successfully with the vigorous race of a free and enlightened people; more particularly of a country so composed as the British Empire. The territories of Russia, besides, are too extended and various in climate to give rise to the same causes which lead Islanders to the sea, or to afford the same facilities to form a nursery for seamen, as the United Kingdom, where the means of subsistence press so closely upon population, that out of twenty-eight millions of people, twenty millions live from hand to mouth; where the births over deaths exceed eight hundred a day, and where, in some parts of Ireland, there exist 250 mouths to the square mile.

There may be nothing new in any of these observations, it being difficult to write what is original, about anything; but I would not waste the reader's time to repeat what I had seen elsewhere: they are deduced, not from books, but from man, from experience, inquiry, comparison, and reflection. That knowledge is most valuable to the statesman, which, founded on sufficient experience, forms part of a body of facts to speculate upon important national objects, or to serve as the basis for proper legislative enactments, to ensure their contiWe should not throw away one fact. At the risk, then, of the imputation of egotism, I shall briefly illustrate, by a few examples, taken from my own family, the correctness of the assertion, that the Navy of every State, even that of the British Empire, is the offspring chiefly of necessity and pride; and, in founding upon the greater prevalence of these qualities in this country, the conviction of the continuance of our naval superiority, if that honest remunerative encouragement be given to it, which no service of the State more requires or deserves.

nuance.

Necessity and the pride of independence have driven every member of our family to the sea. But, without going to an earlier period than will enable me to speak from my own knowledge, my grandfather, father, uncle, and cousins, and all their

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connexions, were sailors. The contrast between the fortunes of some of them, during the last war, may not be uninteresting to notice, if it serve but to show the inadequate remuneration in the naval service. The experience of individuals, however limited, must go for something; and, in stating the following facts, I know that I am stating the case of thousands. My grandfather went to sea in the merchant service, and became a considerable shipowner, commanding his own vessels. met many reverses; he saw three fine ships burnt before his eyes, whilst a prisoner on board one of the French men-ofwar. In a few hours, however, he witnessed a glorious revenge, in the destruction of the French fleet by Lord Howe, on the celebrated 1st of June, though it was followed by his own individual mortification, since the ship, which had captured him, and from which he saw the fight, made her escape. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find a more trying event, unrelieved by a single consolation but the satisfaction that his enemy had received a thorough thrashing from his countrymen. Notwithstanding these losses, and being twice a prisoner in France, once in Spain, shipwrecked, present at the evacuation of Boston and Philadelphia, and, after landing, as a volunteer, the troops at the battle of Bunker's Hill, when, to use his own expression, "the shots flew about him like peas over a pigeon's back," such were the profits of those stirring and eventful times, that he retired with a decent competency, and died at the age of 89, in November, 1836. My father chose the navy, but, though his career would have been eminently successful, from the possession and exercise of those qualities which command success, "making the iron hot by striking it," he saw the poverty of the service, and fortunately turned his attention to commerce, became a shipowner, and, after meeting with his share of imprisonment and hardships, though he died early, left a provision, which would be considered great or small, as there

were many or few to share it. Both disliked the sea, though not from natural antipathy; and their experience, which was considerable, rarely met with an individual who followed it from choice. The following is a painful contrast:-My uncle, unfortunately for his family, continued in the Navy, and died a post-captain, which rank takes precedence of a colonel. He gave me, on his death-bed, a few months ago, the sword he had worn in many fights, and when, in command of the 66 slaughter-deck” of the Neptune, that ship took the lead in the capture of the Santissima Trinidada, at Trafalgar. I have heard him all but curse his rank, and a niggardly service, which, after taking the best part of his life, and leaving him incapable of following any other occupation, generously gave him 10s. 6d. a day, to support the appearance of a gentleman, and to educate a family of six children; compelling him to be an exile from his native country, to enable him to exist. He felt the contrast. The only anxiety he expressed to the writer, when dying, was, that he had not saved enough to discharge those extra expenses which his illness had rendered unavoidable. A man more severely honourable, or determined against debt, has not existed. Yet his family were compelled, and, for the example, were allowed (I have no shame in stating the truth,) to petition the Naval Compassionate Fund to bury him. His half-pay died with him. It is needless to say, he had no cause to like the service. In the Navy all his life, he has assured me he seldom met with a sailor who became one from anything but necessity, so bad was the pay, and so severe the duties. Pride and necessity, which led the father to the sea, influenced his two sons. I may assert that they are fine specimens of British sailors, with physical capabilities to lead to a liking of it, proper men indeed, fit "to scale a fortress or a nunnery." Yet the eldest, after being shipwrecked on New Zealand, living among the savages, and suffering much, returned four years ago, and declared he

