon of an expenditure augmenting in proportion as the revenue increases. In most countries the puzzle is the other way; and how, to force the revenue up to the expenditure, is the knotty point with statesmen. The most benevolent can hardly help suspecting that some foul play is at the bottom of this augmentative propensity of Spanish financial outgoings. But Spain is par excellence the country of itching palms; and in view of the statements we have here made, and which defy refutation, most persons will probably agree with a writer already cited, when he says that, "with common sense and common honesty, much might be done towards releasing Spain from her financial embarrassments. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that a vigorous government, capable of enforcing taxation, might, with integrity and energy, and a forgetfulness of selfish gains, provide for the interest of every portion of her debt, and, in the end, pay off the principal.... If Spanish finance ministers, and the capitalists and sharpers by whom they are surrounded, could bring themselves to think of their own fortunes less and of the nation's more, we should hear very little of new foreign loans. A virtuous native effort is wanted; themselves must strike the blow! All governments are bound to support their several departments, and obtain a sufficient revenue; and the administration of Mon and Narvaez has not the excuse of want of power."11 This is the language universally held by all persons acquainted, from actual observation, with the extent and abuse of Spain's resources. The taxes in Spain are exceedingly light in proportion to the population, but they are unfairly distributed, and most iniquitously collected—the state paying an enormous percentage on most of them, and being besides scandalously robbed by officials of every grade. But the inequality of taxation in Spain, which presses (by the threefold means of direct impost, excise, and exorbitant import duties upon manufactures) especially on the peasant and agriculturist—crushing the very nerve and right arm of Spanish prosperity—brings us to the consideration of a recent measure, from which much good has been predicted, and from which, as we trust and believe, advantage will ultimately be obtained.

An ably conducted French periodical, which acquired considerable weight under Louis Philippe, from the circumstance that its closing article expressed, every fifteen days, the views and opinions of the government, and which, since it ceased to be official, has shown a strong Orleanist leaning, put forth in a recent number a glowing statement of the immense advantages to be derived by Spain from the newly promulgated tariff bill.12 Prepared by a previous article in the same review, which had taken for its base, and accepted as incontrovertible, a tissue of scurrilous and mendacious statements strung together by a Salamanquino doctor, and notoriously instigated by a Spanish minister and ambassador, with reference to the suspension of relations between England and Spain, we were no way surprised to find, in the discussion of the internal situation of the latter country, implicit reliance placed 717 on the figures and assumptions of Spanish financiers, and a most naïve conviction that their showy theories and projects would be honestly and effectually put in practice. Under the ingenious one-sidedness and apparent good faith of the writer, it was not difficult to discern an inspiration derived from Claremont or the Hotel Sotomayor. The object of the article was to prove that Spain, relieved from the incubus of English influence, and blessed with an enlightened and honest government, is rapidly emerging from her political, social, and financial difficulties; nay, that this astounding progress is half accomplished, and that the despised land has already risen many cubits in the European scale. "We ask," says the writer, after summing up at great length the benefits conferred on Spain by the Narvaez cabinet—benefits which, for the most part, have got no further than their project upon paper—"We ask, is not Spain sufficiently revenged for thirty years of disdain? Would not this Job of the nations have a right, in its turn, to drop insult upon the bloody dunghill whereon display themselves these haughty civilisations of yesterday's date?" Having given this brief specimen of style, we will now confine ourselves to figures, for most of which the writer in the Revue appears to be indebted to Mr Mon. The result of his very plausible calculations is an immediate annual benefit of thirty-four million francs to the consumers of foreign manufactures, ninety-two millions to the country at large, in the shape of increased production, and a clear gain of sixty-three millions to the public treasury. We heartily desire, for the sake both of Spain and of her creditors, that this glorious prospect may be realised. If this is to be the result of what the Revue des Deux Mondes admits to be but a timid step from the prohibitive to the protective system, what prosperity may not be prophesied to Spain from further progress in the same path? Nor are these a tithe of the benefits foretold, and which we refuse ourselves the pleasure of citing, in order to make room for a few remarks as to the probable realisation of those already referred to. And first, we repeat our previous assertion, that in Spain the real benefit of such a measure as the new tariff can never be rightly estimated till the law has been for some time in force. There is so much tampering and corruption in such cases, so many interests and persons must be satisfied and get their share of the gain, that such reforms, when they come, often prove very illusory. With respect to the tariff, we will take no heed of the statements of the Spanish opposition, who denounce it as a most defective and bungling measure, from which little is to be expected. In Spain, as much as in any country, the men out of power will admit little good to be done by those who are in. Neither do we profess to have digested and formed our own opinion upon the probable working of a tariff which comprises 1500 articles, (about twice and a half as many as the British tariff,) and whose complications and conditions are anything but favourable to its easy comprehension and appreciation. We can argue, therefore, only from analogy and precedent; the latter, especially, no unsafe guide with a people so wedded as the Spaniards to old habits and institutions. The pacific manner in which the great army of Spanish smugglers have received the tariff, is a strong argument against its practical value. The Revue des Deux Mondes estimates the number of smugglers in Spain at sixty thousand. This is far under the mark; and it is the first time we have known the Spanish smugglers to be reckoned at less than one hundred and twenty thousand men, whereas we have seen them rated as high as four hundred thousand, which, however, could only be explained by including all those persons in the country who are directly or indirectly connected with the contraband trade. But the figure is not important. The principal point, and that which none will dispute, is that the Peninsular smugglers form a powerful army, including the finest men in the country, and capable, as we fully believe, if assembled and with the advantage of a little drill, of soundly thrashing an equal number of Spanish soldiers, detachments of whom they not unfrequently do grievously ill-treat. Now how is it, we ask, that this formidable and generally turbulent 718 body have submitted without an indication of revolt to the passing of a law which, if the Revue des Deux Mondes is right, will entirely take away their occupation? The self-styled manufacturers of Catalonia, most of whom are extensive smugglers, are as acute judges of their own interests as any men in Spain. In Andalusia, on the Portuguese frontier, in nearly every frontier province in short, men of wealth, ability, and consideration are at the head of the contraband traffic. It is not to be supposed that all these have their eyes shut to the meditated destruction of their interests, or that they thus tranquilly receive a blow which they believe will be fatal. It will be remembered by many that when first the new tariff was seriously brought forward, and appeared likely to become the law of the land, the Catalan newspapers and other organs of the smuggling interest were furious in their denunciation of it: alarming rumours were set abroad, insurrections were talked of, and there seemed a very pretty chance of a pronunciamiento in favour of prohibitive duties and contraband trade. But suddenly modifications were talked of, the publication of the bill was postponed, the storm was allayed and has not again arisen. There was something so remarkable in this sudden stilling of the troubled waters, that persons, who are either very malicious or better versed than their neighbours in the ways of Spain, did not scruple to assert that there had been buying and selling, that weighty arguments had been advanced and had prevailed, and that the result was to be the emasculation of the tariff bill. No trifling consideration would suffice to clench such a bargain, and doubtless the concession, if obtained, was well paid for; but what of that? The trade of a smuggler is the most profitable in Spain, excepting, perhaps, that of a cabinet minister; and it was worth a sacrifice to retain a traffic whose profits, the Revue des Deux Mondes assures us, range from 60 to 90 per cent on the value of the cotton tissues introduced, and a lower percentage on silks, woollens, and other goods, of greater value in proportion to their bulk, weight, and difficulty of transport. For this percentage, the master-smuggler receives the goods without the frontier, and delivers them within, supporting all charges, and running all risks: it is a premium of insurance, as regularly fixed as that of any marine risk at Lloyd's. But does the Revue suppose that the present very high charge for passage will not be materially reduced, sooner than altogether relinquished? Spanish smuggling requires capital and stability, on the part of those undertaking it on a large scale, and is a sort of monopoly in the hands of a certain number of individuals and companies. These pay the working smugglers (the men who lift the bales, and drive the mules, and fight the custom-house officers) a few reals a-day, a few dollars a run, and pocket enormous profits. Amongst themselves, they are leagued to maintain the high rates of insurance. But now that the custom-house steps into the field as a competitor, removing prohibition and lowering duties, we may be well assured the smugglers have lowered theirs; and an inquiry at Perpignan, Oléron, Mauléon, on the Five Cantons at Bayonne, or in any other smuggling depot on the Pyrenean frontier, would, we doubt not, satisfy the Revue of the fact. The Spanish custom-house must cut lower yet to beat the smuggler. The Revue admits that, on certain articles of great consumption, (silk,) the difference is still in favour of the contrabandist, even at the duty of thirty to forty-five per cent ad valorem, fixed by the tariff bill, and at the old high premium of smuggling insurance. But whilst we insist and are confident that the latter will be reduced, (and therein find one reason of the tranquil indifference with which the tariff has been received by the smuggling population of the Peninsula,) we are by no means certain that the former has not been considerably raised by the alterations and modifications that took place in the tariff, between the date of its passing the chambers and that of its publication by the government; alterations by which the ad valorem duties imposed on several important classes of merchandise have been converted into fixed duties. This change, which may very well prove a juggle 719 brought about by the golden wand of the smuggling fraternity, at once invalidates the calculations of the Revue, which are all based upon the ad valorem percentage originally prescribed by the tariff law, and upon the assumption that the high contraband premiums are immutable and unreducible.

Setting aside the mere financial consideration of the tariff question; losing sight, for a while, of the great accession of revenue it is universally admitted that Spain would derive from an honest and effectual reduction of her import-duties on manufactures, which she herself can produce only of inferior quality and at exorbitant rates; losing sight, also, of the moral obligation there is upon her to adopt all such measures, not injurious to any great class of the community,13 as shall enable her to pay her way, and acquit her debts to home and foreign creditors,—temporarily averting our view, we say, from these considerations, we fix it upon others whose weight none will deny. What are the chief causes to which the major part of the crime, misery, and degradation prevalent amongst the lower classes in Spain, is attributed, by all impartial observers of her social condition? They are three in number. The demoralisation produced by smuggling; the burdens upon agriculture, and impediments to its progress; the high prices the peasant is compelled to pay for the most necessary manufactures. Upon the evil of smuggling we need not dwell, nor dilate upon the ease of the transition from defrauding the government to robbing upon the highway, and from shooting a douanier to murdering the traveller who may be so rash as to defend his purse. By the lower classes in Spain the smuggler is admired and respected, and his calling is deemed gallant and honourable; by the classes above him he is tolerated, and often employed. His random, perilous, fly-by-night manner of life, made up of alternate periods of violent exertion and excitement, and perfect idleness and relaxation, exactly suits his taste and temperament: it will be hard to wean him from his illicit pursuits, though they should so decline in profit as only to yield him bread, garlic, and tobacco. You must find him occupation profitable and to his taste before you can reclaim him; for he will not dig, and would rather rob than beg. Whenever such import-duties are adopted in Spain as will really stop smuggling, there will undoubtedly be a great increase of crimes against property, innumerable bands of robbers will spring up, and probably there will also be risings under political banners. The present moment is by no means unpropitious for the experiment. The government of Spain has perhaps the power, but we doubt that it has the will. We have shown cause for believing that the recent change will prove delusive, and of small benefit. If we are mistaken—and it is very difficult to decide beforehand of the result of Spanish measures—we shall sincerely rejoice.

We have already observed that, whilst the brunt of taxation is borne in Spain by agriculture, that interest obtains in return scarcely any of the facilities and encouragements to which it is fairly entitled. Spain is the rash child that would run before it can walk, and consequently falls upon its face. She dashes headlong at the 720 greatest and most costly improvements realised by other countries; forgetting that she has stood still whilst they moved onwards, and that a wise man gets a bed to lie upon before troubling himself about a silken coverlet. In all the arts of life Spain is immeasurably inferior to most other European nations. In agricultural implements, in carts and other vehicles of transport, in her methods of elaborating her products, and her means of carrying them, she is centuries behind all the world. Vast tracts of her territory are desolate for want of that irrigation for which modern ingenuity and invention have devised such great facilities: the broad waters of her mighty rivers, which in other countries would be alive with traffic and bordered with villages, are choked and desolate. "The Guadalquivir, navigable in the time of the Romans as far as Cordova, is now scarcely practicable for sailing vessels of a moderate size up to Seville."14 Few are the boats, scanty the dwellings, upon the green waves and flower-grown shores of Tagus and Ebro. When these glorious natural arteries are thus neglected, we need not expect artificial ones. Canals are sadly wanted, and have been often planned, but they have got no farther than the want and the project. As to roads, the main lines are good, but they are few, diverging from the capital to the various frontiers; and the cross-roads (where there are any,) and the country tracks, are mostly execrable, and often impassable for wheels. But all this, we are informed by the Revue des Deux Mondes, is on the eve of a thorough change. "Labour, like credit," says that periodical, in its article on Spain, "has received a beneficial impulse. The roads are repaired, the means of water-conveyance are being improved or terminated, railroads are begun. The creation of a vast system (ensemble) of adjacent roads will soon connect all parts of the territory with these vivifying arteries." We scarcely know which is most admirable; the cleverness that contrives to condense so many misstatements into so few words, or this tone of candour, conviction, and philanthropical exultation. As regards the impulse given to Spanish credit, it is but a few days since we read, with some astonishment at the barbarity and impudence of the plan (emanating though it does from a Spanish finance minister), the arrangement by which Mr Bravo Murillo, in order to diminish the acknowledged deficit in the budget for the year 1850, mulcts the army and state functionaries of a month's pay, and pensioners and half-pay men of two months' means of subsistence, besides wiping out, in a still more unceremonious manner, other pressing claims upon the treasury. The budget itself is a truly curious document. The customs' revenue is swollen by the supposed profits of the new tariff; the expenses of the war department are boldly set down at a reduction which must accord rather with Mr Murillo's wish than with his expectations. On the debit side figure also the claims of the public creditor, for much less than is due, certainly, but for far more than will be paid. The result of the estimate is, as usual, most satisfactory, or would be so, at least, if there were the slightest chance of its justification by the actual receipts and expenditure of the year for which it is made. To return, however, to the improvements and public works announced by the Revue des Deux Mondes. We certainly find in the budget a sum of about three hundred thousand pounds—something more than half the involuntary contribution wrung from the unhappy employés and pensioners—set down to roads, railways, and canals. Is this magnificent sum to complete the valuable water-communications and the network of roads promised to expectant Spain? Hardly, even if applied as appropriated, which little enough of it ever will be. As to railways, they are certainly begun, but that is as much as can be said. There is a thirty mile railroad open between Barcelona and Mataro, upon which accidents seem of pretty frequent occurrence; and that said, we have said all. A good many others have been planned, involving the most magnificent projects of tunnels through chains of mountains, viaducts over 721 great rivers, cuttings through dense forests, and the like; and at some of these there may be attempts at work, enough to justify demands for funds; but their termination is altogether another matter in a country where, according to its national proverb, things are begun late, and never finished. Doubtless it is a satisfaction to Spanish pride, when it sees other European countries veined with iron tracks, to be able to talk of Spanish railroads as things that are not only projected, but begun. A great country like Spain must not lag behind in the race of improvement, and its natives would deem themselves humiliated if they did not attempt to have what England, France, and Germany enjoy. Nothing can escape these ambitious hidalgos. They have heard of the electric telegraph, and it is easy to discern, by newspaper paragraphs, that they are agog for the novelty, although the country has just been put to considerable expense by the completion and improvement of the aërial semaphores. These work very well, the Diario Mercantil of Valencia told us the other day; but fogs are a great nuisance, the electric plan is much better and surer, and a German company has offered to lay any length of wires at the rate of two hundred pounds sterling per league; and the Diario trusts the government will keep the matter in view, and adopt the new system, if it can be done without obstacles arising from political disturbances, and from the ignorance and malevolence of the people. If the electric telegraph were to await the completion of the "vivifying arteries" of railroad promised by the more sanguine friends of Spain, the German company would do well to offer its services elsewhere; but evidently there is some notion of carrying the posts and wires across country, over sierras and despoblados, with boards, no doubt, affixed here and there, requesting the public, to "protect the telegraph." How long the posts would stand—how long the wires might escape injury from the superstitious peasantry, or from robbers and smugglers, interested in retarding the transmission of their misdeeds, is another question. Really, to use a popular comparison, the establishment of electric telegraphs on Spanish soil seems to us about as necessary and sensible as to affix a gilt handle to the door of a pig-stye. Not that we would, in any way, assimilate to the unclean beast our friends the Spaniards, whom we greatly esteem, and desire to see more prosperous: but thus it is with them ever. They would fain pass over the rudiments, and attain at a bound that height of civilisation which other nations have reached only by a toilsome and patient progress.

The dearness of most manufactured goods in Spain, and especially of the commonest and, as Englishmen would consider, most essential articles of clothing, is, we are fully convinced, a grave impediment to the moral and physical progress of the lower classes of Spaniards. If, quitting certain frontier districts, where smuggling gains diffuse a fallacious appearance of prosperity, we penetrate into the interior of the country, we behold a rural population sunk in filth and sloth, wrapped in squalid woollen rags, basking listlessly in the sun, dwelling oftentimes in community with their domestic animals. Yet, give him but the means, and no man more than this self-same Spanish peasant loves clean linen and neat attire. If he is dirty and shirtless, and afflicted with vermin and impurities, it is because he has never had the means of being otherwise. How can he, out of his scanty earnings, supply himself with the calico shirt and clean jacket of jean or flannel which, in the countries of their manufacture, are within the reach of the poorest labourer, but whose price is trebled, before they reach him in Spain, by exorbitant smuggling premiums or import-duty, and by an expensive and defective system of transport. We cannot agree with those who assert the Spaniard of the lower class to be a born idler, who will never willingly do more work than procures him the day's frugal meal. We have too great faith in his natural good qualities to receive this opinion otherwise than as a calumny. At any rate, before deciding thus harshly, give him a chance, which he has never yet had; show him the possibility, which he has never yet 722 seen, of attaining, by his own exertions, to comfort and respectability; put the necessaries of life within his reach, which they have never yet been, and spur him, with his own pride, to cleanliness and industry. Teach him, in short, self-respect, which he can hardly feel in his present sunken condition, and, rely upon it, he will make an effort and take a start.

It is not our intention to dwell upon the recent temporary displacement of the Narvaez ministry, at the very moment when its stability and power seemed most assured, when the exultation of its partisans was the loudest, and the subjection of the nation most complete. The singular manner of the change, the ignoble agents by whom it was immediately effected, the obscurity and inaptitude of the individuals who for a moment made their apparition at the helm, to be at the next thrown overboard; the strangely heedless and inconsistent conduct of the young Queen, and the ambiguous attitude of her mother, have found abundant commentators, and the whole episode has been wittily and not unjustly compared to one of those old Spanish comedies based on a palace intrigue. We cannot, however, admit that the entire glory of the curious and abortive plot belongs to the apostolical camarilla which is alleged to exist in the palace, and to consist, amongst others, of the feeble and bigoted king-consort, of a fanatical confessor, a hysterical nun, a jesuitical secretary, and others of similar stamp. Time will probably dissipate part of the mystery that now envelops the affair; but, even now, those accustomed to watch the show will have shrewd suspicious whose are the hands that pulled the wires and made the dull puppets dance. The hands showed little skill, it will perhaps be urged, in the selection and manœuvring of the dolls. This objection will hardly stand. When a juggler misses his trick, it is still something if he hides his arm from his audience. And as to the incapacity of the agents, they were probably not employed until others, abler but less docile, had refused to act. We entertain little doubt in what quarter the attempt was fostered—perhaps concerted. Notwithstanding the outward cordiality of the French and Spanish governments, it is notorious that the old alliance between Queen Christina and a lately deposed monarch still exists, for the attainment of objects dear to both their hearts. In what manner these objects were to be advanced by the recent shuffle of the Spanish political cards, is not at first sight apparent. But we entertain scarcely the shadow of a doubt, that the arch-plotter whose influence has more than once wrought evil to Spain, had a hand in the game. We would be the last to press hardly upon the fallen. Did we feel tempted so to do, we should truly feel ourselves rebuked by the noble example of that illustrious Lady, who has forgotten the treachery of the king in the sorrows of the exile, and has extended that sympathy and kindness to the dweller in the English cottage, which she could not have been expected again to show to the inmate of the French palace. We are guarded, then, in the expression of our regret, that one who, by the pursuit of purely personal objects, has been the cause of great calamities to his native land, should still indulge his dynastic ambition at the expense of the tranquillity of another country, previously indebted to him for much discord and misery. And we deem it a painful sight when a man whose years already exceed the average span of human existence is still engrossed by plans of unscrupulous aggrandisement, still busied with Machiavelian intrigues, still absorbed in the baser things of earth, instead of addressing himself to considerations of higher import, earning by his virtues in adversity that respect refused to his conduct in prosperity, and passing the last days of his life—the posthumous ones of his royalty—resigned, revered, and beloved, like one who preceded him on his throne and in his banishment, and whose name was on his lips in the hour of his fall. 723

THE GREEN HAND.
A "SHORT" YARN.—PART VI.

"Well, ma'am," continued the naval man, on again resuming his narrative, "as I told you, the sudden hail of 'Land!' brought us all on deck in a twinkling, in the midst of my ticklish conversation with the Judge." "Hallo! you aloft!" shouted the chief officer himself, "d'ye hear, sirrah! use your eyes before hailing the deck!" "Land, sir!" came falling down again out of the sunlight; "land it is, sir,—broad away on our larboard bow, sir."

By this time it was about half-past nine, or ten o'clock, of the morning. Heading nearly due south-east, as we now were, the Indiaman's bowsprit ran up into the full white blaze of light, in which her flying jib-boom seemed to quiver and writhe far away from her like an eel in water; while the spread of her sails against it loomed twice as large as ordinary, from the sort of hazy double-edged look they had, with a twinkling thread of sun drawing all round them like a frame, as if one saw through a wrong-screwed glass. You'd have thought by the glance under the fore-course, over the ship's head-gratings, she was travelling off quietly into some no-man's-land or other, where it would be so bright we should all have to wear green spectacles: the light breeze being almost direct from nor'west, and so fairly in her favour, with the help of her studding-sails she was making wonderful progress for such a mere breath—about four knots to the hour, as I reckoned. The air aloft appeared in the mean time to be steadying and sucking, though the water kept smooth, and her bows scarce made a noise in it: the wide soft swells of the sea just floated up of a pale blue, and lifted her on, till she went seething gently down into it again; only, if you put your head over the starboard side, and listened, you thought you heard a sort of dull poppling ripple coming along the bends from round her counter. As for the line of horizon on one bow or the other, 'twas hardly to be made out at all, with a streaky white haze overlying it, up in the sky as it were, on both sides, behind the dazzle of light. However, the passengers were fancying all kinds of fine tropical matters lay hidden thereaway; and in fact, what with the notion of land after a long voyage, and what with the faint specks of bright cloud that seemed to be melting far off in the glare—to anyone last from Gravesend, that had never seen anything stranger than Richmond Hill of a Sunday, the whole thing ahead of the ship would have rather an enchanted sort of a look. At length the third mate was seen to shove his spy-glass together in the top-gallant cross-trees, and came slowly down the rigging. "Well, Mr Rickett?" said the chief officer, meeting him as he landed on deck. "Well, sir," said Rickett, "it is land after all, Mr Finch!" The mate rapped out an oath, and took another turn: Macleod screwed his mouth as if he were going to whistle, then pulled his red whiskers instead, and looked queer at Rickett; while Rickett stood peering into his spy-glass as he would have done into his hat, had he still been a foremast-man. The mate's eye met his, then turned to the passengers leaning over the poop-railing; and they all three walked to the capstan, where they began to overhaul the charts, and laid their heads together out of earshot.