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would never follow a profession where nothing was to be got but hardships of all kinds, and no compensation, and which had already left his family so badly provided. He left England, in 1835, with £5 in his pocket, destined for America, there to seek his fortune on a less treacherous element. He is now settled in comparative independence in Détroit, married, and writes, "I am only too happy, and fear it cannot last." The other son was favoured with a midshipman's birth, in consideration of his father's services; but, with no prospect of promotion or of war, he descended from the station of a gentleman in the navy, and, greatly to his credit, shipped himself as common cabin boy in the merchant service, to work his way before the mast. He has been to sea eleven years, and, having just returned with his share of salvage, for a gallant act in rescuing a vessel off Corunna, has given up the sea, and is now about to join his brother at Détroit.

So far as they go, these are indisputable facts. I have mentioned them simply to illustrate and confirm my deductions: any other inference would be unfair. I can further support them. When I have had a spare hour, I have delighted to go to the docks and there single out some model of a craft, dwell upon her symmetry and proportions, and beautiful spars, and converse with her seamen. I never found any from choice. I offered one a situation on shore; he joyfully left the sea at once, and has never returned to it. Now, if these observations are considered with reference to those principles which govern the actions of mankind, they will go some way to prove, that, as few individuals follow the sea from liking alone, and whilst they can settle in the rich soils of the Canadas, America, or New Holland, and, in a few years, gather round them the domestic comforts of a married life, with a growing independence, the Navy requires, as it surely deserves, somewhat more encouragement than it at present receives. It is not a natural distaste to the sea that

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creates the abhorrence I have so frequently noticed. It is the bad pay that causes an artificial dislike to spring up, which strengthens with every hardship and danger. Without doubt, in a maritime nation like this, there exists, and would be considerably more, enthusiasm for the Navy, which might become the most popular branch of the United Service, if maintained with the liberality and in the style in which the chief support of the existence of the British Empire, as an independent nation, ought to be preserved. Every other branch of the State should be subordinate to it, as was the case in relation to the army in France. Buonaparte, in the insolence of irresponsible tyranny, even went so far as to decree, that no female, possessing £250 a year and upwards, should marry any one but a soldier. What the army became in such hands, let the miraculous triumphs in Italy, and for fifteen years, attest. The Navy of England should, likewise, become the crowning mark of distinction-the chief, if not the only, passport to the highest rank and honour that the country can bestow. Had this object been followed out to the full extent of the principle, and the maxim of England's best policy steadily pursued, "Ships, Colonies, and Commerce," a prodigious increase of debt would have been avoided, the supply of the home trade of the colonies with the manufactures of Great Britain, compensating, in time, for continental deficiencies, even had it been possible for Buonaparte to continue the restriction. If this natural policy, the foundation-stone of Britain's supremacy, be chiefly and continuously pursued, she may defy the world in arms, and, secure in her dominion of the seas, and the millions of her subjects in the most valuable portions of her colonies, supply, independent of foreign trade, all the wants and luxuries of a great and wealthy people, and consolidate a power that shall pave the way for one universal language over the finest and greater portion of the globe.