Now, whether this said land just made out on the north-east, trended away back to south-east, as the clearer look of the horizon to starboard made one think, it was hard to say—though in that way of it, there were seemingly two plans for widening her distance. Either Finch might think it better to keep hold of a fair wind, and just edge her off enough to drop the point on her weather quarter—when, of course, if things stood as they were, we should soon set a good stretch of water betwixt us and the coast; or else they might brace direct round on the other tack, and head right south-west'ard, out to sea again: though if we were still in it, 724 the current would set us every bit as much in its own direction as ever. Accordingly I sidled nearer to the capstan, and watched anxiously for what the third mate had to propose, after humming and hawing a little, and scratching his head under his cap for half a minute. "At any rate, Mr Finch, sir," said he, "more especially the captain being off charge, I may say, why, I'd advise ye, sir, to ——." Here he dropped his voice; but Finch apparently agreed to what he said.

"Ready about ship there!" said the second mate aloud to the boatswain forward; and in ten minutes afterwards the Seringapatam was fairly round, as I had expected, heading at a right angle to her former course, with the breeze before her starboard beam, and the sun blazing on the other. I walked forward to the bows, and actually started to hear how loud and clear the ripple had got under them of a sudden; meeting her with a plash, as if she were making six or seven knots headway, while the canvass seemed to draw so much stiffer aloft, you'd have supposed the breeze had freshened as soon as the helm was put down. The mates looked over the side and aloft, rubbing their hands and smiling to each other, as much as to say how fast she was hauling off the bad neighbourhood she was in, though the heat was as great as ever, and you didn't feel a breath more air below, nor see the water ruffle. To my notion, in fact, it was just the set of the current against her that seemingly freshened her way, the ship being now direct in its teeth; so that, of course, it would keep bearing her up all the time away north-eastward, with her own leeway to help it; and the less could any one notice the difference betwixt the water going past her side, and her passing the water. This tack of hers, which Rickett, no doubt, thought such a safe plan, might be the very one to put her in a really dangerous way yet; for when they did discover this under-tow, how were they to take her out of it, after all? Probably by trying to stand fair across the stream of it to southward, which, without three times the wind we had, would at best take us out many miles nearer the land it set upon, or leave us perhaps becalmed in the midst of it.

The truth was, that although I hadn't seen what like the land was, and couldn't have said, by the chart, where we were, I began to have a faint notion of whereabouts we possibly soon might be, from what I remembered hearing an old quartermaster in the Iris say, a couple of years before, regarding a particular spot on the south-west coast, where the currents at some seasons, as he phrased it, made a regular race-course meeting. The old fellow gave me also, at the time, some bearings of the nearest coast, with the landmarks at the mouth of a river a little farther north—which, he said, he would know if you set him down there of a dark night, though he had been in his bed at Gosport the minute before, if there was just a right streak of sky to the eastward—namely, a big black rock like two steps, and a block at the foot of them, somewhat the shape of a chipped holy-stone, running down on one side out of a high headland, like an admiral's cocked hat, with six mop-headed trees upon the root of the rock, for all the world like hairs on a wart. Here I recollected how my worthy authority pointed modestly for example to a case of the kind on his own nose. The opposite shore of its mouth was flat, with a heavy white surf; but it shut in so far upon the other, he said, that, steering from the south'ard, one would never know there was a river there at all. The Bambar he called it; but if he meant the Bembarooghe, we could scarcely be near it, or that much toward being abreast of St Helena. For all I saw, indeed, we might have nothing to eastward of us save a hard coast, or else the sandy coast farther down, shoaling out of sight of land! At any rate I knew we must have got into the tail of the great sea-stream from round the Cape of Good Hope, which would, no doubt, split out at sea on Viana's Bank, and turn partly to north-eastward thereabouts; so that it wasn't a very bad guess to suppose we were getting up somewhere near Cape Frio, the likeliest place in the world to find old Bob Martin's "maze," which we used to joke about so in the Iris.

What was done, though, required to be done quickly, and I looked about for Tom Westwood, till I saw him on 725 the poop amongst the rest, talking again to Miss Hyde, as they all crowded towards the lee-quarter to watch the land-haze seemingly dropping stern. My heart swelled as it were into my throat, however, at such an appearance of good understanding betwixt the two,—whereas there was she, an hour ago that very morning, would scarce favour me with a look or a word!—and, for the life of me, I couldn't have spoken to Westwood at the time, much less gone hand in hand; for that matter, he didn't seem to be suspecting aught wrong to trouble himself about. What to say or do, either, I couldn't think; since the more he cut me out, and the less friendly I felt to him, the less could I risk the chance of showing us both up for what we were,—which, of course, would bring him in for the worst of it; as if I, by Jove, were, going to serve him some low trick for the sake of shoving him out with the young lady. Meantime I kept fidgeting about, as if the deck were too hot for me, snatching a glance now and then, in spite of myself, at Violet Hyde's fairy-like figure; so different from the rest of them, as she stretched eagerly from below the awning over the ship's quarter-gallery, trying to make out where the land lay,—now putting her little hand over her eyes to see better, then covering them altogether from the dazzle, as she drew in her head again and shook her bright brown hair in the shadow, answering Westwood—confound him! The Indian servant each time carefully poking out the red and yellow punkah-fringe for a cover over her, while the passengers were one and all ready to cry at not seeing the land, and leaving it behind. The Judge himself was the only man that seemed to have a dim notion of something queer in the whole case; for every few minutes he walked quietly to the break of the poop, where I noticed him cast a doubtful look down upon the "chief officer;" and when the surgeon came up, he asked anxiously how Captain Williamson was, and if he couldn't be seen below. However, the surgeon told him the captain had just fallen for the first time into a good sleep, and there was no admittance, but he was likely to be much better soon.

By this time there was no standing out from under the awnings, and the quarterdeck and poop had to be well swabbed to keep them at all cool, the steam of it rising inside with a pitchy hempen sort of smell you never feel save in the Tropics; the Seringapatam still feeling the breeze aloft, and lifting on the water with a ripple forward, although her big courses went lapping fore and aft every time she swung. The long white haze on the horizon began to melt as the sun heightened, clearing from under the wake of the light, till now you could fairly see the sky to eastward. Near noon, in fact, we had almost dropped the haze altogether on the ship's quarter; and at first I was glad to see how much way she had made in the two hours, when, on second thoughts, and by noticing some marks in the loom of it, I had no doubt but though she might be farther off, why it was only while she set more up to north-eastward,—so that we were actually, so to speak, leaving it by getting nearer! However, as the men were at dinner, and most of the passengers gone off the poop, down to "tiffin," I made up my mind to try what I could do in a quiet way towards making the mate think of it more seriously.

"Ah," said I, in a would-be brisk and confidential kind of way, "glad we're leaving that—a—you know, that land, Mr Finch." "Indeed, sir," said he indifferently. "Oh, you know," said I, "it's all very well for the passengers there to talk fine about land—land—but you and I, Mr Finch, don't need to be told that it's always dangerous at sea, you know." The mate lifted his head and eyed me for a moment or two, between the disgust a sailor feels at seeing a fellow pretend to aught like seamanship, and a particular sort of spite toward me which I'd noticed growing in him for the last few days,—though I daresay my breakfasting that morning in Sir Charles's cabin might have brought it to a height.

"Land dangerous, sir!" answered he carelessly, as he went on wiping his quadrant again; "who put that into your head?" "Oh, well," returned I, just as carelessly, "if it's to leeward of course,—or with a current taking you towards it,—only then. 726 But I've no doubt, Mr Finch, if this wind were to—ah—you know, heave more abaft, that's to say, get stronger, the craft would at least stand still, till you got her—" "What on earth are you talking about, Mr Ford—Collins, I mean?" asked he sharply. "Really, sir, I've got something more to attend to at present, than such trash about a current, and the devil knows what else!" "How, why, Mr Finch!" said I, seemingly surprised in my turn, "are we not in a current just now, then?" "Current!" replied Finch, almost laughing outright, "what does the man mean?" "Why every one thinks so, in the cuddy," said I, as if rather taken aback, and venturing what you fair ladies call a 'fib,'—"ever since we picked up the bottle last night." This, by the bye, had got spread through some of the men to the passengers, though, of course, nobody knew what had been in it yet. "There, I declare now," continued I, pointing to our lee-bow, where I'd had my eyes fixed during the five minutes we spoke, "we can try it again; do you see that bird yonder on the water?" The mate turned his head impatiently, and "Look, watch him, sir," said I. This was a tired man-o'-war bird afloat about twenty fathoms off, with its sharp white wings stretched just clear of the water, and its black eye sparkling in the sunlight, as it came dipping on the long smooth hot-blue swell into the lee of the ship's lofty hull, till you saw its very shadow in the glitter below it. The Indiaman seemed to pass him as if he rode there at anchor; only the curious thing was, that the bird apparently neared her up from leeward, crossing her larboard quarter within a fathom or two, when all of a sudden he got becalmed, as it were, in the wake right astern, and by the time either of us could walk to the ship's taffrail, she was close over him; as if, whenever her hull was end-on, it took his surface-drift away from him, and, what was more, as if the ship kept hold of it—her eighteen feet or so to his little inch of a draught—for it couldn't be owing to the wind. However, the man-o'-war bird took offer of the next swell to get air in his wings, and rose off the heave of it with a sharp bit of a scream, away after some black boobies diving for fish, which no doubt he would catch, as they dropped them at sight of him.

The mate upon this started and looked round, then aloft. "Confound it!" said he to himself, "if this breeze would only freshen! There is a sort of set on the surface just now," continued he to me, coolly enough, "though how you idlers happened to have an idea of it, puzzles me, unless because you've nothing else to do but watch the water. Currents are pretty frequent hereabouts, however." "Dear me!" said I, "but if we should should—" "Stuff, sir!" said he quickly, "the coast here must be steep-to enough, I should think, since if it weren't for the haze, we'd have sighted it thirty miles off! What we want is wind—wind, to let's cross it." "But then a calm, Mr Finch," I said; "I'm hanged afraid of those calms!" "Well, well, sir," said he, not liking just to shake me off at once, after my proving less of a ninny in sea matters than he had supposed, "these long currents never set right ashore: even if we lose the wind, as we may soon, why, she'll take off into the eddy seaward, sir, if you must know,—the dead-water in-shore, and the ebb-tide, always give it a safe turn!" All this, of course, was as much to satisfy himself as me. "Well, that's delightful!" said I, as if quite contented, and Mr Finch walked away hastily down one of the poop-ladders, no doubt glad to get rid of me in a decent manner, though I saw him next minute glancing in at the compass-boxes. "Keep her up to her course, sirrah; luff, d'ye hear!" said he to Jacobs, who was, perhaps, the best helmsman aboard. "She falls off tremendous bad, sir," answered Jacobs, with another whirl of the spokes; her want of actual headway making the Indiaman sag dead away to leeward, as she shoved into the force of the sea-stream, running more and more direct upon her starboard bow. One minute the courses would sink in with a long sighing fall to the lower-masts, the next her topsails would flutter almost aback, and the 727 heat even in the shadow of her awnings was extreme, yet she still seemed to have a breeze through the white glare aloft. I was determined to bring things to a point somehow or another, so I followed the mate down the steps. "Oh, by the bye, Mr Finch!" said I eagerly, "suppose one of those dreadful—what do you call 'em—ah, tornadoes—were to come on! I understand this is just the way, near Africa—baffling breeze—heat suffocating—hazy atmosphere—long swell—and current rising to the surface!" At this Finch stood up in a perfect fury. "What the devil d'ye mean, sir," said he, "by dodging me about the decks in this fashion, with these infernally foolish questions of yours?" "Oh, my fine fellow," thought I, "you shall settle with me for that." "Tornadoes never blow hereabouts, except off-shore, if you must know, sir!" he rapped out, sticking his hands in his jacket-pockets as he said so, and taking a turn on the quarterdeck. "That's quite a mistake, I assure you, sir!" said I, carried away with the spirit of the thing: "I've seen the contrary fifty times over, and, from the look of the sky aloft just now, I'd bet"——here I stopped, recollected myself, put the top of my cane in my mouth, and peered under the awning at the sea with my eyes half-shut, as sleepily as usual with my messmates the cadets. The chief officer, however, stepped back in surprise, eyed me sharply, and seemed struck with a sudden thought. "Why, sir," said he rather anxiously, "who may—what can you know of the matter?" "Pooh!" replied I, seeing some of the passengers were coming on deck, "I'm only of an inquiring turn of mind! You seafaring persons, Mr Finch, think we can't get any of that kind of knowledge on land; but if you look into Johnson's Dictionary, why, you'll find the whole thing under the word Tornado: 'twas one of the pieces I'd to get by heart before they'd admit me into our yacht-club—along with Falconer's Shipwreck, you know!" "Indeed!" said the mate, slowly, with a curl of his lip, and overhauling me from head to foot and up again; "ah, indeed! That was the way, was it, sir?" I saw 'twas no use. I dare say he caught the twinkle in my eye; while Jacob's face, behind him, was like the knocker on a door with trying to screw it tight over his quid, and stuffing the knot of his neckerchief in his mouth.

"Of course, sir," answered I, letting my voice fall; "and the long and the short of it is, Mr Finch, the sooner you get your ship out of this current the better! And what's more, sir, I daresay I could tell you how!" Whether he was waiting for what I'd to say, or thinking of something just occurred to him, but Finch still gazed steadily at me, without saying a word; so I went on. "You must know I had an old uncle who was long in his Majesty's royal navy, and if there was one point he was crazy upon, 'twas just this very matter of currents—though, for my part, Mr Finch, I really never understood what he meant till I made a voyage. He used to tell my mother, poor woman,—who always fancied they had somewhat to do with puddings,—that he'd seen no less than half-a-dozen ships go on shore, owing to currents. Now, Jane, he'd say, when you're fairly in a current, never you try to cross out of it, as folks often do, against the run of it, for in that case, unless the wind's strong enough, why, instead of striking the eddy to take your craft right off-shore, it'll just set you over and over to the inside. You'll cross, in the end, no doubt—but ten to one it's exactly where the water begins to shoal; whereas, the right plan's as simple as daylight, and that's why so few know it! Look ye, he'd say, always you cross with the stream—no matter though your head seems to make landward; why, the fact is, it'll just set you outside of itself, clear into its own bight, when you can run off to seaward with the eddy, if ye choose. That's the way to cross a current, my uncle used to say, provided you've but a light wind for handling her with! Now, Mr Finch," added I, coolly, and still mouthing my stick as before—for I couldn't help wishing to give the conceited fellow a rub, while I lent him a hint—"for my own part, I can't know much of these things, but it does seem to me as if my uncle's notions pretty well suited the case in hand!" 728 Finch was too much of a fair seaman not to catch my drift at once, but in too great a passion to own it at the time. "D'ye think, sir," said he, with a face like fire, "so much sense as there is in this long rigmarole of yours, that I'm such a—that's to say, that I didn't know it before, sir? But what I've got to do with you, Mr Collinson, or whatever your name may be—you may have been at sea twenty years, for aught I care—but I'd like to know why you come aboard here, and give yourself out for as raw a greenhorn as ever touched ropes with a kid glove?" "Well, Mr Finch," said I, "and what's that to you, if I choose to be as green as the North Sea whaling-ground?" "Why, sir," said Finch, working himself up, "you're devilish cunning, no doubt, but perhaps you're not aware that a passenger under a false rig, in an Indiaman, may be clapped in limbo, if the captain thinks fit? Who and what are you, I ask?—some runaway master's mate, I suppose, unless you've got something deeper in hand! Perhaps," ended he, with a sneer, "a pickpocket in disguise?" "Sir," said I, getting up off the bulwark I'd been leaning upon, "at present I choose to be a cadet, but, at any rate, you shall make an apology for what you said just now, sir!" "Apology!" said the mate, turning on his heel, "I shan't do anything of the sort! You may be thankful, in the mean time, if I don't have you locked up below, that's all! Perhaps, by the bye, sir, all you wanted was to show off your seamanship before the young lady in the round-house there?" Here the glance the fellow gave me was enough to show he knew pretty well, all the while, what we were matched against each other for.

I could stand this no longer, of course; but, seeing that one or two of the passengers were noticing us from the poop, I looked as polite as possible to do when you've lost your temper; and, in fact, the whole disappointment of this hair-brained cruise of mine—not to speak of a few things one had to stand—carried me away at the moment. There was no scheme I wouldn't rather have been suspected of, by this time, than the real one—namely, having gone in chase of Violet Hyde. I took a card out of my pocket, and handed it quietly to Mr Finch. "You don't seem able to name me, sir," said I: "however, I give you my word, you may trust that bit of pasteboard for it; and as I take you to be a gentleman by your place in this ship, why, I shall expect the satisfaction one gentleman should give another, the first time we get ashore, although it should be to-morrow morning!" And by Jove! thought I, I hope I'm done with the cursedest foolish trick ever a fellow played himself! The man that ventures to call me green again, or look at me as if he wanted to cool his eyes, hang me if he shan't answer for it! As for a woman, thought I—but oh, those two blue eyes yonder—confound it! as I caught sight of a white muslin skirt in the shade of the poop-awning above. I must say, for Finch, he took my last move coolly enough, turning round to give me another look, after glancing at the card. "Indeed!" said he, as if rather surprised; "well, sir, I'm your man for that, though it can't be just so soon as to-morrow morning! A Company's officer may meet a lieutenant in the navy any time—ay, and take his ship of the land too, I hope, sir!" and with that he walked of forward. Lieutenant! said I to myself; how did he give me my commission so pat, I wonder? and I pulled out another card, when I found, to my great annoyance, that, in my hurry that morning, I had happened to put on a coat of Westwood's by mistake, and, instead of plain "Mr Collins," they were all "Lieutenant Westwood, R.N." Here's another confounded mess! thought I, and all will be blown in the end! However, on second thoughts, the notion struck me, that, by sticking to the name, as I must do now at any rate, why, I should keep Westwood clear of all scrapes, which, in his case, might be disagreeable enough; whereas, at present, he was known only as the Reverend Mr Thomas—and, as for his either shamming the griffin, or giving hints how to work the ship, he was one of those men you'd scarce know for a sailor, by aught in his manner, at least; and, indeed, Tom Westwood always seemed to need a whole frigate's ways about him, with perhaps 729 somewhat of a stir, to show what he really was.

Five minutes or so after this, it didn't certainly surprise me much to see the Indiaman laid on the opposite tack, with her head actually north-by-east, or within a few points of where the light haze faded into the sky; the mate seeming by this time to see the matter clearly, and quietly making his own of it. The ship began to stand over towards the outer set of the current, which could now be seen rippling along here and there to the surface, as the breeze fell slowly: you heard nothing save the faint plash of it astern under one counter, the wafting and rustling of her large main-course above the awnings, for she was covered over like a caravan,—the slight flap of her jibs far ahead on the bowsprit startled you now and then as distinctly as if you got a fillip on your own nose; the stunsail, high up beside the weather-leech of her fore-topsail, hung slack over the boom, and one felt each useless jolt of the wheel like a foot-slip in loose sand when you want to run,—all betwixt the lazy, listless voices of the passengers, dropping and dropping as separate as the last sands in an hour-glass. Still every minute of air aloft helped her nearer to where you saw the water winding about the horizon in long swathes, as it were, bluer than the rest, and swelling brim-full, so to speak, out of a line of light; with the long dents and bits of ripple here and there creeping towards it, till the whole round of the surface, as far as you could see, came out into the smooth, like the wrinkles on a nutmeg. Four bells of the afternoon watch had struck—two o'clock that is—when Rickett the third mate, and one or two men, went out to the arm of the spritsail-yard across the bowsprit, where they lowered away a heavy pitch-pot with a long strip of yellow bunting made fast to it, and weighted a little at the loose end, to mark the set of the current: and as the pot sank away out on her larboard bow, one could see the bright-coloured rag deep down through the clear blue-water, streaming almost fairly north. She appeared to be nearing the turn of the eddy, and the chief officer's spirits began to rise: Rickett screwed one eye close, and looked out under his horny palm with the other, doubtful, as he said, that we should "sight the land off-deck before that. As for this trifle of an air aloft, sir," said he, "I'm afraid we won't"—"Hoot, Mr Reckett," put in Macleod, stepping one of his long trowser-legs down from over the quarterdeck awning, like an ostrich that had been aloft, "ye're aye afraid; but it's not easy to see, aloft, Mr Fench, sir." "How does the land lie now, Mr Macleod?" asked the first officer. "Well, I wouldn't wonder but we soon dropped it, sir—that's to east'ard, I mean," replied he; "though it's what we call a bit mountainous, in Scotland—not that unlike the Grampians, Mr Fench, ye know!" "Hang your Grampians, man!—what's ahead of us, eh?" said the mate hastily. "Why, sir," said the Scotchman, "there is some more of it on the nor'east, lower a good deal—it's just flush with the water from here, at present, Mr Fench—with a peak or two, trending away too'ard north; but the light yonder on our starboard bow makes them hard for to see, I may say."

In fact, some of the men forward were making it out already on the starboard bow, where you soon could see the faint ragged shape of a headland coming out, as it were, of the dazzle beyond the water, which lay flickering and heaving between, from deep-blue far away into pale; while almost at the same time, on her starboard quarter, where there was less of the light, another outline was to be seen looming like pretty high land, though still fainter than the first. As for the space betwixt them, for aught one could distinguish as yet, there might be nothing there except air and water over against the ship's side. "Well," said the mate briskly, after a little, "we're pretty sure, now, to have the land-breeze to give us sea-room, before two or three hours are over,—by which time, I hope, we'll be in the eddy of this infernal current, at any rate!" However, I was scarce sure he didn't begin to doubt the plan I'd given him; whereas had he known the whole case in time, and done the thing then, it was certain enough,—and the best thing he could do, even as it was: but what troubled 730 me now, why, suppose anything happened to the ship, mightn't he turn the tables on me after all, and say I had some bad design in it? I loitered about with my arms folded, saying never a word, but watching the whole affair keener than I ever did one of Shakspeare's plays in the theatre after a dull cruise; not a thing in sea, sky, or Indiaman, from the ripples far off on the water to ugly Harry hauling taut the jib-sheet with his chums, but somehow or other they seemed all to sink into me at the time, as if they'd all got to come out again strong. You hardly knew when the ship lost the last breath of air aloft, till, from stealing through the smooth water, she came apparently to a stand-still, everything spread broad out, not even a flap in the canvass, almost, it had fallen a dead calm so gradually.

However my troubles weren't seemingly over yet, for just then up came the Judge's dark kitmagar to the gangway where I was, and, from the sly impudence of the fellow's manner, I at once fancied there was something particular in the wind, as if he'd been seeking me about-decks. "S'laam, mistree!" said he, with but a slight duck of his flat brown turban, "Judge sahib i-send Culley Mistree his chupprass,"—message, forsooth!—"sah'b inquire the flavour of gentlyman's Ees-Inchee Coompanee, two-three moment!" "The flavour of my East-India company, you rascal!" said I laughing, yet inclined to kick him aft again for his impertinent look; "speak for yourself, if you please!" In fact the whiff of cocoa-nut oil, and other dark perfumes about him, came out in a hot calm at sea, when everything sickens one, so as to need no inquiry about the matter: however, I walked straight aft to the round-house, and in at the open door, through which Sir Charles was to be seen pacing from one side of his cabin to the other, like a Bengal tiger in a cage. "Harkye, young man," said he sternly, turning as soon as I came in, with my hat in my hand, "since I had the honour of your company here this morning, I have recollected—indeed I find that one of my servants had done the same—that you are the person who molested my family by various annoyances beside my garden at Croydon, sir!" "Indeed, Sir Charles!" said I coolly, for the bitter feeling I had made me cool: "they must have been unintentional then, sir! But I was certainly at Croydon, seeing my mother's house happens to be there." "You must have had some design in entering this vessel, sir!" continued the Judge, in a passion; "'gad sir, the coincidence is too curious! Tell me what it is at once, or by —" "My design was to go to India, sir," answered I, as quietly as before. "In what capacity?—who are you?—what—who—what do you want there, eh?" rapped out the Judge. "I'm not aware, sir," said I, "what right you've got to, question me; but I—in fact I'll tell so much to any man—why, I'm an officer in the navy." Sir Charles brought short up in his pacing and stamping, and stared at me. "An officer in the navy!" repeated he; "but yes—why—now I think, I do, remember something in your dress, sir,—though it was the face that struck me! In short then, sir, this makes, the case worse: you are here on false pretences—affecting the very reverse, sir—setting yourself up for a model of simplicity,—a laughing-stock indeed!" "I had reasons for not wishing my profession to be known, Sir Charles," said I; "most special reasons. They're now over, however, and I don't care who knows it!" "May I ask what these were?" said the Judge. "That I'll never tell to any man breathing!" I said, determinedly. The Judge walked two or three times fore and aft; then a thought seemed to strike him—he looked out as if at the decks and through below the awnings, then shut the door and came back to me again. "By the way," said he seriously, and changing his tone, "since this extraordinary acknowledgment of yours, sir, something occurs to me which makes me almost think your presence in the vessel, in one sense, opportune. I have reason to entertain a high opinion of naval officers as technical men, professionally educated in his Majesty's regular service, and—you look rather a young man—but have you had much experience, may I ask?" "I have been nine or ten years at sea, sir," replied I, a little taken aback, "in various parts of the world!" "I have some suspicion 731 lately," he went on, "that this vessel is not navigated in a—in short, that at present, probably, we may be in some danger,—do you think so, sir?" "No, Sir Charles," I said, "I don't think she is, as matters stand,—only in a troublesome sort of quarter, which the sooner she's out of, the better." "The commander is, I find, dangerously unwell," continued he, "and of the young man who seems to have the chief care of the vessel, I have no very high—well—that, of course I— Now sir," said he, looking intently at me, "are you capable of—in short of managing this Company's vessel, should any emergency arise? I have seen such, myself,—and in the circumstances I feel considerable alarm—uneasiness, at least!—Eh, sir?" "Depend upon it, Sir Charles," I said, stepping toward the door, "in any matter of the kind I'll do my best for this ship! But none knows so well as a seaman, there are cases enough where your very best can't do much!" The Judge seemed rather startled by my manner—for I did feel a little misgiving, from something in the weather on the whole; at any rate I fancied there was a cold-bloodedness in every sharp corner of his face, bilious though his temper was, that would have let him see me go to the bottom a thousand times over, had I even had a chance with his daughter herself, ere he'd have yielded me the tip of her little finger: accordingly 'twas a satisfaction to me, at the moment, just to make him see he wasn't altogether in his nabob's chair in Bengal yet, on an elephant's back!

"Ah, though!" said he, raising his voice to call me back, "to return for an instant—there is one thing I must positively require, sir—which you will see, in the circumstances, to be unavoidable. As a mere simple cadet, observe sir, there was nothing to be objected to in a slight passing acquaintance—but, especially in the—in short equivocal—sir, I must request of you that you will on no account attempt to hold any communication with my daughter, Miss Hyde—beyond a mere bow, of course! 'Twill be disagreeable, I assure you. Indeed, I shall—" "Sir," said I, all the blood in my body going to my face, "of all things in the world, that is the very thing where your views and mine happen to square!" and I bowed. The man's coolness disgusted me, sticking such a thing in my teeth, after just reckoning on my services with the very same breath,—and all when it wasn't required, too! And by heaven! thought I, had she shown me favour, all the old nabobs in Christendom, and the whole world to boot, shouldn't hinder me from speaking to her! What I said apparently puzzled him, but he gave me a grand bow in his turn, and I had my hand on the door, when he said, "I suppose, sir, as a naval officer, you have no objection to give me your name and rank? I forget what—" Here I remembered my mistake with the mate, and on the whole I saw I must stick by it till I was clear of the whole concern,—as for saying my name was Westwood, that I couldn't have done at the time for worlds, but I quietly handed him another card; meaning, of course, to give Westwood the cue as shortly as possible, for his own safety. The Judge started on seeing the card, gave me one of his sharp glances, and made a sudden step towards me. "Have you any relation in India, Mr Westwood?" said he, slowly; to which I gave only a nod. "What is he, if I may inquire?" asked he again. "A councillor or something, I believe," said I carelessly. "Thomas Westwood?" said Sir Charles. "Ah," said I, wearied of the thing, and anxious to go. "An uncle, probably, from the age?" he still put in. "Exactly, that's it!" I said. "Why—what!—why did you not mention this at first?" he broke out suddenly, coming close up; "why, Councillor Westwood is my very oldest friend in India, my dear sir! This alters the matter. I should have welcomed a nephew of his in my house, to the utmost! Why, how strange, Mr Westwood, that the fact should emerge in this curious manner!"—and with that he held out his hand. "Of course," said he, "no such restriction as I mentioned could for a moment apply to a nephew of Councillor Westwood!" I stared at him for a moment, and then—"Sir," said I, coolly, "it seems the whole matter goes by names; but if my name were the devil, or the apostle Paul, I 732 don't see how it can make a bit of difference in me: what's more, sir," said I, setting my teeth, "whatever my name may be, depend upon it, I shall never claim acquaintance either with you or—or—Miss Hyde!" With that I flung straight out of the cabin, leaving the old gentleman bolt upright on the floor, and as dumb as a stock-fish, whether with rage or amazement I never stopped to think.

I went right forward on the Indiaman's forecastle, clear of all the awnings, dropped over her head out of sight of the men, and sat with my legs amongst the open wood-work beneath the bowsprit, looking at the calm,—nobody in sight but the Hindoo figure, who seemed to be doing the same. Westwood! thought I bitterly; then in a short time, when the mistake's found out, and he got safe past the Cape, perhaps,—it'll be nothing but Westwood! He'll have a clear stage, and all favour; but at any rate, however it may be, I'll not be here, by heaven! to see it. That cursed councillor of his, I suppose, is another nabob,—and no doubt he'll marry her, all smooth! Uncles be— I little thought, by Jove! when I knocked off that yarn to the mate about my uncle—but, after all, it's strange how often a fellow's paid back in his own coin! The heat at the time was unbearable,—heat, indeed! 'twasn't only heat,—but a heavy, close, stifling sort of a feeling, like in a hot-house, as if you'd got a weight on your head and every other bit of you: the water one time so dead-blue and glassy between the windings of it, that the sky seemed to vanish, and the ship looked floating up into where it was,—then again you scarce knew sea from air, except by the wrinkles and eddies running across each other between, toward a sullen blue ring at the horizon,—like seeing through a big, twisted sieve, or into a round looking-glass all over cracks. I heard them clue up every thing aloft, except the topsails,—and they fell slapping back and forward to the masts, every now and then, with a thud like a thousand spades clapped down at once over a hollow bit of ground—till all seemed as still between as if they'd buried something. I wished to heaven it were what I felt at the time, and the thought of Violet Hyde, that I might be as if I never had seen her,—when on glancing up, betwixt the figure-head and the ship's stern, it struck me to notice how much the land on her starboard bow and beam seemed to have risen, even during the last hour, and that without wind; partly on account of its clearing in that quarter, perhaps; but the nearest points looked here and there almost as if you could see into them, roughening barer out through the hue of the distance, like purple blotches spreading in it. Whereas, far away astern of us, when I crossed over her headworks, there were two or three thin white streaks of haze to be seen just on the horizon, one upon another, above which you made out somewhat like a dim range of peaked land, trending one couldn't say how far back—all showing how fairly the coast was shutting her in upon the south-east, as she set farther in-shore, even while the run of the current bade fair to take her well clear of it ahead; which was of course all we need care for at present. Her want of steerage-way, however, let the Indiaman sheer hither and thither, till at times one was apt to get confused, and suppose her more in with the land-loom than she really was. Accordingly the mate proved his good judgment by having a couple of boats lowered with a tow-line, to keep her at least stern-on to the current,—although the trouble of getting out the launch would have more served his purpose, and the deeper loaded the better, since in fact there were two favourable drifts instead of one, between every stroke of the oars. The men pulled away rather sulkily, their straw hats over their noses, the dip of the hawser scarce tautening at each strain, as they squinted up at the Seringapatam's idle figure-head. For my part I had thought it better to leave him by himself, and go below.

When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and choking though it was, in high glee because the land was in sight from the starboard port-window, and they fancied the officers had changed their mind as to "touching" there. Every now and then a cadet or two would 733 start up, with their silver forks in their hands, and put their heads out; some asked whether the anchor had been seen getting ready or not; others disputed about the colour of tropical trees, if they were actually green like English ones, or perhaps all over blossoms and fruit together—the whole of them evidently expecting bands of negroes to line the shore as we came in. One young fellow had taken a particular fancy to have an earthworm, with earth enough to feed it all the rest of the voyage, otherwise he couldn't stand it; and little Tommy's mother almost went into hysterics again, when she said, if she could just eat a lettuce salad once more, she'd die contented; the missionary looking up through his spectacles, in surprise that she wasn't more interested about the slave-trade, whereof he'd been talking to her. As for Westwood, he joined quietly in the fun, with a glance now and then across to me; however, I pretended to be too busy with the salt beef, and was merely looking up again for a moment, when my eye chanced to catch on the swinging barometer that hung in the raised skylight, right over the midst of our noise. By George! ma'am, what was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old Iris. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.

Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land—and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. "Well, sir," said he coolly, "and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we're sure to have it off the land." "That's one of the very reasons," said I, "for thinking this will be from seaward—since towards evening the land'll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir," said I, "I tell you, Mr Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well—and so far south as this, the glass falling so low as twenty-seven, is always the sign of a nor'westerly blow! If you're a wise man, sir, you'll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you'll see your anchors clear!" Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, "Instead of that, sir, I shall hold on everything aloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!" "D'ye really think, then," said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was; "do you think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor'-wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?" "Perhaps not," said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it, "but you happen always to suppose what there's a thousand to one against, sir! Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once! But, by G——! sir, if it did come to that, I'd rather—I'd rather see the ship lost—I'd rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I'd see the chance given to you!" The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear—he was in a regular furious passion. "You'd better let me alone, that's all I've got to say to you, sir!" growled he as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leant over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.

The fact was, the farther we got off the land now, the worse—seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes' time—if it ever caught ground. My way would have been, to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the colour of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly I wasn't sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam, betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when I 734 went below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they'd sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the colour different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river mouth at ebb-tide,—then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster's account in the Iris, but there was neither anything like it to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.

The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the north-east point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs,—and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam,—but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she'd caught some eddy or under-drift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was, how to breathe, or bear your clothes—when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle—"Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the topes'l hawl-yairds!" He came shuffling aft next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I—catching a glance from him as much as to say—There's your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber! The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east'ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as 'twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapour thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two—off went all the awnings—and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, then at the mates, then at it again. "By George!" said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling on the pale clear sky over it, as if to a puff of air,—"it is smoke! Some niggers, as they so often do, burning the bush!" So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger—"Mr Collins, sir," said he in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship's larboard bow, which he couldn't have done before, for the awnings so lately above us,—"look, sir—there's an ox-eye!" I followed his gaze, but it wasn't for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvass aloft was but dirty gray and yellow.

'Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman wouldn't have done, so,—but a man-o'-war's-man is used to look out at all hours, in all latitudes,—and to a man that knew its meaning, this would have been no joke, even out of sight of land: as it was, the thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens northward, where they were freest from the sun—now standing over the open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light,—you managed to discern a small silvery speck, growing slowly as it were out of the faint blue hollow, like a star in the day-time, till you felt as if it looked at you, from God-knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst the mates and crew joined Jacobs's and mine, with the same sort of dumb fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly strong—as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue swinging in it far off to one side, 735 where the hush made you think of a stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot. The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn't see kept shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up elsewhere. To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before, seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above it had grown gray, and a long edge of hazy vapour was creeping as it were over from beyond,—the white speck all the while travelling down towards it slantwise from nor'ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether the wind mightn't come from so far nor'ard as to give her a chance of running out to sea before it, there was none now,—our sole recourse lay either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere it came on, with her head to it,—or we might make a desperate trial to weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to have a regular tornado, and that of the worst kind, which wouldn't soon blow itself out; though near an hour's notice would probably pass ere it was on.

The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safest; though of course the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes.

On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor'west and north, over the gray bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other: indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it,—which was the true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say,—and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains. I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about: his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee-shore in the dark—or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I'd have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be done and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new-melted lead. The air was like to choke you—or rather there was none—as if water, sky, and everything else wanted life, and one would 736 fain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth—the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam—one saw the white line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the bare royal mast-heads.

Suddenly a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted the top-sails, and a heavy earthy swell came into your nostrils—the first of the land-breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen, moaning sound far of through the emptiness, from the strong surf the Atlantic sends in upon the West Coast before a squall. If ever landsmen found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of the Seringapatam did, that moment; the shudder of the top-sails aloft seemed to pass into every one's shoulders, and a few quietly walked below, as if they were safe in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look round and round with a startled expression, and from one face to another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was like putting some question to me. I couldn't bear it!—'twas the first time I'd felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen three-quarters of an hour ago rose again with the puff of air, a slight flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the higher point,—when all at once I gave a start, for something in the shape of the whole struck me as if I'd seen it before. Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin's particular landmarks at the river mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being hereabouts glanced on me like a god-send. In the unsure dusky sight I had of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it, old Bob had specially said you'd never think it was a river; but then again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a bedlamite. At any rate a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of lightning streak out betwixt the bank of gray haze and the cloud that hung over it—then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms water, with a soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clue up and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that the captain had woke up, and, being, much better, wanted to see him immediately. Mr Finch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and hurried down the hatchway.

The sight which all of us who weren't busy gazed upon, over the larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see: 'twas half dark, though the sun, dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail, then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of the round-house aft, with the Indian Judge standing in it, his hand to his eyes,—and the land far away, to the very swell rolling in to it. Then the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack, that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle below,—and the wet back-fins of twenty sharks or so, that had risen out of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly. The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on to 737 the clouds, her jib was still up, and I knew the next time the clouds rose we should fairly have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder, such as you hear before a tornado—yet the chief officer wasn't to be seen, and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while every one began to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he staid so long; but there wasn't a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs, walked forward on the quarterdeck, and said coolly to the men nearest me, "Run and haul down that jib yonder—set the spanker here, aft. You'll have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!" The men did so at once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr Finch. "Stand by the anchors there!" I sang out, "to let go the starboard one, the moment she swings head to wind!" The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett's face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather-helm. We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood, too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to run forward and look after the anchors—when some one came hastily up the after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn't trouble myself to glance at him farther—when "Hold on with the anchors!" he sang out in a loud voice—"hold on there for your lives!" Heavens! it was the captain himself!

At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again, "Hoist the jib and fore-topmast-staysail—stand by to set fore-course!" By Jove! this was the way to pay the ship head off, instead of stern off, from the blast when it came—and to let her drive before it at no trifle of a rate, wherever that might take her! "Down with that spanker, Mr Macleod, d'ye hear!" roared Captain Williamson again; and certainly I did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But his manner was so decided, and 'twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of seamanship above me, or some special knowledge of the coast,—and I waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts—the Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long slight swell and the faint flaw of the land air. The black arch to windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zig-zag down before our glaring fore-to'gallant-mast. Suddenly the captain had looked at me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and quiet, easy-going man as he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something extraordinarily wild and raised in his pale visage, strange as the air about us made every one appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting "Who are—" when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue, and next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a cannon's month. For one minute the Seringapatam heeled over to her starboard streak, almost broadside on, and her spars toward the land,—all on her beam was a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black brow of the clouds, with a trampling eddying roar up into the sky. The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks, to hold on for bare life, you saw a roller, fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam—when crash went mizen-topmast and main-to'gallant-mast: the ship payed swiftly off by help of her head-sails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.

The least yaw in her course, and she'd have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men's ears, and waved his hands to ride 738 down the fore-sheets as far as they'd go; which kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half-set, and she rather flew than ran—the sea one breadth of white foam back to the gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail been stretched, 'twould have blown off like a cloud. I looked at the captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast—nothing but determination in his manner; yet once or twice he started, and glanced fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might chance to thwart him. I can't express my contrary feelings, betwixt a sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land, at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour,—yet could there actually be some harbourage hereaway, or that said river the quarter-master of the Iris mentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it? Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and puzzling to desperation,—still I trusted to the captain's experience. The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening howl of wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet from seaward, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it. All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it, like a long blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed—the yellow flame blazed into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke blew whitening off over it:—when, Almighty power! what did I see as it lengthened in, but part after part of old Bob's landmarks creep out ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together—first the low line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps, and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but it was far too much on our starboard bow—and in half an hour at this rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the coast ahead—so I signed to Jacobs for god-sake to edge her off as nicely as was possible. Captain Williamson caught my motion. "Port! port, sirrah!" he sang out sternly; "back with the helm, d'ye hear!" and, pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the other. "Land!—land, by G—d!" shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout—"I'll be there though a thousand mutineers—" His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me—this was the green leaf, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile—when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, then laughed, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half a minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly top-man made a sign, as much as to say, knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from 739 Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in. A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more south-east in the end, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw any one back if he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held; and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not only slant the sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black—though I had taken its bearings by the compass—and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling at every shiver in the foresail's edge, lest either it or the mast should go.

Suddenly we began to get into a fearful swell—the Indiaman plunged and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the wheel, and in the dark: we were getting close in with the land, and the time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her head in the compass box, as nearly as might and main could do if, for the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next moment. If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn, almost as if I'd have left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving, and shouting behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and where the chief officer was all this time, surprised me, unless the madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return for being shut up himself,—which in fact proved to be the case, cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled aft to me again, and charging him, for heaven's sake, to steer exactly the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along-decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us was the high line of coast in the dark—not a mile of swell between the ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind, and you saw the breakers lifting all along,—not a single opening in them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my mouth—what I felt 'twould be vain to say,—till I thought I did make out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far on our bow as I'd reckoned the fire to have been: indeed, instead of that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it was. "By all that's good!" I thought, "if a river there is, that must be the mouth of it!" But, by heavens! on our present course, the ship would run just right upon the point,—and, to strike the clear water, her fore-yard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the points—otherwise all was over!

I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God's sake, to drag upon the lee one—and that as if their life hung upon it—when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head a single point up, whatever might happen, to the last,—then I pulled with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvass we had strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent like 740 whip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies rising and boiling out of the dark—her cutwater shearing through it and the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar,—my very brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to—and it appeared next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would follow—when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she shuddered to it—all on a sudden the dark mass of the land seemed as it were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor where we were, than the spar before me,—till again, the light broadened, glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the other bow. I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding on to the lee of the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. "Tom," shouted I to Westwood, "run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the helm—down with it, Jacobs, my lad!" I sang out; "never mind spars or canvass!" Down went the helm—the spanker helped to luff her to the strength of the gust—and away she went up to port, the heavy swells rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and forecourse came in one terrible flash of roaring wind,—tearing first one and then the other clear out of the belt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening round the point into its lee. By heavens! there were the streaks of soft haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind, big and red—when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the point. "Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!" I sang out through the trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at the moment, till she was coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men. "Let—go!" I shouted: not a look turned against me, and away thundered the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down in a perfect deluge—you couldn't see a yard from you—all was one white pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go, cable payed out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the tide, pitching all the while on the short swell.

The gale still whistled through her spars for two or three hours, during which it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o'clock it was clear moonlight to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarterdeck, when I saw the chief officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly round him, as if he thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman's side, and you heard the fast ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead, plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin's river, whatever that might be. 741

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH.

[The reader is to understand this present paper, in its two sections of The Vision, &c., and The Dream-Fugue, as connected with a previous paper on The English Mail-Coach, published in the Magazine for October. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue, as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music in dealing with a colossal form of impassioned horror. The Vision of Sudden Death contains the mail-coach incident, which did really occur, and did really suggest the variations of the Dream, here taken up by the Fugue, as well as other variations not now recorded. Confluent with these impressions, from the terrific experience on the Manchester and Glasgow mail, were other and more general impressions, derived from long familiarity with the English mail, as developed in the former paper; impressions, for instance, of animal beauty and power, of rapid motion, at that time unprecedented, of connexion with the government and public business of a great nation, but, above all, of connexion with the national victories at an unexampled crisis,—the mail being the privileged organ for publishing and dispersing all news of that kind. From this function of the mail, arises naturally the introduction of Waterloo into the fourth variation of the Fugue; for the mail itself having been carried into the dreams by the incident in the Vision, naturally all the accessory circumstances of pomp and grandeur investing this national carriage followed in the train of the principal image.]

What is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded, as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and, on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner party, (cæna,) and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, in his opinion, might seem the most eligible, replied—"That which should be most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors. "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,—Good Lord, deliver us." Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings. In that difference, most readers will see little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But there I hesitate. The Christian church may be right in its estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life—as that which seems most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, however that may be, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death, (I mean the objective horror to him who contemplates such a death, not the subjective horror to him who suffers it) from the false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an accident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But that is unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it 742 were no accident, but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more a transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance—a feature of presumption and irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to the presence of God. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new element in the man's act is not any element of extra immorality, but simply of extra misfortune.

The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word sudden. And it is a strong illustration of the duty which for ever calls us to the stern valuation of words—that very possibly Cæsar and the Christian church do not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death; a Βιαθανατος—death that is Βιαιος: but the difference is—that the Roman by the word "sudden" means an unlingering death: whereas the Christian litany by "sudden" means a death without warning, consequently without any available summons to religious preparation. The poor mutineer, who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades, dies by a most sudden death in Cæsar's sense: one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate—having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation.

Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety in the modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable—a question which, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man's variety of temperament—certainly, upon one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms it is the most freezing to human sensibilities—namely, where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. Any effort, by which such an evasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger which it affronts. Even that, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, and where the dreadful knell of too late is already sounding in the ears by anticipation—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, namely, where the agonising appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on behalf of another life besides your own, accidentally cast upon your protection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests of another—of a fellow-creature shuddering between the gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. The man is called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as a murderer. He had but the twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow of a chance, small or great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonable lâcheté? The effort might have been without hope; but to have risen to the level of that effort—would have rescued him, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his duties.

The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's natures—muttering 743 under ground in one world, to be realised perhaps in some other. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him, publishes the secret frailty of human nature—reveals its deep-seated Pariah falsehood to itself—records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again a snare is made ready for leading him into captivity to a luxury of ruin; again, as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls from innocence; once again, by infinite iteration, the ancient Earth groans to God, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her child; "Nature from her seat, sighing through all her works," again "gives signs of woe that all is lost;" and again the counter sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens of the endless rebellion against God. Many people think that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his single person execute this rebellion for all his race. Perhaps they are wrong. But, even if not, perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original act. Our English rite of "Confirmation," by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! The little postern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a time within the glory of God's countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for God, by personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says in effect—"Lo! I rebaptise myself; and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now I swear for myself." Even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginal fall.

As I drew near to the Manchester post-office, I found that it was considerably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important for me to be in Westmorland by the morning, I saw by the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was; but by some luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race, and signalising to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has planted his throne for ever upon that virgin soil; henceforward claiming the jus dominii to the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre of the earth below it; so that all people found after this warning, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers—that is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, the owner of the said bunting. Possibly my cloak might not have been respected, and the jus gentium might have been cruelly violated in my person—for, in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality—but it so happened that, on this night, there was no other outside passenger; and the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. By the way, I may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial accuracy is essential to the effect of my narrative, that there was no other person of any description whatever about the mail—the guard, the coachman, and myself being allowed for—except only one—a horrid creature of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom young 744 Oxford called sometimes "Trojans," in opposition to our Grecian selves, and sometimes "vermin." A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good-breeding, will never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he has reason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of Stamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature running between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is always careful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the odious name, and to call the wretch "that other creature," as though all animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another and alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an English Effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any son of Othman, beg my reader's pardon for having mentioned an insider by his gross natural name. I shall do so no more: and, if I should have occasion to glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him "that other creature." Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion will arise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, "Was this other creature present?" He was not; or more correctly, perhaps, it was not. We dropped the creature—or the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped itself—within the first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, I wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be known whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. But this other creature, in the ease of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner's inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist upon it, that the verdict of a coroner's jury makes the best of epitaphs. It is brief, so that the public all find time to read it; it is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if any can survive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; it is upon oath, so that rascals and Dr Johnsons cannot pick holes in it. "Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on a moonlight night against the off hind wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodand upon the said wheel—two-pence." What a simple lapidary inscription! Nobody much in the wrong but an off-wheel; and with few acquaintances; and if it were but rendered into choice Latin, though there would be a little bother in finding a Ciceronian word for "off-wheel," Marcellus himself, that great master of sepulchral eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call this little remark moral, is, from the compensation it points out. Here, by the supposition, is that other creature on the one side, the beast of the world; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. You and I, on the contrary, the pride of our friends, get none.

But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fifty miles—viz., from a point seventy miles beyond London, upon a simple breakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the coachman. And in that there was nothing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of size, and that he had but one eye. In fact he had been foretold by Virgil as—

He answered in every point—a monster he was—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why should that delight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had I to exult in his misfortune? I did not exult: I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom I had known in the south for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop over Al Sirat—that famous 745 bridge of Mahomet across the bottomless gulf, backing himself against the Prophet and twenty such fellows. I used to call him Cyclops mastigophorus, Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader's head; upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclops diphrélates (Cyclops the charioteer.) I, and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. And also take this remark from me, as a gage d'amitié—that no word ever was or can be pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty, (though, observe, not his discernment,) that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. That made him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was, (surely it could not be envy?) he always courted my conversation, in which art I certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his law-suit.

Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely we've been waiting long enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and oh this procrastinating post-office! Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from me? Some people have called me procrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was in time for them. But can they lay their hands on their hearts, and say that they were in time for me? I, during my life, have often had to wait for the post-office: the post-office never waited a minute for me. What are they about? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by the packet-service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. For an extra hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going at this moment. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard. Manchester, good bye; we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office: which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst the next eight or nine. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour: and at first I detect no changes in the energy or in the of Cyclops.

From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of Westmoreland, were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, dated from Manchester, terminated in Lancaster, which was therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three terminated in Preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns of that name, proud Preston,) at which place it was that the separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north became confluent. Within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep—a thing which I had never previously suspected. If a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. "Oh, Cyclops!" I exclaimed more than once, "Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest." Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon—only by short stretches. On waking up, he 746 made an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters. The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster: in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not lain down in a bed. During the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking with the other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. During the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed to conviviality, he was driving. Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing "Love amongst the Roses," for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops or myself, and without applause for his poor labours, had moodily resigned himself to slumber—not so deep doubtless as the coachman's, but deep enough for mischief; and having, probably, no similar excuse. And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, I found myself left in charge of his Majesty's London and Glasgow mail then running about eleven miles an hour.

What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. At that time all the law business of populous Liverpool, and of populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break up this old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful established interests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentary statute. As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that a fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for its despatch. The consequence of this was—that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent. Except exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in England.

On this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. I myself, though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound reverie. The month was August, in which lay my own birth-day; a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts.15 The county was my own native county—upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labour in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth, was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, that swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, united with the permanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labour, to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart 747 are continually travelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight, and the first timid tremblings of the dawn, were now blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity, by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own horses, which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. In the clouds, and on the earth, prevailed the same majestic peace; and in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must for ever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth, upwards to the sandals of God.

Suddenly from thoughts like these, I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment; I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies, when the signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards thought, that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution: in the radix, I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. What could injure us? Our bulk and impetus charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong side of the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right. That was not likely. The same motive which had drawn us to the right-hand side of the road, viz., the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, would prove attractive to others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us, would rely upon us for quartering.16 All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw—not discursively or by effort—but as by one flash of horrid intuition.

Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which might be gathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard! A whisper it was—a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off—secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable. 748 What could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? What! could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman? You, reader, think that it would have been in your power to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. The guard subsequently found it impossible, after this danger had passed. Not the grasp only, but also the position of this Polyphemus, made the attempt impossible. You still think otherwise. See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble emperor: knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charlemagne.

The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart?—was it youthful gaiety in a gig? Whoever it was, something must be attempted to warn them. Upon the other party rests the active responsibility, but upon us—and, woe is me! that us was my single self—rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I not seize the guard's horn? Already, on the first thought, I was making my way over the roof to the guard's seat. But this, from the foreign mails being piled upon the roof, was a difficult, and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunately, before I had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road, which opened upon us the stage where the collision must be accomplished, the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and the impossibility of saving them by any communication with the guard.

Before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and, by his side, a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about? If it is necessary that you should whisper your communications to this young lady—though really I see, nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to overhear your conversation—is it, therefore, necessary that you should carry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. What is it that I shall do? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale, might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the Iliad to prompt the sole recourse that remained. But so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No, certainly: but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant; a shout would suffice, such as should carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and one gig horse. I shouted—and the young man heard me not. A second time I shouted—and now he heard me, for now he raised his head.

Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done: more on my part was not possible. Mine had been the first step: the second was for the young man: the third was for God. If, said I, the stranger is a brave man, and if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side—or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his protection—he will at least make some effort to save her. If that fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it; and he will die, as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to save. 749 But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who, now, upon the least shadow of failure in him, must, by the fiercest of translations—must, without time for a prayer—must, within seventy seconds, stand before the judgment-seat of God.

But craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a-day: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisis on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, from which, accordingly as he chooses his course, he descries two courses, and a voice says to him audibly—"This way lies hope; take the other way and mourn for ever!" Yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation—is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to seek all his counsel from him! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. For five seconds more he sate immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five he sate with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide him towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse's forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right-angles to ours. Thus far his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was done; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late: fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almighty bound forward may avail to clear the ground. Hurry then, hurry! for the flying moments—they hurry! Oh hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses—they also hurry! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. Fear not for him, if human energy can suffice: faithful was he that drove, to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse to his command. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore-feet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow: that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage—was that certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed—that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering—"Father, which art above, do thou finish 750 in heaven what I on earth have attempted." We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stood rather obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on my heart for ever.

The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party was alone untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage—partly perhaps from the dreadful torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it—as if it sympathised with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man sat like a rock. He stirred not at all. But his was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady——

But the lady——! Oh heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing! Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of the unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night,—from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight,—from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love,—suddenly as from the woods and fields,—suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation,—suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crownèd phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice.

The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right-angles we wheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever.

Dream-Fugue.
ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH.

Tumultuosissimamente.

Passion of Sudden Death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by the shadows of thy averted17 signs;—Rapture of panic taking the shape, which amongst tombs in churches I have seen, of woman bursting her 751 sepulchral bonds—of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave, with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands—waiting, watching, trembling, praying, for the trumpet's call to rise from dust for ever;—Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of abysses! vision that didst start back—that didst reel away—like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror—wherefore is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment of music too stern, heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after thirty years have lost no element of horror?

Lo, it is summer, almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating: she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. But both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of our common country—within that ancient watery park—within that pathless chase where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, and which stretches from the rising to the setting sun. Ah! what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which the pinnace moved. And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers—young women how lovely, young men how noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting towards us amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and slowly she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter—all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer; and, behold! the pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forest was left without a witness to its beauty upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our own crew—"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corymbi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried aloud—"Sail on the weather-beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she will founder!"

I looked to the weather-side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sate mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Are they blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or sudden vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borne into desert spaces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, as she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening billows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling—rising, 752 sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying—there for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden for ever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know not, and how I know not.

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand with extremity of haste. Her running was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another peril; and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rock she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness—saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering, rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds—saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm,—these all had sunk, at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn.

I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes among the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my car earthwards to listen—"hush!—this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"—and then I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head—"or else, oh heavens! it is victory that swallows up all strife."

Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, bid from us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriage as a centre—we heard them, but we saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; too full of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain but God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restless anthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of the Gloria in excelsis. These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for our privilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore was it that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the secret word arrived; which word was—Waterloo and Recovered Christendom! The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed. Every 753 city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infinite forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word. And the darkness comprehended it.

Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. But when the dreadful word, that rode before us, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial galleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fret-work, every station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying—

And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pause nor remission.

Thus, as we ran like torrents—thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo18 of the cathedral graves—suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon—a city of sepulchres, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon—so mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs—bas-reliefs of battles—bas-reliefs of battle-fields; of battles from forgotten ages—of battles from yesterday—of battle-fields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers—of battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run; where the towers curved, there did we curve. With the flight of swallows our horses, swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions—kindled warrior instincts—amongst the dust that lay around us; dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Créci to Trafalgar. And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the arrow-like flight 754 of the illimitable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a female infant that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists, which went before her, hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers with which she played—but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the topmost shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief—a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he rose to his feet; and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips—sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, in thy ears, oh baby! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us—"Whither has the infant fled?—is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds; and on a level with their summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came that? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed through the windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted on the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever it were—there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female head, and then a female figure. It was the child—now grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood—sinking, rising, trembling, fainting—raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being that should baptise her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for her; that prayed when she could not; that fought with heaven by tears for her deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last.

Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral, to its agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals—gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense—threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and anti-choir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter!—with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult: trumpet and echo—farewell love, and farewell anguish—rang through the dreadful sanctus. We, that spread flight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, mustering behind us. In fear we looked round for the unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit, were gathering upon our own. Who were these that followed? The faces, which no man could count—whence were they? "Oh, darkness of the grave!" I exclaimed, "that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited with secret light—that wert searched by the effulgence in the angel's 755 eye—were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, could it be ye that had wrapped me in the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that I should fear when the triumphs of earth were advancing? Ah! Pariah heart within me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy without sullen whispers of treachery in ambush; that, from six years old, didst never hear the promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingers as of a man's hand writing the secret legend—"ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"—wherefore shouldst thou not fear, though all men should rejoice? Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, and saw the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sang to the generations of man—ah! raving, as of torrents that opened on every side: trepidation, as of female and infant steps that fled—ah! rushing, as of wings that chased! But I heard a voice from heaven, which said—"Let there be no reflux of panic—let there be no more fear, and no more sudden death! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the shore!" That heard the children of the choir, that heard the children of the grave. All the hosts of jubilation made ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit, they moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were passing from the cathedral through its eastern gates, they overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders that overpowered our own. As brothers we moved together; to the skies we rose—to the dawn that advanced—to the stars that fled: rendering thanks to God in the highest—that, having hid his face through one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending—was ascending from Waterloo—in the visions of Peace:—rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom having overshadowed with his ineffable passion of Death—suddenly did God relent; suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm; and even in thee, sister unknown! shown to me for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion to glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, has he shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enter its gates—with the dreadful Word going before thee—with the armies of the grave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring: a thousand times has he followed thee in the worlds of sleep—through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues; through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams—only that at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might record and emblazon the endless resurrections of his love! 756

FREE TRADE AT ITS ZENITH.

It was observed by Sir Robert Peel, in his speech on the subject of Free Trade in the House of Commons, in the last session of parliament, that those who reproached the new system with all the suffering the country had undergone during the last three years, forgot or concealed the fact, that that system was partially introduced by the tariff of 1842, which so materially diminished the import-duties on rude produce in that year; and that the three following years (those of 1843, 1844, and 1845) were the most prosperous that Great Britain has ever experienced. Is it then just, he added, when quasi free trade in 1842 produced such beneficial results, to charge complete free trade in 1846 with the subsequent distress which has occurred; the more especially as adventitious causes—in particular, the Irish famine of 1846, and the European revolutions of 1848—amply account for the change, without supposing that the same principles, when carried into practice in 1846, produced such widely different results from those which had attended their adoption, to a certain extent, four years before.

The observation is a fair one, and apparently of material weight in the great question now at issue in the nation. When properly considered, it gives no countenance to the free-trade measures which the right hon. baronet has introduced, but only shows that it is to the combination of those measures, with another element of still more general and potent agency, that the disaster has been owing. In the interval, be it recollected, between 1842 and 1846, the new currency restriction bills were passed. The Bank Charter Bill of England received the royal assent in 1844, that of Scotland and Ireland in 1845. Free trade in grain was introduced in July 1846; in sugar, in May 1847; in shipping, in May 1849. The harvests of the years from 1846 to 1849 have been, as usual in this climate, checkered: that of 1846 was fair in grain, but sadly deficient in potatoes; that of 1847 was above an average in both; that of 1848, deficient in the south of England in corn; that of 1849, generally very good. The years from 1842 to 1846, therefore, were not a trial of free trade and a restricted currency, acting simultaneously—they were a trial only of semi-free trade, without the new monetary laws, coexisting with a railway mania in the palmy days of its progress, and other favourable circumstances, which concealed, as will be immediately shown, its actual tendency. Real free trade has begun to act, along with a restricted currency, for the first time, in 1846. The harvests since have been, on the whole, average ones—neither better nor worse than generally may, in this variable climate, be expected in future years. It is since 1846, therefore, that we are to look, in this climate, for the real proof of the effects of the combined free-trade and currency measures which Sir Robert Peel has introduced; and unless they are taken together, the practical tendency of both will be entirely misunderstood. The right hon. baronet has done a great service to the cause of truth, by pointing out the difference in the state of the country before and after 1846; and we shall endeavour to follow up the subject by tracing the difference to its real source, and endeavouring to detach from the question the simultaneous circumstances which have been so often referred to as explaining the phenomena. The inquiry is the more important, that the Protection party as a body have, with a few striking and illustrious exceptions, never seen the currency question in its true light, as accompanied with that of free trade, and, by not doing so, have both voluntarily relinquished the most powerful lever wherewith to shake the strength of their opponents, and failed in instructing the public mind either in the real causes of their sufferings, or the means by which they are likely to be, alleviated.

Various circumstances have been studiously kept out of view by the free-trade party, in reference to the years from 1842 to 1846, which really were mainly instrumental in producing 757 the prosperity of that period. And many others have been emphatically dwelt upon, in reference to the years since 1846, which really had very little hand in producing these disasters.

The first circumstance which had a powerful influence in producing the prosperity from 1842 to 1846, was the return of fine seasons after five bad harvests in succession, which closed in 1841. The summer, and still more the autumn, of 1842, was a long and unbroken period of sunshine, which gladdened the hearts of men after the long series of dreary and cheerless years which had preceded it. The subsequent years, from 1842 to 1846, were very fine seasons, the harvests of which were all above an average. This is decisively proved by a comparison of the average prices of grain for the years from 1839 to 1841, and from 1842 to 1845.19 The tariff of 1842 without doubt contributed to bring about, in some degree, this reduction of prices; but still, as the sliding-scale was then in operation, and the import duties were in general 8s. and 9s. the quarter, the effect must have been mainly owing to the succession of fine seasons. No one can have lived through that period, without recollecting that this was the case. But the cheap prices which result from abundant harvests and improved cultivation at home, are the greatest of all public blessings, as much as the cheap prices arising from an extended foreign importation and declining agriculture at home, are the greatest of all curses. The first enriches the manufacturer, by the previous comfort of the farmer, and the plenty diffused through the land by his exertions; the last gives a temporary stimulus to the manufacturer, by the cheapness which is fatal to the domestic cultivator, and, by abridging the home market, speedily makes the manufacturer share in his ruin.

The second circumstance which tended to produce the prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the glorious successes which, in the first of these years, succeeded to the Affghanistaun disasters. We all recollect the throb of exultation which beat in the breast of the nation when the astonishing news arrived, in November 1842, that a single Delhi Gazette had announced the second capture of Cabul, in the centre of Asia, and the dictating a glorious peace to the Celestial Empire, under the walls of Nankin. Not only was our Indian empire secured for a long period, by those astonishing triumphs, but its strength was demonstrated in a way of all others the best calculated to insure confidence in its future prosperity. The effect of this upon our manufacturing and commercial prosperity was great and immediate. Confidence revived from so marvellous a proof of the resources and spirit of the nation, which had so speedily risen superior to so terrible a disaster. Speculation was renewed on a great scale, from the sanguine ideas entertained of the boundless markets opened for our manufactures in the centre of Asia, and in the Chinese dominions. Sir Robert Peel is entitled to great credit for the glorious turn thus given to our Eastern affairs, and the gleam of sunshine which they threw upon the affairs of the nation; for his fortitude, when the previous disastrous news arrived, was mainly instrumental in producing it. But free-trade principles, and the tariff of 1842, had no more to do with it than they had with the affairs of the moon.

The third circumstance which tended to bring about the prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the revival in the home market, which, on the first gleam of returning prosperity, arose with redoubled energy from the very magnitude of previous deterioration and suffering. During the long train of disasters which followed the great importation of grain, and consequent exportation of the precious metals, in 1839—which compelled 758 the Bank of England, for the first time, recorded in history, to have recourse to the Bank of France for assistance—all classes of the people had undergone very severe privations. The depression had been general in extent, and unprecedented in duration, till it was entirely thrown into the shade by the effects of the terrible monetary crisis of October 1847. Stocks of goods were reduced to the lowest amount consistent with the keeping up even a show of business; comforts of various sorts had been long abandoned by a large portion of the middle and working classes. At the same time, capital, in great part unemployed, accumulated in the hands of moneyed men, and the competition for safe investment lowered the rate of interest. It was soon down to 3 and 2-¹/₂ per cent. In these circumstances the revival of trade, owing to the Eastern victories and fine harvest of 1842, acted immediately, and with the most vivifying effect, on the home market. A rush took place to replace worn out garments, to revive long abandoned but unforgotten enjoyments. This result always ensues, and is attended with very important effects, after a long period of depression and suffering. It is beginning, though in a slight degree, and from the same causes, amongst us at this time. But, no opinion can be formed, of the extent or probable duration of such revived activity, from its intensity on its first appearance.

The last, and, without doubt, the most important circumstance which produced the great prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the monetary change produced by the Bank Charter Act of 1844.

Sir Robert Peel admitted, in the debate on the currency at the opening of last session of parliament, that the act of 1844 had failed in one of its principal objects—viz., the discouraging of perilous and irrational speculation. He might have gone a step farther, and admitted that it had been the greatest possible encourager, for a short season, of the most absurd and dangerous undertakings. The proof of this is decisive. The Bank Charter Act was passed in May 1844, and from that time till the first check experienced in October 1845, was, beyond all comparison, the wildest and most absurd season of speculation ever known in English history. Among others, railways, to the amount of £363,000,000 sterling, received the sanction of the legislature, within two years after the new Bank Charter Act had passed. And so far was government from giving any check to these undertakings—the results of which, monstrous when co-existing with a fettered currency, are apparent in the present wreck of railway property—that they gave them the utmost encouragement, both by lowering the sum required for deposits from ten to five per cent, and by bestowing, at once in public and private, the most lavish encomiums on the immense present and prospective blessings they would confer upon the country. It is not surprising that a government, looking only to temporary objects, did so; for the railway mania, while it lasted, and before the ruinous effects in which it necessarily terminated, when fettered by the currency laws, had developed themselves, gave a passing stimulus to the demand for labour, and increase to industry, which rendered men blind to the whole consequences of the course on which they were launched. Sir Robert Peel ably and emphatically enforced the favourable condition of the nation, and dwelt with peculiar emphasis on the diminution in criminal commitments through the country, in his opening speech of the session of 1846—although he ascribed it to the free-trade measures, not the first effect of the general insanity on the subject of railways.

It is now perfectly apparent, and is generally understood, that the fatal Bank Charter Act was the main cause of the ruinous railway mania which has since spread distress and ruin so widely through the country. The reason is evident. It at once emancipated the Bank directors from every consideration, except that of making the most, as ordinary bankers, of their capital; and subjected them to such heavy expenses, from the vast quantity of specie they were obliged to keep in their vaults, as rendered a very extensive pushing of their business in every direction a matter of necessity. The effect of these concurring circumstances was soon apparent. 759 Interest was lowered, immediately after the passing of the Bank Charter Act, to two per cent for first-class bills, or still lower, as appears from the subjoined table furnished by Messrs Gurney and Overend, "the greatest bill-brokers in the world."20 The facility of getting discounts increased beyond all precedent the issues of the banks. Those of the Bank of England rose to £21,000,000; and of all country bankers in a similar proportion. The total notes in circulation, in England alone, reached £28,000,900; in Great Britain and Ireland they exceeded £39,000,000. It was this copious issue of notes which gave, for the time at least, nearly sufficient accommodation for the immense undertakings which were set on foot; which, beyond all doubt, both gave birth to, and nurtured the infancy of that vast network of railways which so soon overspread the country, and, while it was in course of formation, diffused such general prosperity over the land.

Had the impulse thus given to industry, and the enormous domestic undertakings thus set on foot by the sanction and with the approbation of government, been cautiously sustained, as a similar impulse had been during the war, by a corresponding increase of the circulation, based on a footing which was not liable to be contracted by a failure of the harvest, or an enhanced demand for gold in foreign states, it might have been the commencement of an era of prosperity, and a general spread of happiness, unprecedented in British annals. It had one immense advantage, which distinguished it both from the previous lavish expenditure during the war, and the extravagant South American speculations which ended in the monetary catastrophe of December 1825. The money was all expended at home, and on undertakings useful to the nation. No man will dispute, that, whether or not all the railways undertaken during that period were in themselves reasonable, or likely to yield a dividend to the shareholders, they were beyond all doubt, one and all of them, advantageous to the public. They afforded facilities for the transit of goods and the conveyance of passengers, which were not only an immense advantage to individuals, but a great relief and benefit to the commerce and manufactures of the country. So far from being blamed, government deserve the very highest credit for having given this direction to the industry and expenditure of the nation. Their fault consisted in the simultaneous and fatal measures they adopted regarding the currency.

Having taken this great step in the right direction, it became the first and most important duty of government to have provided, simultaneously with the commencement of the undertaking, a currency independent of foreign drains, commensurate to the vast addition made to the industry and engagements of the nation. Its capital was far more than adequate to the undertakings, how vast soever. This is now decisively proved by the event. Two-thirds of the railways are finished; the remaining third is in course of construction; and interest is in London from three to two-and-a-half per cent. But capital alone is not sufficient for carrying on undertakings. Currency also is requisite; and if that be deficient, the most boundless overflow of capital will not avert a monetary crash, or save the nation from the most dreadful calamities. Here, too, the event has thrown a broad and decisive light on this vital question, and the cause of our calamities. Interest was fixed by government, after the crash, for advances by the Bank of England, in October 1847, at eight per cent; it rose, in private transactions, to twelve and fifteen per cent. Why was that? Not because capital was awanting, but because the bankers, from the drain of specie to buy foreign grain, and the operation of the Bank Charter Acts of 1844 and 1845, could not venture to issue notes 760 to their customers. The nation resembled a great army, in which vast stores of provisions existed in the magazines at its disposal, but a series of absurd regulations affecting the commissariat prevented the grain they contained being issued to the soldiers. Accordingly, when the absurd restrictions were removed, things soon began to amend. When the Bank Charter Act was pro tempore repealed, by Lord John Russell's famous letter of October 1847, the effect was instantaneous in allaying the panic, and interest gradually fell, until now money has become overflowing, and it is to be had at two per cent, although the years since that time have been the most disastrous to capital ever known in the British annals, so that no subsequent increase has been possible.

What government should have done, when they engaged the nation in the vast system of inland railways, was what Pitt actually did, with such happy effect, when its currency was exposed to a similar strain from foreign expenditure, and immense engagements, in 1797. They should have provided a currency under proper control as to amount, but capable of being increased, according to the wants and engagements of society, and, above all, not liable to be withdrawn by the mutations of commerce, or the demand for gold in foreign states. The example of Great Britain during the war, when a gigantic expenditure, varying from eighty to one hundred and twenty millions yearly, was carried on for twenty years with the aid of such an expansive domestic currency—not only without any lasting distress, save from the stoppage of foreign markets, but with the utmost prosperity and happiness to all classes, although guineas had altogether disappeared from the circulation—was not only an example of what was required, but the best indication of how it was to be done. No period more loudly called for such a precautionary measure than one in which, under the sanction of government, no less than £363,000,000 was to be expended on railways in the short space of four years—a sum equal, if the change in the value of money is taken into consideration, to £500,000,000 during the war—at a time when all other branches of industry, foreign and domestic, were in an unusual state of activity, from the sudden return of prosperity after a long period of suffering. To expect that the nation, without some addition to its currency, could carry out so great an increase in its undertakings, was as hopeless as to imagine that an army, with a half added to its mouths, is to go on successfully with no addition made to its distribution of rations. And it is evident that this addition to the currency could be effectually made only by extending the paper circulation on a scale proportioned to the increase of work undertaken. By no possible means could gold, in adequate quantities, be brought to the scene of activity, the place where it was required; and even if brought there, no reliance could be placed on its continuing there for any length of time. On the contrary, nothing is more certain than that it would speedily be re-exported to other countries where it was less plentiful, and, therefore, more valuable; and thus its support would have been lost at the very time when it was most required.

The rise of prices during the war, when such a domestic currency was provided by government in adequate quantities, was really owing, not so much to the circulation having become redundant, as to its having permitted an adequate remuneration to be given to industry. This is a most important consideration, which Mr Taylor has most ably illustrated. The proof that the circulation had not, like the assignats of France, become redundant, is to be found in two things which are decisive of the point: 1. At no period of the war was there any difference between the price of an article when paid in bank notes and when paid in silver. No man ever saw the price of anything five pounds in bank notes, and four pounds ten shillings in silver. Gold bore an enhanced price, because it was required urgently for the operations of the Continental armies. 2. The increase in the paper circulation, considerable as it was, was yet not so great as the parallel and simultaneous increase in our national industry, as measured by our exports, imports, and public 761 expenditure.21 Prices rose, therefore, and reached, for a time, more than double their level anterior to the contest, not because too much paper had been put in circulation, but because enough had been issued to let the demand for labour keep pace with the enlarged undertakings of the nation.

Instead of imitating this great and decisive example of wise and statesmanlike policy, what did Sir Robert Peel and the Free-traders do, on the commencement of a similar period of vastly augmented national industry? Why, they did just the reverse. Not only did they make no provision for enlarging the currency of the nation at the time, when they themselves had occasioned or sanctioned so immense an increase to its undertakings, but they took the most effectual measures possible to contract the circulation, both in gold and paper, directly in proportion to the necessity for its expansion. They first passed a law which limited the circulation of the Bank of England, irrespective of the notes issued on the basis of gold in their coffers, to £14,000,000; and that of the whole banks in Great Britain and Ireland to about £32,000,000; and then they introduced a system of free trade which permitted the unlimited entrance of foreign agricultural produce at a nominal duty, and thereby sent nearly half the gold headlong out of the country. Under the influence of this monstrous system, the gold in the vaults of the Bank of England was progressively diminished, until, in the end of October 1847, it was reduced to £564,000 sterling in the banking department; at the very time that, by the same judicious law, above £8,000,000 of sovereigns were lying useless, and locked up in the issue department of the same establishment. The governor of the bank very candidly admitted, in his examination before the House of Lords, that the bank, under the existing system, might have broke while there were still £8,000,000 of sovereigns lost to them and the nation in the cellars of the issue department.22 Of course the whole banks of the country were compelled instantly to contract their credits, and force payment of their debts, and thence the universal distress and ruin which ensued. And all this took place at the very time that the bank had eight millions of sovereigns chained up by act of parliament in its cellars, at the issue end of the building; and when the government, which so chained it up, had landed the nation, by act of parliament, in engagements requiring an expenditure on railway shares of £363,000,000 in the next four years. You may search the annals of the world in vain for a similar instance of infatuation in the rulers of a nation, and self-immolation in a people. 762

It will be said that the vast importation of grain, in the course of 1847, was a matter of necessity, from the failure of the potato crops in Ireland in the preceding autumn; and that, be the consequences what they may, they cannot be ascribed to Sir Robert Peel or the Free-traders. In one sense this is undoubtedly true. It is certain that the most staunch Protectionists would never have objected to the largest importation of grain, and exportation of sovereigns, in a period such as that of severe and unlooked-for scarcity. It was the precise object of the sliding-scale to admit grain, in periods of scarcity, free of all duty. But what the Free-traders and Sir Robert Peel are chargeable with, is having established a system of currency so fettered and restricted by absurd regulations, that the exportation of sovereigns led necessarily and inevitably to a contraction of paper accommodation, and a shock to credit over the whole country; and aggravated the danger by a monstrous regulation, which exposed the bank to the risk of stopping payment when they had still eight millions in gold—enough to have enabled them, perhaps, to go on—at one end of their establishment. They are responsible for the dreadful error of having not only done nothing to extend and secure the currency from being exported or contracted, when they had added so enormously to the internal engagements of the kingdom, but done everything, by the establishment of a permanent system of free trade, and a permanently fettered currency, to secure its reappearance on occasion of every future recurrence of an indifferent harvest, or any continuance of a great importation.

It is the consciousness of this terrible calamity, impending over the nation, which terrifies all the directors of banks, and paralyses industry in so grievous a manner over the whole country. If you ask any moneyed man, what is the cause of the insecurity so universally complained of in money transactions over the country, and the reluctance of bankers to advance largely, even when their coffers are overflowing, to persons of the best credit? they will invariably answer, that they are afraid of a commercial crisis; that they do not know when it may come on: and that they must be, at all times, prepared for a storm. It is this indefinite dread, the natural result of the catastrophe of 1847, which renders them so cautious, and keeps the nation starved of accommodation, at the very time that Lombard Street is overflowing with money seeking for investment. It is no wonder they are afraid. The sword of Damocles is suspended over their heads, and thence their terror. They know that the heavy rains, and consequent importation of grain, in 1839 into the British islands, forced the Bank of England to apply for aid to the Bank of France, caused the United States Bank of America to stop payment, and rendered three-fourths of the traders in the United States bankrupt. The recollection of the dreadful crisis of 1847, brought on by the great importation of grain and exportation of sovereigns in that year, is fresh in their minds. They see the importations of food going on without intermission, in the face of exceedingly low prices, at the rate of fifteen millions of quarters a-year, being nearly quadruple that of 1839, which was four million quarters.23 They know that the grain countries will take our gold to any amount, but not our manufactures, because they do not want them, or are too poor to buy them; and they ask, How is all this grain to be paid? In what is all this to end? How are the bills, drawn to pay for these exports, to be met? So general is this feeling of dread, from the effects of a drain on our metallic 763 resources to pay for the vast importations of grain going forward, that when the author, in the beginning of last autumn, said to the chief officer of one of the first banking establishments in Britain, that "three weeks' rain in August would render half the merchants in England bankrupt," he replied—"Sir, three weeks' rain in August will make half the merchants in Europe bankrupt."

That it is this fatal dependence of the currency, and consequent credit of the country, on the retention of its gold circulation, under circumstances when, from the vast importation of grain going forward, it is impossible to retain it, which is the real cause of the calamitous state of the country for the last three years, and not either the potato rot or the European revolutions, to which the Free-traders ascribe it, is evident from the slightest consideration. The potato rot of 1846, which has been the sheet-anchor of the Free-traders ever since—the scapegoat which they hoped would answer for all their sins—was never, by the most determined of their party, set down as having occasioned a loss of above £15,000,000 sterling. Call it £20,000,000 to avoid cavil. The strength of the case will admit of any concession. Now, the value of the agricultural produce of the United Kingdom, prior to the free trade in grain, was generally estimated at £300,000,000.24 A deficiency of £20,000,000, or a fifteenth part, might occasion, doubtless, the most acute local distress in the districts in which it was most severely felt; but it could never, irrespective of its action on the currency, occasion a general monetary and commercial crisis. England and Scotland exported little or nothing to the boys of Munster and Connaught, where the failure occurred. There is no more reason, had it not been for the currency laws, why a failure of the potato crop in Ireland should have produced a monetary crisis in Great Britain, than a failure in the potato crop of Norway.

Again, the revolutions in Europe in 1848, of which so much has been said to account for the distress, are equally inadequate to explain the phenomenon. They could, of course, affect the European market for our export goods only; and they, taken altogether, only amount, to the countries affected by the revolutions, to £13,000,000—little more than a fourth part of our exports, which vary from £51,000,000 to £60,000,000. Supposing a half of this export, or £7,000,000, had been lost, during the year 1848, by the French, German, and Italian revolutions; what is that amidst the mass, thirty-fold greater, of our total manufactures, which some years ago were estimated at £133,000,000 for the home market, and £50,000,000 for the foreign. They are now unquestionably above £200,000,000 annually. But let it be supposed that the whole defalcation of our exports, from £60,000,000 in 1845, to £53,000,000 in 1848, was owing to the European revolutions, and none at all to the paralysis of domestic industry by the effects of free trade and a fettered currency—seven millions deficit, out of £200,000,000 annual produce of manufactures, is only a twenty-ninth part. Is it possible that so trifling a deficit can have been the cause of the terrible calamity which overtook the country in 1848 and 1849, the more especially as the harvest of 1847 was so good, that, by orders of government, a public thanksgiving was returned for it? That calamity was unparalleled in point of extent, and has, in two years, swept away at least one half of the whole commercial and manufacturing wealth of the kingdom. The thing is perfectly ridiculous. The failure of an eighth part of our annual export, and a twenty-ninth part of our annual creation of manufactures, might occasion considerable distress in the particular places or branches of 764 manufacture principally affected, but it could never explain the universal paralysis, affecting the home trade even more than the foreign, which followed the monetary crisis of October 1847.

Again, as to the European revolutions of 1848, although, undoubtedly, they largely contributed to interrupt the commerce of this country with central Europe, and may fairly be considered as the principal cause of the decline in the exports of that year, yet it may be doubted whether the influx of wealth, from the distracted monarchies of Europe, which they occasioned, did not more than counterbalance that disadvantage. England, during the convulsions of France, Germany, and Italy, became the bank of Europe. Wealth flowed in from all quarters, for investment in the only capital left which held out the prospect of security. The solid specie which then was brought to London for purchase into the British funds, in the course of 1848, has been estimated, by competent authorities, at £9,000,000 sterling. Beyond all doubt, this great influx of the precious metals from continental Europe—at a time when it was so much required, in consequence of the enormous exportation of specie which free trade was inducing, and the monstrous monetary laws which contracted the paper circulation in proportion as it was withdrawn—had a powerful effect in counteracting the evils we had brought upon ourselves, and sustaining the currency and national credit, which the Free-traders had done so much to destroy. And as this was an alleviation of the evil at its fountain-head, it is next to certain that the European revolutions of 1848, so far from having occasioned the distress in Great Britain in that year, had a material effect in abating it.

It is vain, therefore, for the Free-traders to push forward extraneous and separate events, as the cause of the dreadful calamities which have overtaken the country since October 1847; calamities which all the witnesses examined in both Houses of Parliament, in the committees on commercial distress, described as altogether unparalleled. They arose, evidently, not from the failure of crops in a particular place, or the temporary stoppage in the foreign vent for a particular branch of manufacture—causes which only touched the extremities—but from some great cause affecting the heart of the empire, and which through it paralysed all its members. And when it is recollected that, after having landed the nation in extra domestic engagements, for the next four years, to the amount of £360,000,000, the government adopted the most decisive and effective measures to contract the currency, and, after making it mainly dependant on the retention of gold in the country, they took steps which sent that gold headlong abroad—in exchange for enormously increased importations, the fruit of free trade—it is not difficult to discover what that cause was.

But all these evils, it is said, are over. We have passed through the desert, and arrived at the promised land. Free trade, disjoined from the extraneous circumstances which have hitherto concealed its real effect, is at length beginning to appear in its true colours. The Continent is pacified; the trade to France and Germany has revived; the revenue is improving; the exports in September were £2,000,000 more than in the corresponding month of last year: wait a little and we shall soon be in Elysium, and free trade and a fettered currency will realise all their promised advantages. We are not unaware of the Io Pæans which are already sung from the Liberal camp on this subject, and it is precisely for that reason that, when FREE TRADE IS AT ITS ZENITH, we have taken the opportunity to examine its effects. We have seen that the prosperity from 1842 to 1845 arose from extraneous causes, with which the tariff of the first of these years had nothing to do; and that the disasters from 1847 to 1849 were not in any sensible degree owing to external or separate calamities, but were the direct and inevitable effect of the establishment of a system of free trade, at the very time when the industry of the nation was manacled by the restriction of absurd and destructive monetary laws. Let us now examine our present condition, and see whether or not we are in an enviable position at 765 home or abroad; whether the industry of the country can possibly survive, or its revenue be maintained, under the present system; and whether the seeds of another catastrophe, as terrible as that of 1847, are not already spread in the land.

In one particular the Free-traders are unquestionably right. Beyond all doubt, the external circumstances of the nation, at present, are in the highest degree favourable to its manufacturing and trading interests. We are at peace with all the world, and, thank God, there is no immediate appearance of its being broken. The markets of continental Europe have, for six months past, been entirely laid open to our merchants, by the settlement of France under the quasi empire of Louis Napoleon, and the extinction of the war in Italy and Germany. Rome is taken; Hungary is subdued; Baden is pacified; the war in Schleswig is at an end; the Danish blockade is raised; California has given an extraordinary impulse to activity and enterprise in the West; the victory of Goojerat has extinguished, it is to be hoped for a long period, all appearance of disturbance in the East. The harvest, just reaped, has been uncommonly fine in grain, both in Great Britain and Ireland: that of the potatoes above an average in the latter island. The Chartists of England and Scotland, astounded at the failure of all their predictions and the defeat of all their hopes, are silent; the revolutionists of Ireland, in utter despair, are leaving the Emerald Isle. Amidst the general pacification and cessation of alarms, old wants and necessities begin to be felt. Men have discovered that revolting will not mend their clothes or fill their bellies. New garments are required, from the old being worn out; the women are clamorous for bonnets and gowns; the men are sighing for coats and waistcoats. Provisions are cheap to a degree unexampled for fourteen years; wheat is at 41s. the quarter, meat at 5d. a pound. Capital in London can be borrowed at 2-¹/₂ per cent, in the provinces at 3-¹/₂. That great Liberal panacea for all evils, a huge importation of foreign produce, is in full operation. This year it will probably reach in value at least £100,000,000 sterling. Let us then, in these eminently favourable circumstances, examine the effects of the free-trade system.

First, with regard to the revenue, that never-failing index of the national fortunes. The revenue for the year ending Oct. 10, 1849, being the last quarter that has been made up, was only £236,000 more than that for the year ending Oct. 10, 1848. That is to say, during a year when free trade was acting under the most favourable possible circumstances, and when the pacification of the world was reopening markets long closed to our manufactures, the revenue only rose a mere trifle above what it had been in the year wasted by the triple curse of a monetary crisis, European revolutions, Chartist disturbances and Irish rebellion. Why is this? Evidently because the effect of free trade and a restricted currency acting together, and the dread of a fresh monetary crisis hanging over our heads from the unprecedented magnitude of our importations in every branch of commerce, have depressed industry at home to such a degree, that even the reopening of all the closed markets of the world, and the rush to fill up the void, created during fifteen months of stoppage of intercourse, has been able to produce no sensible addition to the public revenue.

Next, as to the exports. The reopening of the Continental markets, the pacification of India by the victory of Goojerat, and the impulse given to American speculation by the gold of California, has occasioned a considerable increase in our exports, on which the Free-traders are pluming themselves in an extraordinary degree. We should be glad to know in what way free trade pacified India, extinguished revolution in Europe, and vivified America by the Californian diggings. And yet, had these distant and adventitious occurrences not taken place, would we have had to congratulate the manufacturers on a rise of two millions in September, and a rise of seven or eight millions on the whole year? And what, after all, is a rise of our exports from £53,000,000 to £60,000,000 or even £63,000,000 in a year, to the total manufacturing industry of the country, which produces at least £200,000,000 766 annually? It is scarcely the addition of a thirtieth part to the annual manufactured production. The Free-traders are hard pushed, indeed, when they are constrained to exult in an addition to the national industry so trifling, and wholly brought about by fortunate external events entirely foreign to their policy.

In the immense and increasing amount of our Imports, however, the Free-traders may indeed see, as in a mirror, the real and inevitable result of their measures. Their amount for this year is of course not yet known; although, from the returns already procured, it is certain that they will greatly exceed the level of last year, which reached £94,000,000. In all probability they will considerably exceed £100,000,000. Indeed, in the single article of grain, the excess of 1849 over 1848, since the one shilling duty began in February, has been so great as much to exceed in value the augmentation which has taken place in our exports.25 The importation of grain in the first eight months of 1849 has been more than double what it was in the corresponding period of 1848, and that in the face of a fine harvest, and prices throughout the whole period varying from forty-five to forty-one shillings a quarter of wheat. The importation at these low prices has settled down to a regular average of about 1,200,000 quarters of all sorts of grain a-month, or between fourteen and fifteen millions of all sorts of grain in a year. This is just a fourth of the annual subsistence, estimated in all sorts of grain at 60,000,000 of quarters. This immense proportion free trade has already caused to be derived from foreign supplies, though it has only been three years in operation, and the nominal duties only came into operation in February last.

So vast an increase of importation is perhaps unprecedented in so short a period; for, before the change was made, the importation was so trifling that, on an average of five years ending in 1835, it had sunk to 398,000 quarters. Indeed, the importation before the five bad harvests, from 1846 to 1840, had been so trifling, that it had become nominal merely, and the nation had gained the inestimable advantage of being self-supporting.26 With truth did that decided free-trader, Mr Porter, say, 767 in the last edition of his valuable work, entitled the Progress of the Nation—"The foregoing calculations show in how small a degree this country has hitherto been dependent upon foreigners, in ordinary seasons, for a due supply of our staple article of food. These calculations are brought forward to show how exceedingly great the increase of agricultural production must have been, to have thus effectively kept in a state of independence a population which has advanced with so great a degree of rapidity. To show the fact, the one article of wheat has been selected, because it is that which is the most generally consumed in England; but the position advanced would be found to hold good, were we to go through the whole list of the consumable products of the earth. The supply of meat, during the whole years comprised in this inquiry, has certainly kept pace with the growth of the population; and, as regards this portion of human food, our home agriculturists have, during almost the whole period, enjoyed a strict monopoly."27

Things, however, are now changed. Protection to domestic industry, at least in agriculture, is at an end; prices are down to forty shillings the quarter for wheat, and half that sum for oats and barley; the prices of sheep and cattle have fallen enormously to the home-grower, though that of meat is far from having declined in the same proportion; and, as all this has taken place during a season of prices low beyond example, it is evident that it may be expected to be still greater when we again experience the usual vicissitudes of bad harvests in our variable climate. The returns prove that ever since the duties on foreign grain became nominal, in the beginning of February last, the importation of corn and flour into Great Britain and Ireland has gone on steadily at the rate of 1,200,000 quarters a-month; and that now seven-eighths of the supply of the metropolis, and of all our other great towns, comes from foreign parts.28 How British agriculture is to go on staggering under such a frightful load of foreign importation into its best markets, it is not difficult to foresee. Every scholar knows how Italian agriculture decayed, under a similar importation of grain from the distant provinces of the Roman empire; and how directly the fall of the empire was owing to that fatal change.

Putting aside all minor considerations, which crowd upon the mind in considering the probable effects of this prodigious change, there are three of paramount importance which force themselves on the attention, any one of which holds the fate of the empire suspended in a doubtful balance.

The first is, How is the revenue of £55,000,000, and the interest of mortgages at least half as much more,29 to be provided for under so great a 768 reduction in the value of the staple articles of British agricultural produce? It has been seen that the total value of the agricultural produce of the empire was, anterior to the late changes, about £300,000,000. If prices fall on an average a fourth, in consequence of foreign importations, which is a most moderate supposition, probably much within the truth, this £300,000,000 will be reduced at once to £225,000,000. But the disastrous effect of such a reduction is not to be measured by its absolute amount, considerable as that amount undoubtedly is. Its dreadful effect lies here, that the £75,000,000 thus cut off, absorb nearly the whole profits of cultivation, out of which both the rent is paid to the landlord, and the farmer obtains the means of livelihood. The remainder is the cost of production, and it is not lowered in any sensible degree. Thus the whole loss falls on the cultivators. This is just what has happened under a similar course of policy in the West Indies, where the indolent habits of the emancipated slaves, and free trade in sugar, acting together, have destroyed the profits of agriculture; and of course the islands are rapidly returning to the jungle and the forest.

Now, if a deficiency at all approaching to this occurs in the revenue derived from land—the sources of three-fifths of the income of the United Kingdom—how, in the name of common sense, is the revenue to be paid? How are the jointures of the widows, the interest of mortgages, and the other charges on the land, to be made good, when the change of prices has absorbed nearly the whole profit of cultivation? If they are recovered, what is to remain to the landlord? How are the home manufacturers, and the numerous class of shopkeepers in towns, and, above all, in the metropolis, who are supported by their expenditure, to be maintained? It is very easy to say the fall of rents is a landlord's question, and the mass of the people have no interest in it. Who support the manufacturers and shopkeepers over the country? The landlords and holders of securities over the land furnish at the very least a half of that support. Of the £5,400,000 a-year, which the Income Tax produces, £3,200,000, or more than a half, comes from the land. How wide-spread, then, will be the distress produced over the community, and, above all, to the shopkeepers in towns, from a change which threatens to dry up the principal sources from which their sales are paid.

In the next place, How is the national independence to be maintained when we come to import so large a proportion as from a fourth to a third of our subsistence from foreign states? If the chances of war, or a Continental blockade, interrupt our usual sources of supply, what is to come of the people? Who is to guarantee us against famine prices on any deficiency of our usual supply from abroad, and our people from becoming, as the Romans were in former days, the sport of the winds and the waves? Observe, nearly all our foreign supply comes from two countries only, Russia, or Prussia, whom it influences, and America. If we lose our maritime superiority—and who will secure its continuance, now that the Navigation Laws are repealed?—we may be at once blockaded in our harbours, and reduced in three months to the alternative of starvation or submission. But supposing we are not at once reduced to so humiliating an alternative, is it not clear that, when we have come practically to depend for the food of a third of our people on two foreign states, we are entirely at the mercy of those two countries, and can never venture to assert, even in form, our independence against them? Without fitting out a ship of the line, or equipping a battalion, they can, by the mere threat of closing their harbours, at any time starve us into submission. And what are the nations beneath whose feet proud Albion is thus content to place her neck? Russia and America, the two most rising countries in existence, and both of which are actuated by the strongest and the most undying jealousy of the ancient glory and maritime preponderance of this country.

Mr Gurney, "the greatest bill-broker in the world," has emphatically declared in public, on more than one occasion, that the country cannot go on with its present expenditure; that £15,000,000 a-year, on the charges 769 of the army and navy, is more than can possibly be afforded; and that, if a great reduction is not made, we shall become bankrupt. His remedy for this is to disband our troops, sell our ships of the line, and establish the reign of peace and bill-broking throughout the world. On the other hand, "the greatest captain in the world," the Duke of Wellington, has made the following remonstrance to several successive administrations, on the total inadequacy of our present establishments, by sea and land, to secure the national independence in the political changes which may be anticipated in the lapse of time:—

	Men.
Channel Islands (besides the militia of each, well organised, trained, and disciplined)	10,000
Plymouth	10,000
Milford Haven	5,000
Cork	10,000
Portsmouth	10,000
Dover	10,000
Sheerness, Chatham, and the Thames	10,000

These are strong words, as all those of the Duke of Wellington, and all other men of powerful and clear intellect, are, when they are roused and thoroughly in earnest. But when charged with such a subject, the means of defence and independence to his country, would a man of his patriotic feeling use expressions less strong, when he saw both endangered by the weakness of successive administrations, 770 acting in obedience to the dictates of a blind and infatuated people? But if our independence has been thus menaced by the inadequacy of our defensive armaments by sea and land in time past, what is it likely to be in days to come, when the public revenue, and the resources of the kingdom, are prostrated by the combined action of a currency fettered by the acts of 1844 and 1845, and national industry overwhelmed with foreign competition under the free-trade system of 1846?

In truth, the peace congresses which now amuse the world, and give an opportunity for clever but chimerical and ignorant men to declaim upon the speedy advent of a political millennium, are nothing more than an effort, on the part of the free-trade party, to escape from the consequences of their own measures. Mr Cobden and the Free-traders of England now see as clearly as any body, that cheap prices and a large revenue, either to individuals or nations, cannot by possibility co-exist; that the £100,000,000, promised us from the abolition of the corn laws, have vanished into thin air, and that the reduction of the income of the whole classes of society under its operation will be so considerable, that it is quite impossible the national expenditure can be maintained. As the touching of the dividends is not for a moment to be thought of—as that would be bringing the tempest back with a vengeance on the moneyed class who evoked it—his only resource, to make our expenditure square with our reduced income, is in disbanding the soldiers, instituting a national guard, and selling our stores and ships of war. He is quite serious in that; and, like all other fanatics, he is not in the slightest degree influenced by the decisive refutation of his principles, which the universal breaking out of hostilities, and arming of the world, in consequence of the French Revolution of 1848, and the momentary triumph of liberal principles, has afforded. He is perfectly aware, that if industry was protected, and we had a currency equal to the wants and necessities of the nation, we might, with our extended population, raise £100,000,000 a-year, with more ease than we now do fifty millions, and thus secure the independence of the country, and bid defiance to all our enemies. But that would lower the value of money in the hands of the great capitalists, and would amount to an admission that he had been wrong; and, rather than risk that, he is content to prostrate the national defences, and hand us over, unarmed, to the tender mercies of the Chartists and Repealers at home, and the Red Republicans or Cossacks abroad.

The more intelligent of the Liberal party are now intent on a different object, but one equally descriptive of their secret sense of the failure of their grand panacea of free trade. They are full of the incalculable effects of the application of science to agriculture; expatiate largely on the analysis of soils and liquid manures, and indulge in learned disquisitions on the application of the refuse of towns and common-sewers to the improvement and fertilisation of the soil. From the Edinburgh Review, which treats its readers to a learned exposé of Liebig's principles, to Sir R. Peel's protegé, the Dean of Westminster, who boasts of having tripled the produce of his land by liquid manure, this is the grand remedy for the evils which they now see they have introduced. It is singular, if there is any truth in these discoveries, that though man has been labouring at the soil for four thousand years, and during that time had an ample supply of these fertilising streams, they have never been brought to light till free trade made them a question of life and death to a powerful party in the state. Having had ample experience of the application of these liquid manures on the largest and most favourable scale, we are able to give a decided opinion on this subject. Liquid manures are of great service in enriching meadow lands, or forcing up coarse but luxuriant crops of vegetables, such as cabbage or cauliflower, of which the leaves or stems, not the seeds or roots, form an article of food. But they do not permanently enrich the soil: their effect is over in a few weeks. A fresh inundation of the fertilising stream is then requisite, the effects of which are speedily evaporated. On this account they are wholly inapplicable to grain 771 crops, and of very doubtful service to potatoes or turnips. In the emphatic language of farmers, they put no heart into the ground. The vegetation they force on is entirely in leaves and stems, not in seeds or roots. If they come into general use, they may increase the determination of the agricultural industry of the country to grass cultivation, and render England in modern, as Italy was in ancient times, one great sheet of pasturage; but they will never overcome the difficulties with which free trade has environed our farmers in the raising of grain crops, or enable them to compete with the harvests of the Ukraine, or the basin of the Mississippi.

In the third place—and this is perhaps a more vital consideration than any—How is the constant recurrence of monetary crises, similar to that which has left such woful desolation behind it, to be avoided upon every recurrence of a deficient harvest at home, or a straitened importation from abroad? The people of England are sensitively alive on this subject. They watch the rain in autumn with the most intense anxiety; and, if it falls a few days more than usual, the utmost alarm pervades all classes. They know well what rain in autumn portends. They see rising up, in dismal perspective before them, a great importation of grain, a vast export of sovereigns, the screw put on by the Bank of England, a contraction of credits by every bank, every man finding his creditors on his back, and one-half of his debtors bankrupt. All this they see, and see clearly; but the minds of a large portion of them are so benighted by the free-trade dogmas, that it never occurs to them that all this is the creation of their own policy, and is in no degree imputable to the laws of Providence. They think the thing is inevitable. They believe that there is a natural connexion between three weeks' rain in August and a monetary crisis, just as there is between a similar deluge and flooded meadows, or destroyed bridges. The evil, however, is entirely of human creation, and may, with absolute certainty, be avoided by human means. There is no more reason why three weeks' rain in August should produce a monetary crisis, than three weeks' rain in November. It is our ruinous monetary laws which render them cause and effect.

But assuming that the monetary laws are to continue, and free trade to be persisted in, it will become the people of this country, and especially the trading classes, to consider well the inevitable effect of such a state of things on the monetary concerns of the country, and, through them, on the solvency of every one of themselves. We have seen that the heavy rains and large importations of grain in 1839 produced the severe and long-protracted period of distress from 1839 to 1842; and that the potato failure in 1846, acting on the Bank Charter Act of 1844, occasioned the terrible catastrophe of October 1847. But what was the importation of grain, in either of these periods of distress or famine, to that which is now taking place, and has become habitual in the face of exceedingly low prices? In 1839, the whole grain of all kinds imported was 4,000,000 quarters, an amount in those days unprecedented. In 1846 and 1847, 12,000,000 quarters, under the stimulus of famine prices, was imported in fifteen months. But now, after a fine harvest, and with wheat at 41s. a quarter, we are importing annually, as our average amount, fifteen millions of quarters of foreign grain! How are the most terrible commercial disasters to be averted, if this immense amount receives any augmentation from bad seasons? Nay, how are they to be averted even in ordinary seasons, with so immense a drain on the metallic resources of the country? This is a question in which the mercantile classes are far more interested than the agricultural—for with them a monetary crisis is an affair of life and death. With landholders, cheap prices, unless very long continued, are merely an affair of temporary loss of income, because the land itself remains, and it is the value of the annual fruits only that is affected.

To compensate so many perils, past, present, and to come, have free trade and a fettered currency, since they were simultaneously brought into action in this country, afforded such a spectacle of internal prosperity and concord as to render them on the whole worth persisting in, at such hazard 772 to our national independence, and even existence? Alas! the view is now, if possible, more alarming than the prospect of dangers to come, so much have the realised and experienced evils of the new system exceeded what the most sombre imagination, fraught with the most gloomy images, could have anticipated. Amidst the infinite variety of topics bearing on this subject, we select the five following, as bearing decisively on the subject:—The increase of the poor-rate, both in Great Britain and Ireland; the increase in emigration; the increase of crime; the decline in railway travelling, and the ruin of agriculture in Ireland.

With regard to the increase of the poor-rate, since free trade and the new monetary system were introduced, we have the best possible authority in the following statement in the last number of a leading journal. "It appears," says the Edinburgh Review, "from Mr Commissioner Symmon's report on pauperism, that the poor-rate in England has now become heavier than it was before 1835 when the New Poor law was introduced. It was, in 1834, £7,373,807; it was in 1848, £7,817,459. Every ninth person now in England is now a pauper: and the increase of paupers during the last two years has been double in proportion to the relative numbers of criminals."30 In Ireland, above 2,000,000 persons are paupers; and the poor-rate since 1846 has risen from £260,000 a-year to £1,900,000, though it was in the first of these years only (1846) that there was any general failure of the potato crop. In Scotland the poor-rate, has nearly tripled in the last three years; it has risen from £185,000 a-year to £560,000. In Glasgow, the poor-rates, which anterior to 1846 were under £30,000 yearly for the city and suburbs, rose in the year 1848-9 to £200,000, and in the present year (1849-50) amount to £138,500. Nor is it wonderful that assessments have increased so prodigiously, when the augmentation of paupers has been so alarming. The following is the increase in the city of Glasgow parish, being about a half of the city and suburbs, during the last three years:—

Year.	Total number of Paupers.
1845-6,	7,454
1846-7,	15,911
1847-8,	51,852

The total number of paupers relieved in the city of Glasgow and suburbs in the year 1848-9 was 122,000; being exactly a third of the population receiving parochial relief.

The enormous and unprecedented increase of emigration in the last three years is still more alarming and descriptive of the fatal disease under which the body politic is labouring. Previous to 1846 the annual emigration had stood thus:—

But free trade and a fettered currency soon doubled these numbers. The emigration stands thus in round numbers:—

For 1849 the numbers have not yet been made up; but that they have much exceeded 300,000 is well known, and may be judged of by the following facts. From the official return made up at New York, and published in the New York Herald of October 10, it appears that, up to that date, there had landed, in that harbour alone, 238,487 emigrants, of whom no less than 189,800 were Irish. If to these is added the emigrants who went to Boston—where 13,000 landed in the same period, and those who have gone to Canada, where above 60,000 landed last year—it is evident that the total emigrants from the United Kingdom this year must have considerably exceeded 300,000; being probably the greatest emigration, from any country in a single year, in the whole annals of the world. It considerably exceeds the annual increment of the population of the United Kingdom, which is 773 about 230,000: so that, under the combined action of free trade and a fettered currency, the population of Great Britain and Ireland, which for three centuries had continually been advancing, has for the first time declined. The Free-traders may boast of an exploit which all the enemies of England have never been able to effect. This has become so notorious, that it has passed into an ordinary newspaper paragraph; which, without attracting the least attention—though it is the most striking thing that has occurred in English history for five centuries—is now making the round of the public prints.

It is in vain to put this dismal fact down to the account of the Irish famine. That occurred in the winter of 1846-7, three years ago, since which period we have had good harvests; notwithstanding which the emigration has, since that, been constantly about 250,000; and this year, in the midst of a fine harvest, has turned 300,000.

The increase of crime during the last three years has been equally alarming, and illustrative of the grievous distress which, for that period, has affected the industrial interests of the empire. Having, in the last Number of this magazine, fully discussed this subject, we shall only observe that, during the last three years, the increase of crime in the two islands has been nearly 50 per cent. Sir R. Peel, in spring 1846, when the railway mania was at its height, and full employment was given to railway labourers and mechanics in every part of the country, dwelt with peculiar emphasis and complacency on the diminution of commitments which appeared in the preceding year, as the most decisive proof of the beneficial effect of his measures in 1842. We hope he will dwell with equal emphasis on the increase of crime since that time, and draw from it the appropriate conclusion as to the wisdom of his subsequent measures.

The woful state of the railway interests throughout the country, and the steady and alarming decrease of the mileage profits, on an average of all the lines, is another internal symptom of the dreadful effects of the new system which, within the last three years, has been introduced. Railway property, within the last three years, has almost everywhere declined to a half, in many great lines to a third of its former value. In one of the greatest lines in the kingdom, the £50 shares, all paid up, are now selling at £14, and were even lately down as low as £10. The following is taken from the Times of October 21:—

Years.	Miles opened.	Traffic per mile.
1843	1,586	£2,330
1844	1,770	2,500
1845	2,033	2,640
1846	2,498	2,560
1847	3,375	2,200
1848	4,178	1,965
1849	4,980	1,780

To what is this lamentable sinking of property, in so important a branch of public investment, to be ascribed? We are aware that much of it is owing to unproductive branch lines; but what is the main cause of these branch lines having, contrary to general expectation, proved so unproductive? It is in vain to ascribe it to the cholera: that only temporarily affected parts of the kingdom; and, at any rate, it is now over, and government have very properly appointed a public thanksgiving for its termination. It is equally in vain to ascribe it to the monetary crisis of 1847; that is long since past: capital is overflowing, and interest in London is again down to 3 and 2-¹/₂ per cent. It is evidently owing to one cause, worse than plague, pestilence, and famine put together—viz. the wasting away of the internal resources of the country, under the combined operation of free trade and a restricted currency: free trade deluging us with foreign goods in every department of industry, and a restricted currency paralysing every attempt at competition in our own. We are very complacent: we not only present our shoulders bare to the blows of the enemy, but we tie up our own hands, lest, under the smart of the injury, we should be tempted to return them. 774

But by far the most deplorable effect of free trade and a fettered currency is to be seen in Ireland, where, for the last three years, misery unexampled and unutterable has existed. We shall mention only three facts of a general nature, descriptive of the state of that unhappy country since the simoom of the new principles blew over it, and leave our readers to judge of the state of things to which they point.

In the first place it appears, from a parliamentary return, that the holders of farms who, in 1845, were 310,000 over the Emerald Isle, had sunk in 1848 to 108,000. Two hundred and two thousand cultivators of land have disappeared in three years, and with them at least half of the capital by means of which the land was made to produce anything.

In the second place, as we noticed in our last Number, the bank returns corroborate, in the most fearful manner, this alarming decrease in the agricultural capital and industry of the country. Ireland, it is well known, is almost entirely an agricultural country. Now, from the returns of the bank-notes in circulation in Ireland, as made to government in terms of the act of 1845, it appears that, while in August 1846, there were £7,500,000, they had sunk, in August 1849, to £3,833,000! Othello's occupation is gone! The bank-notes can find no employment: the bankers no customers. Free trade and the bank restrictions have in three years reduced the circulation which the country could take off to half of its former amount.

In the third place, if we cast our eyes across the Atlantic, we shall see where the cultivators and agricultural capital of Ireland have gone. During the years 1847 and 1848, out of the 250,000 emigrants who annually left the British Isles, about 180,000 were from Ireland. But this year 1849, when the duties on grain became nominal in February, outdid all its predecessors in the magnitude of the stream of human beings which it caused the Emerald Isle to send across the Atlantic. It has been already mentioned that, up to October 10, 1849, 189,800 Irish emigrants had landed at New York, besides 10,000 at Boston. If to these we add the probable number to Canada, perhaps 30,000, we shall have at least 230,000 Irish who have emigrated in one year to America—and that a year of general peace, a fine harvest, reopened Continental markets, and revived manufacturing industry in the empire. And the Irish county members formed a large part of Sir R. Peel's majority which carried free trade in 1846. Truly they have smote their constituents hip and thigh.

After these facts, and the woful one, that about 2,000,000 paupers are kept alive in Ireland by a poor-rate of £1,900,000 a-year, which is crushing the little that remains of industry and cultivation in the country, it is superfluous to go into details. But the following extracts from that powerful free-trade journal, The Times, are so graphic and characteristic of the effect of its own favourite measures, that we cannot forego the satisfaction of presenting them:—

So much for the working of free trade and a restricted currency in the Emerald Isle. One would suppose, in reading these melancholy accounts, we were not dealing with any people in modern times, but transported back to those dismal periods, after the fall of the Roman empire, when the contemporary annalists contemplated the extinction of the human race, from the desolation of some of its provinces.

This dreadful state of things in Ireland is but a repetition of what, under the operation of these causes, aided by the fatal step of unqualified emancipation, has for some years been going on in the West Indies. We have not room to enlarge on this prolific subject, teeming as it does with facts illustrative of the effects of the free-trade system. They are generally known. Suffice it to say, the West Indies are totally ruined. British colonies, on which £120,000,000 sterling has been expended, and which fifteen years ago produced £22,000,000 worth of agricultural produce annually, have been irrecoverably destroyed. The 776 fee-simple of all the estates they contain would not sell for £5,000,000 sterling. We know an estate in the West Indies, which formerly used to net £1500 a-year, and to which £7000 worth of the best new machinery was sent within the last five years, which the proprietor would be too happy to sell, machinery and all, for £5000.

Canada has lately shared largely in the moral earthquake which has so violently shaken all parts of the British empire. We subjoin an extract from the temperate and dignified statement of their grievances, lately published by 350 of the leading men at Montreal, to show how largely free trade enters into them.

In what graphic terms are the inevitable results of free trade and a restricted currency here portrayed by the sufferers under their effects! Colonial protection withdrawn; home industry swamped by foreign; canals unused! banks alarmed; capital dissipated; rivers and harbours untenanted; property unsaleable! One would have thought they were transcribing from this magazine some of the numerous passages in which we have predicted its effects. And let England recollect, Canada now employs 1,100,000 of the tonnage of Great Britain. Let it be struck off, and added to the other side, and the British tonnage, employed in carrying on our trade, will, in a few years, be made less than the foreign.31 777

One would have thought, from the present state of Canada, that our colonial secretary had followed the advice of Franklin in his "Rules for making a great Empire a small one."

If our rulers had followed the advice of the sages of former times, instead of the theories of modern bullionists and interested parties, they would have avoided this unparalleled accumulation of disasters. Hear the greatest and wisest of men, Lord Bacon, on the subject:—

We add only the opinion of a great authority with the Free-traders, Mr Malthus, which seems almost prophetic of what is now passing in this country. We are indebted for it to the Morning Post, which has consistently argued the doctrines of protection and an adequate currency since they were first assailed.

This was Mr Malthus's anticipation of the effect of wheat falling to 50s. What would he have said of it at 40s., its present average price? We recommend the concluding paragraph to the notice of the fund-holders, by whose influence the late changes have mainly been introduced.

But let the Free-traders be of good cheer—they have done marvellous things. They have accomplished what no British statesmen, since the days of Alfred, have been able to effect. They have stopped the growth of our population, and, for the first time for four centuries, rendered it retrograde. They have sent from two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand people yearly out of the country, for three years, in search of food. They have lowered the Irish circulation of notes a half. They have, with one blow, swamped the Poor-law Amendment Act in England, and rendered rates higher, even with prices extremely low, than they ever were in English history. They have extirpated 200,000 cultivators in Ireland. They have cut £80,000,000 a-year off from the remuneration of cultivation and the encouragement of the home market to our manufactures in Great Britain. They have lowered railway property more than a half. They have destroyed, at least, a half of the whole commercial and trading wealth of the manufacturing towns. They have made the nation dependant, in two years, for a fourth of its subsistence on foreign states. They have rendered the maintenance of the national independence, if the present system is persisted in, impossible. They have destroyed £100,000,000 worth of property in the West Indies. They have sown the seeds of revolt in Canada, and rendered its separation, at no distant period, from Great Britain a matter of certainty. They have repealed the Navigation Laws, and thereby cut off the right arm of our naval strength. They are fast laying the seeds of dismemberment in our colonial empire. They will soon reduce, if unchecked in their career, the immense empire of England to two islands, oppressed with taxes, eaten up by paupers, importing a third of their annual subsistence from foreign states, brought in in foreign bottoms. These are the effects of FREE TRADE AT ITS ZENITH. What will they be at its Nadir? 779

INDEX TO VOL. LXVI.

Abercromby, Mr, in Sardinia, 587.

Across the Atlantic, 567.

Æneas, Payne Knight's criticisms on, 375.

Africa, Jonathan in, 172
—its deserts, 464.

Agricultural interest, overthrow of, by the free-traders, 115
—population of Wales, character, &c. of the, 330.

Agriculture, alleged injury from the game laws to, 73
—distressed state of, in Ireland, 774
—and Spain, 719.

Album, our, for the last page of, 205.

Alfieri, the autobiography of, 294.

Alison on taste, remarks on, 13
—on Virgil, 246
—on Homer, 255.

America, increase of its shipping under the reciprocity system, 117, 118
—cost of raising grain in, 120
—forests of, 464.

Andalusia, Mr Dundas Murray's work on, 705.

Anne, Queen, national debt under, 666.

Anti-game law association, the, 63.

Antro de Nettuno in Sardinia, the, 40.

Ardara, early paintings in, 46.

Army, Cobden's crusade against the, 584.

Art, specimens of early, in Sardinia, 46
—influence of religion on, 261.

Artist, the, not a mere imitator, 412.

Asia, its mountains, 462
—table-lands, 463.

Assignment system for convicts, advantages of the, 532.

Atala et Réné, Chateaubriand's, 301.

Atheism, Christopher, &c. on, 31.

Attitu in Sardinia, the, 43.

Audiganne, M., on the state of France, 233.

Australia, commerce of, in relation to the convict system, 527
—exports per head to, ib.
—obstacles to free emigration to, 533.

Austria, the contest between, and Hungary, 589
—Cobden on, 591.

Austrian loan, Cobden on the, 602.

Autobiography—Chateaubriand's Memoirs, 292.

Bacon, Lord, on the principles of trade, 777.

Bad temper, Christopher on, 5.

Baden insurrection, the, 206
—as one result of the revolutionary movement, 429
—its causes, &c., ib.

Baden-Baden, state of, 431.

Baltic shipping, increase of, under the reciprocity system, 117, 118.

Banditti, Sardinian, 41.

Bank, danger of the, in 1823, 675
—charter act of 1844, the, 758.

Barton, Bernard, letters of Lamb to, 149.

Bawr, Madame, tale by, 609.

Beattie, Dr, on Gray's elegy, 242.

Beauty, Christopher on the faculty of, 29
—relations of virtue to, 259.

Blair, Dr, on Virgil's description of thunder, 12.

Blanc, Louis, his "Protest," 234.

Blind, one of the Baden insurgents, 208.

Bolingbroke on the national debt, 665.

Boroughs, predominance given by the Reform Bill to, 113.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, on, 296.

Botany Bay, effects of the transportation system on, 528.

Braybrooke Lord, his edition of Pepys' Diary, 501.

Bread stuffs, importation of, 766.

Brentano, one of the Baden insurgents, 206, 207, 208, 211, 215.

Brigands, Spanish, 706.

Bright, Mr, motives of, in his anti-game-law agitation, 63
—on poaching, 70.

Brougham, Lord, on the marriage law of Scotland, 269
—on transportation, &c., 525.

Brown, Dr Thomas, on Gray's elegy, 241.

Bugeaud, Marshal, 227.

Buonaparte and the Bourbons, Chateaubriand's pamphlet called, 304.

Burritt, Elihu, 583.

Bute, Lord, bribery under, 666.

Butler's Analogy, the argument for immortality from, 311.

Byron, on a passage from, 367
—his description of Velino, 372
—his autobiography, 295.

Cabrera, the last insurrection of, 707.

Cadet de Colobrières, the, 607.

Cæsar's Commentaries, on, 292.

Campbell, Lord, attack on Lord Lyndhurst by, 131
—on the Scottish marriage bill, 265, 273.

Canaanites, presumed relics of the, in Sardinia, 36.

Canada bill, debates on the, 131
—commerce of, in relation to the convict system, 527
—exports per head to, ib.
—effects of free trade on, 776.

Canadas, civil revolution in—a Remedy, 471.

Cape, commerce of, in relation to the convict system, 527
—resistance in, to its being made a penal settlement, 535.

Cardiganshire, rarity of the English language in, 328.

Carlist movement, the late, in Spain, 707.
780
Carlsruhe, the revolt at, 206
—capture of, by the Prussians, 215.

Carta de Logu of Sardinia, the, 40.

Carthaginians in Sardinia, the, 34
—their disappearance, 36.

Castlemaine, Lady, 516.

Cavaignac, General, during the June conflict, 231, 232.

Caxtons, the, Part XIV. chap. lxxx., 48
—chap. lxxxi., 55
—chap. lxxxii., 59
—chap. lxxxiii., 60
—Part XV. chap. lxxxiv., 151
—chap. lxxxv., 152
—chap. lxxxvi., Vivian—at the entrance of life sits the mother, ib.
—chap. lxxxvii., The preceptor, 155
—chap. lxxxviii., The hearth without trust, and the world without a guide, 157
—chap. lxxxix., The attempt to build a temple to fortune out of the ruins of home, 159
—chap. xc., The results—perverted ambition, &c., 160
—chap. xci., 164
—chap. xcii., 165
—chap. xciii., 167
—chap. xciv., 171
—Part XVI. chap. xcv., 277
—chap. xcvi., 283
—chap. xcvii., 285
—chap. xcviii., 286
—chap. xcix., 289
—chap. c., 290
—Part the Last, chap. ci., 391
—chap. cii., 393
—chap. ciii., 394
—chap. civ., 396
—chap. cv., 397
—chap. cvi., 400
—chap. cvii., 403
—chap. cviii., 405.

Celtic race, character of the Welsh, 335.

Chapman's Homer, on, 257.

Charles II., sketches of the time of, 501, et seq.

Charles Lamb, 133.

Chartism, prevalence of, in Wales, 337.

Chateaubriand's Memoirs, 292.

Chateaubriand, vanity of, 300
—his successive works, 301.

Chatham, Lord, his system of colonial policy, 471.

Christ's Hospital, Charles Lamb at, 135.

Christianity, Christopher on, 30.

Christian morality, on, 30.

Christina, Spain under, 704.

Christopher under Canvass, see Dies Boreales.

Christopher in the Sulks—a sketch, 3.

Church of England, state of the, in Wales, 333
—of Scotland, opposition of, to the marriage and registration bills, 266.

Civil Revolution in the Canadas—a Remedy, 471.

Clamor Publico, the, 710.

Classes at Yverdun, the, 104.

Classical, on the significance of, 25.

Claudius in Hamlet, on, 639, 646.

Close boroughs, advantages of the, 111.

Coal, export of, from Wales, 329, 330.

Cobden, review of the career of, 581, et seq.
—speech of, at the Hungarian meeting, 591.

Cockburn of Ormiston, character of, 351.

Coleridge, intimacy of Lamb with, 136
—Talfourd's account of, 142.

Colonial policy, British system of, 471.

Colonies, effects of the protective system on, 110
—virtually disfranchised by the Reform Bill, 113
—influence of the transportation system on their commerce, 527.

Comic, present rage for the, 145.

Commerce, effects of the protection system on, 110
—effects of the new currency system on, 123
—colonial, influence of the transportation system on, 527.

Commons, house of, all classes represented in, prior to the Reform Bill, 111.

Confiscations, the revolutionary, in France, 225.

Conjuror, the, 692.

Constitution, the German, and its rejection, 425.

Consumer and producer, different interests of, 112.

Convict system, general review of the, 519, et seq.

Convicts, instruction of, in a trade, 520.

Copper, smelting, &c. of, in Wales, 329, 330.

Cordova, General, in Italy, 709.

Corn Laws, the abolition of the, 115.

Corunna, the embarkation at, 696.

Cotton manufactures, profits &c. on, in America, 473.

Cowan, Mr, on the game laws, 68.

Crichton, Mr, on game-law prosecutions, 70.

Crime, increase of, 126, 773
—statistics of, for Wales, 332
—statistics of recent, 519.

Criminals, reformation of, in New South Wales, 526.

Crowning of the Column, the, and the Crushing of the Pedestal, 108.

Cruachan, thunder-storm on, 8.

Cuba, state of, prospects of its separation from Spain, &c., 711 et seq.

Cunninghame, Mr, on the reformation of convicts, 526.

Currency system, the new, and its effects, 122, 756, 759, et seq.

Davenant, Dr Charles, on the national debt, 663.

Dead, mourning for the, in Sardinia, 43.

Death, Butler's argument regarding, 382.

Delta, Disenchantment by, 563.

Democracy, error of principle of, 222.

Democratic tendencies in Wales, influence of dissent on, 337.

De Ruyter, Admiral, 511.

Diary of Samuel Pepys, 501.

Dickens, the works of, 380.

Dies Boreales, No. I., sonnet on reading, 18.

Dies Boreales, No. II. Christopher under canvass, 1
—Christopher in the sulks, a sketch, 3
—on temper, 5
—a, thunder-storm, 6, et seq.
—Virgil's description of thunder, 11
—Lucretius', 15
—Thomson's, 16
—arrival of Talboys, 17
—on the signification of classical, 25
781 —on scholarship, 27
—on beauty and morals, 29
—Christianity and its morality, 30
—Scepticism and its results, 31
—No. III., on impersonation, 238
—Shakspeare, 239
—Inishail and its churchyard, 240
—Gray's elegy, ib.
—on Alison and Virgil, 246
—on a passage in Hamlet, 252
—and one in Homer, 255
—the self-sustainment of the Homeric heroes, 258
—Alison's Essay on Taste, 259
—on virtue and vice, 260
—influence of religion on art, 261
—on materialism, 262
—No. IV., 363
—a rain storm, 364
—on angling, 366
—on Byron's description of the Clitumnus, 367
—and of Velino, 372
—on immortality, and Butler's argument for it, 380
—No. V. on Macbeth, 620.

Disenchantment, by Δ, 563.

Disraeli's Essay on the literary character, 297.

Dissent, statistics of, in Wales, 333
—fostering of chartism by, there, 338.

Dominique, a sketch from life: the two students, 77
—Mother and Son, 79
—The double duel, 83
—Five years later, 85
—The Horse-riders, 87
—Foes and Friends, 91.

Dormitory at Yverdun, the, 99.

Doubleday's financial history of England, review of, 655.

Dream-Fugue on sudden death, a, 750.

Dreams, the, in Shakspeare, 642.

Drysdale versus Jamieson, game-law decision in, 75.

Dudevant, Madame, La Petite Fadette by, 607.

Dumas, Alexandre, recent novels of, 610
—works announced by, 619.

Dutch, naval contests of the, with England, 509.

Dyer, George, 141.

Earth, peninsular tendency in the, 461
—its interior, 462.

Eas-a-Bhrogich, cave at, 9.

Ecclesiastical property, abuses connected with, in Wales, 354

Economists, rise of the, 113.

Education, sketches of the Pestalozzian system of, 93, et seq.
—relations of crime in Great Britain to, 520.

Ehrenberg, discoveries of, regarding the Infusoria, 466.

Eichbald, Lieutenant, in Baden, 208, 210.

Eleanora, Guidicessa of Sardinia, 39.

Electric Telegraph, proposed introduction of, into Spain, 721.

Embarkation, the, 696.

Emigrants, annual number of, 537.

Emigration, increase of, under the free-trade system, 126, 772
—its expense to different localities, 533.

Emulation, rejection of, by Pestalozzi, 95.

Enfant Trouvé of Paris, the, 226.

Enghien, the Duc d', conduct of Chateaubriand on the murder of, 304.

England, growth of, under the navigation laws and restrictive system, 108
—feeling of alienation in Wales from, 327
—crime in, compared with Wales, 332
—the naval contest of, with the Dutch, 509
—statistics of crime in, 519.

English Mail-coach, or the glory of motion, 485
—going down with victory, 496
—continuation: the Vision of Sudden Death, 741.

English autobiographies, rarity of, 299
—language, partial diffusion of the, in Wales, 328.

Enzio, King of Sardinia, sketch of, 38.

Erbe, one of the Baden insurgents, 208.

Essai Historique, Lamartine's, 301.

Evelyn, the diary of, 502
—account of Lady Frances Stuart by, 515.

Expatriation, effects of, in reforming criminals, 525, et seq.

Exports, decrease of, 123
—colonial, influence of the transportation system on, 527
—influence of free trade on, 765.

Famille Recour, the, 609.

Farmers, alleged injury from game to the, 73
—and farming in Wales, state of, 330
—of Canada, effects of the restrictive system on, 476.

Female characters of Shakspeare, the, 239.

Fergusson on Gray's elegy, 242.

Feudal system, alleged origin of the game laws with the, 66.

Fickler, one of the Baden insurgents, 206, 208, 211.

Finance, importance of the subject of, and general ignorance regarding it, 655.

Finances, the French, effects of the late revolution on, 232
—the Russian, Cobden on, 595
—the Spanish, statistics regarding, 711, et seq.

Fire of London, the, 508.

Fleet, the English, state of, under Charles II., 510.

Foreign interference, Whig, 586.

Foreign shipping, increase of, under the reciprocity system, 117.

Foudras, the Marquis de, novels of, 609.

Foundlings, numbers of, in Paris, 226.

Fountainhall's diary, on, 502.

France, the Revolution of 1848 in, Lamartine's account of, 219.

Franchise, practical extent of the, before the Reform Bill, 111.

Francis' Chronicles of the Stock Exchange, review of, 655.

Frankfort parliament, the, and its fall, 425.

Frankfort, occupation of, by the Prussians, 427
—atrocities of the Red republicans in, 598.

Free Trade at its Zenith, 756.

Free trade, review of the effects of, 108.

French novels of 1849, the, 607
—autobiographies, multitude and character of, 298
—materialism, on, 261.

Fröbel, one of the Baden insurgents, 208.

Funding system, general ignorance regarding
782 the, 655
—evils accruing from it, 666.

Fuorisciti in Sardinia, the, 41.

Gagern, Herr von, 435.

Game, increased consumption of, 71.

Game laws in Scotland, the, 63
—examination of the arguments against, 68
—alleged cost of prosecutions under, 69.

Gang system for convicts, evils of the, 532.

Gayford, Mr, on the injury done by game, 69.

Génie du Christianisme, Chateaubriand's, 301.

Gentilhommes Chasseurs, the, 610.

Gentry, the Welsh, character of, 335, 338.

Geography, physical and general, distinction between, 460, 461.

George II., debt contracted under, 666.

German unity, failure of the realisation of, 424.

Germany, Revolutionary, what has she attained? 424
—northern and southern, disunion between, 428.

Gibbon's autobiography, on, 292.

Girardin, M. during the revolution of 1848, 227.

Girondists, Lamartine's History of the, 220, 221.

Giudici in Sardinia, the, 37.

Glasgow, increase of pauperism in, 127, 772
—the Queen's visit to, 361.

Godwin, William, Talfourd's sketch of, 141.

Goegg, one of the Baden insurgents, 206, 208, 211.

Goethe, on the autobiography of, 295
—the centenary of, 435.

Good temper, Christopher on, 5.

Gore district in Canada, state of, 473.

Government, indifference of the, to Scottish affairs, 264.

Grain, importation of, under the free-trade system, 118, 119, 766.

Grammont's memoirs, on, 501.

Grange, Lady, new light on the story of, 347.

Gravitation, Sir J. Herschel on, 459.

Gray's Elegy, on, 240.

Great Britain, progress of, under the navigation laws, 108
—her colonial policy, 471
—her position in relation to the continental powers, 587
—origin of the national debt of, 657, 662
—state of, under James II., 657
—progress of the national debt, 666.

Greeks and their poetry, Christopher on, 25
—emblems employed by the, for immortality, 380.

Green Hand, the, Part III., 183
—Part IV., 305
—Part V., 436
—Part VI., 723.

Grey, Earl, on the Reform Bill, 146.

Gröben, General Von, in Baden, 214.

Grove, Mr, on the co-relation of the physical sciences, 460.

Gurney, Mr, on the cost of the army, &c., 763.

Guy, Thomas, founder of the hospital, 669.

Gwynne, Nell, Pepys' account of, 516.

Hamlet, on a passage in, 252.

Hazlitt, Talfourd's account of, 143.

Hecate of Shakspeare, the, 625.

Hecker-Lied, the, 435.

Heidelberg, the insurrection in, 206
—entrance of the Prussians into, 214.

Hélène, remarks on, 607.

Herschel, Sir J., on gravitation, 459.

Heskir, imprisonment of Lady Grange at, 347.

Hesse-Darmstadt, revolutionary attempt at, 208.

Heyne on the Homeric heroes, 257.

Highlanders, improvement in the character of the, 336.

Himalayas, heights, &c., of the, 462.

Hirschfeld, General, in Baden, 212.

History, association of, with locality, 655.

H'Lassa, city of, 463.

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, acquisition of, by Prussia, 434.

Homer, the dreams in, 642.

Hope of Rankeillour, connexion of, with the case of Lady Grange, 348, 350.

Hospitality, Sardinian, anecdotes of, 42.

Hugo, Victor, and the Peace Congress, 583
—his Notre Dame, 655.

Humboldt's Cosmos, remarks on, 456, et seq.

Hume's Autobiography, on, 293.

Hungary, the movement in, its objects, &c., 588
—meeting to sympathise with it, 590
—the executions in, 599.

Ilay, Lord, 353, 355.

Imitation not the perfection of art, 412.

Immortality, Christopher on, 32
—Butler's argument for, 380, et sq.

Impersonation, on, 238, 645, 646.

Imports, increase of, 123, 766.

Imprisonment, experienced inefficiency of, 519
—its expense, 521
—causes of its failure, 522.

India, completion of the British empire in, 108.

Industry, effects of the late revolution on, in France, 233.

Inishail, churchyard in, 240.

Insects, formation of rocks by, 465, 466
—those of America, 467.

Insurrection in Baden, the, 206.

Intellect, predominance of, in France, 299.

Ireland, the round towers of, 36
—the Queen's visit to, 361
—recent statistics of crime in, 522
—depressed state of agriculture in, 774.

Irish, resemblance of the Sardes to the, 40
—transported convicts, superiority of, and its causes, 531.

Iron, produce, &c., of, in Wales, 329, 330.

Irreligion, influence of, in France, 224.

Italy, proceedings of Lord Minto in, 587
—the Spanish army in, 709.

James II., revenue, &c., of Great Britain, under, 657.

Jean le Trouveur, romance of, 612.
783
Jeffrey's exposition of Alison on Taste, on, 13.

Jews, revolutionary tendency of the, in Germany, 435
—early connexion of the, with stock-jobbing, 663.

Johnson, Boswell's life of, 296.

Johnston's Physical Atlas, review of, 456.

Joint-stock companies, rise of, 669
—those of 1823, &c., 673.

Jonathan in Africa, 72.

Journalists, the, the leaders of revolution in France, 219
—their political predominance there, 299.

Kaloolah, review of, 172.

Kames, Lord, on Virgil's description of thunder, 12.

Khoonawur, pass of, 463.

Knight, Payne, on Virgil's Æneas, 375
—on Macbeth, 621.

Kossuth, views of, in Hungary, 589.

Krauss, Major, 690.

Labouchère, Mr, on Canada, 478.

Ladenburg, skirmish at, 212.

Lamartine's Revolution of 1848, 219
—on his history of the Girondists, 220, 221
—his Confidences, and Raphael, 298, 301
—his vanity, 300.

Lamb, Charles, 133
—Miss Mary, 137.

Lamoricière, General, during the June conflict, 231.

Land, the protective system in its relations to, 111.

Landed interest, predominance given by the Reform Bill over the, 113.

Landscape painter, qualifications necessary for the, 412.

Language, effects in Wales of the differences of, 327.

La Patrie on the industrial state of France, 233.

Laudenbach, revolutionary attempt at, 208.

Lawrence, (U.S.,) rise of, 472.

Le Grice, Mr, account of Charles Lamb by, 135.

Leiningen, Prince, manifesto of, 434.

Lloyd, Charles, 139.

Locke on the principles of trade, 777.

London, consumption of game in, 72
—importation of grain into, 120
—the great plague of, 506
—the fire of, 508
—importation of grain into, 767.

London Tavern, Hungarian meeting at, 590.

Long Parliament, revenue raised by the, 657.

Lopez, Mannasseh, stock exchange fraud by, 668.

Lord Advocate, the, his Marriage and Registration bills, 263.

Lotteries, evils, &c., of the, 671.

Louis Philippe, conduct of, during the revolution of 1848, 227, 228
—intrigues of, in Spain, 722.

Lovat, Lord, connexion of, with the case of Lady Grange, 347.

Lowell, rapid progress of, 472.

Lucretius, description of thunder by, 15.

Lyell, Mr, on gradual subsidence and upheaval, 465.

Lyndhurst, Lord, Lord Campbell's attack on, 131.

Lynmouth revisited, 412.

Macaulay, Mr, examination of his picture of England under the Stuarts, 658.

Macbeth, criticisms on tragedy of, 621, et seq.
—Lady, on the character of, 622.

Mackay, J. R., revelations of parliamentary bribery by, 666.

M'Neill, Mr, on the proposed Marriage and Registration bills, 266, 270.

Madden, Mr, on the state of Cuba, 711, et seq.

Mail-Coach, the, or the glory of motion, 485
—going down with victory, 496
—continued, 741.

Malta, proposed to be made a penal colony, 535.

Malte Brun on the transportation system, 528.

Malthus, Mr, on the corn-law question, 777.

Man that wasn't drowned, the, 691.

Manasa, lake of, 463.

Manchester, (U.S.,) rise of, 472.

Manning, letters of Lamb to, 147.

Manufactures, protective system toward, 110
—French, effects of the late revolution on, 233
—progress of, in the United States, 471
—profits on them there, 473
—of Spain, the, 719.

Manufacturing population of Wales, character, &c., of the, 329.

Mar, the Earl of, 352
—Lady, 354, et seq.

Mardi, remarks on, 172.

Marriage bill, the proposed Scottish, 263.

Massachusetts, advantages from manufactures to, 472.

Materialism, on, 261.

Mayo's Kaloolah, review of, 172.

Medina the Jew, 663.

Meiroslawski, the leader of the Baden insurgents, 210, 212.

Melville's Redburn, review of, 567
—Mardi, remarks on, 172.

Méry, M., le Transporté by, 619.

Metternich, a Baden leader, 208.

Meyer, Dr, 329.

Military, revolt of the, in Baden, 430.

Milnes, R. M., the Hungarian question brought forward by, 590.

Miners of Wales, character of the, 329, 331.

Minto, Lord, proceedings of, in Italy, 587.

Mitford, Rev. Mr, on Gray's elegy, 242.

Monetary crises, danger of, 762, 771.

Moneyed interest, rise of the, 112
—its origin with the Revolution, 663.

Monitorial system, the, as used by Pestalozzi, 95.
784
Monkey and the cat, the, 698.

Monmouth, the Duke of, Pepys' account of, 516.

Montemolin, the Count, character, &c. of, 707.

Montpensier, the Duc de, weakness of, during the Revolution, 228.

Moore's life of Byron, on, 295.

Moral and social condition of Wales, the, 326.

Morality, state of, in Wales, 333.

Morals, impossibility of a definite standard of, 29.

Moroseness, Christopher on, 5.

Mosquito, the, 467.

Motion, the glory of, 485.

Mountains, Mrs Somerville, &c. on, 462.

Murder tragedies, on, 646.

Murillo, financial schemes, &c. of, 720.

Murray, Mr Dandas, his "Andalusia," 705.

My Dream, 702.

My Peninsular Medal, Part I., chap. i., 539
—chap. ii., 544
—chap. iii., 556
—Part II. chap. iv., 678
—chap. v., 683
—chap. vi., 690.

Napoleon, Chateaubriand's account of, 303.

Narvaez, Spain under, 704
—ministry, the recent displacement of, 722.

National character, the Welsh, 335.

National debt, introduction of the, by William III., 662
—its progress, 666
—the Spanish, 714.

National debt and Stock Exchange, the, 655.

National guard of Paris, desertion of the Assembly by the, 229.

National independence, danger to the, 768.

Natural children, numbers, &c. of, in Paris, 226.

Naturalist, the, 696.

Nature as a revelation, on, 31.

Navigation laws, growth of England under, and effects of their repeal, 108.

Nelson on the importance of Sardinia, 33.

Nemours, the Duc de, 229.

New South Wales and the convict system, on, 526, et seq.
—resolutions of council of, in favour of transportation, 529.

Nicholl's diary, on, 502.

Niti pass, the, 463.

Nobility, present powerlessness of, in France, 219.

Noraghe of Sardinia, the, 34, 35.

North American colonies, present state of the, 471.

Oakville, village of, its history, &c., 473.

Obscurity as an element of the sublime, on, 33.

Offenburg, the democratic meeting at, 206.

Orleans, the Duchesse d', her heroism, 229.

Osborne, Mr B., on the Hungarian question, 590
—on Russia, 595.

Paci in Sardinia, the, 41.

Palmerston, Lord, the interference system of, 587
—on the Hungarian question, 590.

Paris, number of foundlings, &c. in, 226
—Lamartine's account of the June conflict in, 231
—finances of, after the Revolution, 232
—the peace congress at, 583, 585.

Parliament, all classes represented in, before the Reform Bill, 111
—justice of colonial representation in, 477
—bribing of, under William III., 664.

Pauperism, increase of, 127.

Payne Knight, see Knight.

Peace and war agitators, 581.

Peace congress at Paris, the, 583, 585.

Pearson, Mr, on the state of crime, 520.

Peasantry, depressed condition of the, in Spain, 719.

Peel, Sir R., review of his free-trade measures, 114, 756, et seq.

Peninsulas, Mrs Somerville on, 461.

Pepys, diary of, 501.

Pestalozziana, 93
—the dormitory, 99
—the refectory, 101
—classes, 104.

Peter, one of the Baden insurgents, 206, 208, 211.

Petite Fadette, the, 607.

Peucker, General, in Baden, 214.

Phillips' Wales, &c., review of, 326.

Phœnicians, probable settlement of the, in Sardinia, 34.

Physical Geography, 456.

Pinna Marina, the, 40.

Pitt's currency system, contrast between, and Peel's, 760.

Plague of London, the, 506.

Planets, irregularities among the, 459.

Plutarch's Lives, on, 292.

Poaching, proportion of prosecutions for, 70.

Poetry, modern, affectations of, 340.

Poetry, For the last page of our album, 205
—Disenchantment, 563.

Poland, Cobden on, 593.

Poles, revolutionary efforts of the, 601.

Political economy, rise of, with Adam Smith, 113.

Pomptilla, monument to, 47.

Poor-rates, present amount of the, 126, 772
—progress of the, from James II., 660.

Pope, the, Spanish intervention on behalf of, 709.

Population, diminution of the, 773.

Potato rot, alleged influence of the, 763.

Poussin, Gaspar, the landscape of, 413.

Press, the Spanish, state of, 705.

Prisoners, advantages of industrial instruction to, 530.

Producer and consumer, different interests of, 112.

Proprietors, number of, in France, and its influence, 225.

Protective system, growth of England under the, 108.

Prussia, overthrow of the Baden insurgents by, 212
—new constitution of, 428
—occupation of Baden, &c. by, 433.

Prussia, the Prince of, in Baden, 212.
785

Radicalism, prevalence of, in Wales, 337.

Radnorshire, predominance of English in, 328.

Ragionatori in Sardinia, 41.

Railroads in Massachusetts, origin, &c. of the, 472.

Railway mania, causes of the, 753.

Railways, depreciation in, 773.

Rain, picture of a storm of, 364.

Rainbow, a, 10.

Rastadt, revolt of, 430
—its surrender, 431.

Raveau, one of the Baden insurgents, 208.

Reciprocity system, effects of, on British and foreign shipping, 117.

Red republicans, resistance of Lamartine to the, 230.

Redburn, review of, 567.

Refectory at Yverdun, the, 101.

Reform Bill, change as regards representation by the, 111, 113.

Registration bill, the proposed Scottish, 263.

Religion, influence of, on art, 261
—state of, in Wales, 333.

Representation, practical universality of, before the Reform Bill, 111
—justice of colonial, 477.

Revenue, influence of free trade on, 765.

Revolution, class by which headed, in France, 219
—comparison between it and war, 585.

Revolution of 1688, origin of the national debt with it, 657.

Revolutions of 1848, alleged influence of the, 763.

Revue des deux Mondes, the, on Spain, 717.

Reybaud, Madame Charles, Hélène, &c. by, 607.

Reynolds, G. W. M. at the Hungarian meeting, 597.

Richard III., on, 646, 647.

Robbery, prevalence of, in Spain, 707.

Roman law, the, in regard to game, 66.

Rome, effects of free trade in grain on, 109
—the insurgent party in, 587
—intervention of Spain in affairs of, 709.

Romish superstitions, on, 44.

Rosa, Salvator, the landscape of, 412.

Rothschild, Nathan, sketch of, 676.

Royal Progress, the, 359.

Rousseau's autobiography, on, 293.

"Russia, by a Manchester manufacturer," extract from, 594.

Russia, growth of, under the protective system, 109
—her intervention in Hungary, 589
—Cobden on it, 591
—and on her finances, 594.

Rutherford, Mr, his Marriage and Registration bills, 263.

Sailors' tickets, jobbing in, 669.

St Kilda, Lady Grange imprisoned at, 347.

Salem, (U.S.,) rapid progress of, 472.

Salomons, Mr, at the Hungarian meeting, 590, 596.

Sand, George, La Petite Fadette, by, 607.

Sandwich, the Earl of, 504.

Sardes, probable origin of the, 34
—their resemblances to the Irish, 40
—customs, character, &c. of, 42.

Sardinia, the island of, 33.

Sardinia, proceedings of Mr Abercromby in, 587.

Saxons, crossing, &c., of the, in Britain, 337.

Scholar, Christopher, on the, 27, et seq.

Science, rapid revolutions in, 458.

Scotch, races from which derived, 337
—transported convicts, inferiority of, and its causes, 531
—law, principle of the, relative to game, 66.

Scotland, the Game Laws in, 63
—proportion of game-law prosecutions in, 70
—necessity of a secretary of state for, 264
—the Queen's visit to, 1849, 359
—recent statistics of crime in, 519
—expense of, the imprisonment system in, 521.

Scott, Sir Walter, autobiography of, 293
—on his Heart of Mid-Lothian, 655.

Scottish Marriage and Registration bills, the, 263.

Secondary punishments, best system of, 519.

Sepolture de is Gigantes in Sardinia, the, 34, 36.

Shakspeare, on the female characters of, 239
—criticisms on his Macbeth, 621, et seq.
—the dreams in, 642
—his Richard III., 646, 647.

Sheerness, capture of, by the Dutch, 511.

Shepherd, Mr, his essay on the game laws, 64, 69, 72.

Shipping interest, effects of the Reform Bill on, 114
—of the reciprocity system, 117.

Sigel, lieutenant, one of the Baden insurgents, 208, 209, 210.

Sketcher, the, Lynmouth revisited by, 412.

Sketching, preparation necessary for, 413.

Slaver, sketches on board of a, 177.

Sleep-walking scene in Macheth, the, 643.

Sluicy Sam, 691.

Smith, Adam, influence of his Wealth of Nations, 113
—free-trade movement due to, 219
—on the price of wheat, 658.

Smith, Bobus, 15.

Smith of Chichester, painting by, 414.

Smugglers, the Spanish, 717.

Solar system, irregularities in the, 459.

Somerville's Physical Geography, review of, 456.

Sonnet, "A friend returned," 18.

South sea company, origin and history of the, 669.

Spain under Narvaez and Christina, 704.

Spanish bondholders, proceedings of the, 713.

Speculation, mania for, and examples of it, 672, et seq.

Stag, the stock exchange, 673.
786
Stalactite cave in Sardinia, a, 40.

Stanley, Lord, reply to Lord Campbell by, 131.

Stevenson, C, on the injury done by game, 69.

Stock exchange, sketches of the, 655
—frauds on it, 668.

Stock-jobbing, rise of, 668.

Storm, gathering of a, 6.

Strayed Reveller, the, review of, 340.

Struve, the Baden insurgent, 208, 211.

Stuart, Lord Dudley, 605.

Stuart, the Lady Frances, 515.

Stutgardt, meeting of the German parliament at, 425, 426.

Sudden Death, vision of, 741
—Dream-fugue on it, 750.

Sulkiness, Christopher on, 3.

Superstitions, Sardinian, 45.

Sweden, upheaval and subsidence in, 465.

Szuayda, General, in Baden, 212.

Talfourd's final memorials of Lamb, review of, 133.

Tariff, the new Spanish, 717.

Taste, impossibility of a standard of, 29.

Temper, Christopher on, 3, et seq.

Tenant, alleged injury from the game laws to, 73.

Thames, entrance of the Dutch fleet into the, 511.

Thiers, views of, on the first Revolution, 224
—his conduct in that of 1848, 227.

Thirlwall, Dr, 329.

Thomson's description of thunder, on, 16.

Thunder, Virgil's, &c., descriptions of, 11, et seq.

Thunder-storm, a Highland, 6, et seq.

Tibet, fertility, &c., of, 463.

Times, influence of the, in England, 219
—account of the state of France by, 232
—on railway depreciation, 773
—on Ireland, 774.

Tin, exportation, &c., of, from Wales, 330.

Tories, the, early opposition of, to the national debt, 665.

Trade, state of, 123, et seq.

Transportation question, the, 519.

Travellers, intolerance of, toward Romish superstitions 44.

Trial, the, 695.

Trout, best size of, 22.

Trutschler, one of the Baden insurgents, 208.

Tunny fishing in Sardinia, 40.

Turkey, position of, regarding the Hungarian fugitives, 600.

Tyndale's Sardinia, review of, 33.

United States, system of, regarding manufactures, 471
—exports per head to, 527.

Upper Canada, contrast between, and the States, 473.

Van Diemen's Land, excess of convicts sent to, 534.

Vanity, displays of, in French autobiographies, 298.

Vegetable life, distribution, &c., of, 468.

Velino, on Byron's description of, 372.

Vendetta in Sardinia, the, 41.

Vice, relations of, to beauty, 259.

Vicomte de Bragelonne, the, 610.

Vienna, atrocities of the Red republicans in, 599.

Vincent, the Chartist lecturer, 338.

Virgil, Alison on, criticised, 246
—Payne Knight on, 375.

Virtue, relations of, to beauty, 259.

Vision of Sudden Death, the, 741.

Volcano, changes wrought by the, 465.

Wages, relations of prices of wheat to, 124.

Wales, the moral and social condition of, 326
—the report of the commissioners on, ib.

Walpole, Sir Robert, 352, 353
—parliamentary bribery under, 666.

War, the agitation against, 581
—compared with revolution, 585.

Webster, Mr, on American manufactures, 473.

Welford, on the game laws, 65.

Wellington, measures of national defence urged by, 769.

Welsh language, predominance of the, in Wales, 328.

Wemyss, Captain, game-law case of, 75.

West Indies, effects of negro emancipation on the, 114
—free-trade policy toward, and its effects, 115, 775
—depreciation in, 116, note
—exports per head to, 527.

Westminster school, taking leave of, 94.

What has revolutionising Germany attained? 424.

Wheat, prices of, at various times, 658
—average price of, in London, 757, note.

Whigs, foreign interference system of the, 586.

White, Jem, a friend of Lamb's, 136.

William III., introduction of the national debt and the bribery system under, 662.

Wilson, R., on the game laws, 65.

Witches in Macbeth, on the, 623 625.

Words, Christopher on the knowledge of, 27.

Wordsworth, letter from Lamb to, 149.

Working classes, condition of the, under the Stuarts, 659.

Wortley Montague, Lady Mary, 354, et seq.

Würtemberg, the new constitution in, 429.

Young, Mr, on the effects of the reciprocity system, &c., 117.

Yverdun, Pestalozzi's establishment at, 93.

Zund-nadel musket, the, 214.

FOOTNOTES:

1 A Financial, Monetary, and Statistical History of England, from the Revolution of 1688 to the present time. By Thomas Doubleday, Esq. London: 1847.

Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange. By John Francis, Esq. London: 1849.

2 The Cities and Wilds of Andalusia. By the Honourable R. Dundas Murray. London: 1849.

3 The Island of Cuba: its Resources, Progress, and Prospects. By R. R. Madden, M.R.I.A. London: 1849.

4 Marliani, ii. 472.

5 Hughes' Revelations of Spain, ii. 383.

6 The Island of Cuba, pp. 55-6.

7 Ford's Gatherings from Spain.

8 Histoire Politique de l'Espagne Moderne, ii. 424.

9 City article of the Times, September 14, 1849.

10 Marliani, ii., 430 and 471.

11 Revelations of Spain, 365-6.

12 Revue des Deux Mondes, 1^er Août 1849.

13 At the first hint of a project of reform in the tariff, the cry in Spain, and especially in Catalonia, has invariably been,—"Protection for our manufactures!" So loud was the clamour, that it might have been imagined millions of mouths were dependent for bread on the fabrication of Spanish calicoes. Now, the Revue des Deux Mondes estimates the total number of hands employed in these much-vaunted cotton manufactures at thirty-one thousand; and even this number we are induced to believe considerably over-estimated, from minute and interesting information on the subject we have recently obtained from an intelligent Spaniard, long resident in Catalonia. And amongst the manufacturers are a number of Frenchmen, and other foreigners; for, in fact, Spaniards have little taste for mechanical occupations, and have too fine a climate not to love the open air. So the "protection," so violently insisted upon, is for this handful of operatives, who make bad calicoes at exorbitant prices; or rather, if the truth be told, it is for the master-manufacturers, most of whom are also master-smugglers.

14 Ford, p. 26.

15 "Sigh-born:" I owe the suggestion of this word to an obscure remembrance of a beautiful phrase in Giraldus Cambrensis, viz., suspiriosæ cogitationes.

16 "Quartering"—this is the technical word and, I presume, derived from the French cartayer, to evade a rut or any obstacle.

17 "Averted signs."—I read the course and changes of the lady's agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures; but let it be remembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching the lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly.

18 Campo Santo.—It is probable that most of my readers will be acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa—composed of earth brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest prize which the noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There is another Campo Santo at Naples, formed, however, (I presume,) on the example given by Pisa. Possibly the idea may have been more extensively copied. To readers who are unacquainted with England, or who (being English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities of England, it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the cathedrals often form a flat pavement over which carriages and horses might roll; and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathedral, across which I had seen passengers walk and burdens carried, may have assisted my dream.

19 Average price of wheat in London in—

	s.	d.
1838,	57	11
1839,	68	7
1840,	65	8
1841,	54	6
1842,	49	0
1843,	47	4
1844,	46	8
1845,	50	10

20 Rate of discount of first-class bills at the undermentioned periods:—

	Jan.	Feb.	March.	April.	May.	June.	July.	Aug.	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.
1844	2-¹/₄	2	2	2	1-³/₄	2	2	1-³/₄	2	1-³/₄	1-³/₄	1-³/₄

Years.	Bank Notes in Circulation Total.	Exports. Official Value.	Imports. Declared Value.	Revenue.
1797	£10,542,365	£28,917,010	£21,013,956	£19,852,646
1798	13,695,830	27,317,087	25,122,203	30,492,995
1799	12,959,800	29,556,637	24,066,700	35,311,018
1813	23,120,930	Records destroyed by fire.		68,302,861
1814	24,801,000	51,358,398	32,622,771	70,240,313
1815	27,261,651	57,420,437	31,822,053	72,203,142
—Alison's Europe, C. 41, §69.

22 In reference to this state of things, the following important evidence was given by the governor and deputy-governor of the Bank of England:—

"You had only £1,600,000 in the banking department for the payment of your liabilities?—Yes.

If anybody had called upon you for anything beyond that million and a half, you must have stopped payment?—Yes, we must.

At the same time, if there had been no separation between the two departments, and the Bank of England had been conducted on its old principle, instead of being within one million and a half of stopping, there would have been very nearly £8,500,000 of treasure in your vaults?—We should have had £8,500,000 in our vaults."—Lords' Report, 1848.

Imported, month ending—	All kinds of Grain. Qrs.	Flour. Cwt.	Total.	Authority.
April 5, 1849,	1,110,306	320,764	1,213,888	London Gazette,	April 20, 1849.
Aug. 5, 1849,	990,270	295,667	1,088,776	Ditto,	Aug. 20, 1849.
Sept. 5, 1849,	928,258	332,434	1,039,269	Ditto,	Sept. 20, 1849.
Oct. 10, 1849,	1,123,434	290,713	1,213,640	Ditto,	Oct. 30, 1849.

Viz.—	19,135,000 arable acres, at £7 each,	£133,945,000
	27,000,000 acres of grass, at £6 each,	162,000,000
	15,000,000 do. wastes,	5,000,000
		£300,945,000

—Porter's Progress of the Nation, 158; 2d edition.

25 In the eight months up to the 5th of September 1849, the quantities of foreign food taken out for home consumption have been—

Foreign wheat,	3,387,596	qrs.
Foreign flour,	2,956,878	cwt.
Foreign barley,	1,018,858	qrs.
Foreign oats,	869,077	"
Foreign rye,	219,810	"
Maize,	1,735,778	qrs.
Foreign bacon,	349,727	cwt.
Salted beef,	119,867	"
Salted pork,	306,400	"
Eggs, (number)	73,605,759

All these amounts are largely, and the most important of them very largely, in advance of the imports of the first eight months of 1848.

Abstract of grain imported in quarters in seven months of free trade—

Wheat,	3,387,596	qrs.
Flour, (2,956,878 cwt.,)	985,293	"
Barley,	1,018,858	"
Oats,	869,077	"
Rye,	219,810	qrs.
Maize,	1,735,778	"
In eight months, seven of free trade,	8,216,412	qrs.

26 Quarters of wheat and wheat-flour imported into Britain from 1807 to 1836, both inclusive:—

Quarters.
1807,	379,833
1808,	—
1809,	424,709
1810,	1,491,341	*
1811,	238,366
1812,	244,385
1813,	125,559
1814,	681,333
1815,	—
1816,	227,263
1817,	1,020,949	*
1818,	1,593,518	*
1819,	1,122,133
1820,	34,274
1821,	2
1822,	—
1823,	12,137
1824,	15,777
1825,	525,231
1826,	315,892
1827,	772,133
1828,	842,050
1829,	1,364,220	*
1830,	1,701,889	*
1831,	1,491,631
1832,	325,425
1833,	82,346
1834,	64,653
1835,	28,483
1836,	24,826
1837,	244,087
1838,	1,834,452	*
1839,	2,590,734	*
1840,	2,389,732	*
*Bad seasons.

AVERAGE QUARTERS.
1801 to 1810,	600,946
1811 — 1820,	458,578
1821 — 1830,	534,292
1831 — 1835,	398,509
1836 — 1840,	1,992,548	**
**Five bad years in succession.

—Porter's Progress of the Nation, 137, 138, second edition.

27 Porter's Progress of the Nation, second edition, p. 139.

28 Take as an example the importation into London, from 24th to 29th September 1849: prices being—wheat, 41s. 9d.; barley. 27s.; oats, 17s. 10d.

	Foreign. Qrs.	British. Qrs.
Wheat	18,023	All kinds of
Barley,	8,319	grain.
Oats,	23,408	7,129
Beans,	2,620
	52,375
—Week from Oct. 29 to Nov. 3.

29 The mortgages of England alone are estimated, by the best authorities, at £400,000,000. Those of Ireland and Scotland are certainly at least half as much more, or £200,000,000. Indeed, out of the rental of £14,000,000 a-year, now in part become nominal in the former country, it is usually reckoned that £10,000,000 go to the holders of mortgages.

30 Edinburgh Review, October 1848, p. 524.

	British tonnage.	Foreign.
British tonnage to British North American colonies, 1846,	1,076,162
To United States of America,	205,123	435,399
Total tonnage in British trade to all countries,	4,294,733	1,806,282
Deduct Canadian tonnage,	1,076,162
British tonnage after losing Canada,	3,228,571
Foreign tonnage after gaining Canada,		1,076,162
—Porter's Parliamentary Tables, 1846, p. 52.		2,882,444

The repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1847 gave such an impulse to foreign shipping, that, in the first year after the loss of Canada, the foreign shipping employed in our trade would exceed the British, even supposing we only lost two-thirds of Canadian trade by its independence.

1685,	43.8	per qr.
1686,	26.8	...
1687,	27.7	...
1688,	23.2	...
	4)121.1	...
Average, per qr.,	30.3-¹/₄	...

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

CONTENTS.

EDINBURGH:

THE NATIONAL DEBT AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE.1

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART II.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

MAJOR KRAUSS.

SLUICY SAM.

THE MAN THAT WASN'T DROWNED.

THE CONJUROR.

THE TRIAL.

THE NATURALIST.

THE EMBARKATION.

THE MONKEY AND THE CAT.

MY DREAM.

SPAIN UNDER NARVAEZ AND CHRISTINA.

THE GREEN HAND.
A "SHORT" YARN.—PART VI.

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH.

Dream-Fugue.
ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH.

Tumultuosissimamente.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

FREE TRADE AT ITS ZENITH.

INDEX TO VOL. LXVI.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Note:

1838,	33,222
1839,	62,207
1840,	90,743
1841,	118,592
1842,	128,344
1843,	57,212
1844,	70,686
1845,	93,501
1846,	129,851

1847,	258,461
1848,	248,582

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

CONTENTS.

EDINBURGH:

THE NATIONAL DEBT AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE.1

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART II.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

MAJOR KRAUSS.

SLUICY SAM.

THE MAN THAT WASN'T DROWNED.

THE CONJUROR.

THE TRIAL.

THE NATURALIST.

THE EMBARKATION.

THE MONKEY AND THE CAT.

MY DREAM.

SPAIN UNDER NARVAEZ AND CHRISTINA.

THE GREEN HAND. A "SHORT" YARN.—PART VI.

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH.

Dream-Fugue. ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH.

Tumultuosissimamente.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

FREE TRADE AT ITS ZENITH.

INDEX TO VOL. LXVI.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Note:

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.
PART II.

THE GREEN HAND.
A "SHORT" YARN.—PART VI.

Dream-Fugue.
ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH.