station for his flag, and send the Blenheim to be docked at Bombay; but Sir Thomas placed a fatal reliance,' says Mr. Osler, (p. 233,) on his own judgment. The Blenheim sailed in company with the Java frigate, and after the 5th of February, 1807 -when they parted company from the Harrier in a gale of wind and apparent distress-neither was ever again heard of.

Of the events of Sir Edward's Indian command we shall only mention two. The French Captain Bergeret, his old acquaintance and former opponent in the Virginie, was again taken in a privateer frigate of thirty-six guns, after a most gallant defence against the superior force of the St. Fiorenzo, and brought on board the Culloden. The meeting, under such circumstances, was very affecting, and Sir Edward treated Bergeret with the most friendly and consolatory attention.

While in the Tonnant he had gone in quest of a Dutch squadron of three sail of the line and several frigates, destined for the East Indies, but was unable to come up with them. He now found that they had reached Java; and in his series of judicious operations he captured and burned them all. On one of these occasions he had the happiness to witness the gallantry of his second son, Captain Fleetwood Pellew, of the Terpsichore, who, with 500 picked men in the boats of the whole squadron, was sent to destroy the Phoenix, a 40-gun frigate, two corvettes, two sloops of 20 guns, and three brigs of 14, which-at the sight of the British-had run ashore under the extensive batteries of Batavia.

'The decision of Captain Pellew, which scarcely allowed them time to man their guns, made their fire almost harmless. He boarded the Phoenix, whose crew quitted her on his approach; turned her guns on the other armed vessels; burnt all the shipping, except three merchant-vessels, which were brought away; and in less than two hours returned with the boats, having effected the whole service with no greater loss than one man killed, and four wounded.'—p. 243. The line-of-battle ships were taken and destroyed in the following year, at Griessee, a fortified harbour at the other extremity of the island.

Mr. Osler produces abundant testimony to Sir Edward's less striking, though not less valuable, services in the protection of our immense commerce in those extensive seas. At last, the time of his service having expired, he sailed homewards from India in February, 1809. Off the Isle of France, the Culloden and a fleet of Indiamen under her convoy encountered a violent hurricanefour of the convoy foundered-the Culloden was only saved by great exertion-but before she arrived in England had an even more narrow escape from fire. She had once before been on fire on the coast of Malabar, when the admirable presence of mind of

the

the admiral saved her. The details of this event were related by an eye-witness in the Paisley Advertiser of the 2nd February, 1835, which we rather wonder Mr. Osler has not inserted. We notice them for one remarkable fact-at the appalling cry of The magazine is on fire!' and before the conduct of the admiral had inspired confidence in the ship's company, about a dozen of the crew had jumped overboard-they were picked up-but when the danger was over, Sir Edward caused them to be punished at the gangway for their insubordination and pusillanimity. We were all,' he said to the offenders, in equal danger; but if all had behaved like you, where would have been the ship and the lives of all?' The second fire happened the day before her arrival at Plymouth -a gunner's mate, finding they were near home, thought it high time (not being it seems a very rapid penman) to prepare a letter to his wife announcing his return-but ink being wanting, he diluted a little gunpowder with vinegar in a phial, which he hung on a nail in the magazine passage, while it being Sunday-he, with the rest of the ship's company, attended divine worship on deck. While they were thus employed, some accident (perhaps the roll of the ship) threw down and broke the phial of factitious ink, and as the weather was very hot the solution soon dried. When the man returned after service to begin his letter, his phial was gone, and unfortunately he took his candle out of the lantern to look after it; a spark fell on the dried solution, which blazed up and set fire to some combustible matters, (indeed, what on board ship except the guns-is not combustible?) and the ship was in a moment on fire, and, we need not add, in the most alarming quarter. On this occasion, too, the admiral's conduct was equally prompt, cool, and effective, and those who saw him on both these occasions, declare that they never were so struck by his superiority as in the tranquil and almost indifferent air which he assumed on these trying occasions, and by which he imparted to the ship's company that calmness and confidence which alone could have saved them.

On his return to England he remained a short time ashore, but the evacuation of the Scheldt having given the North Sea squadron a great importance, Sir Edward Pellew was selected to command it, and he hoisted his flag on board the Christian VII. The prudence of the enemy gave him no opportunity for any peculiar exploit. The only anecdote which Mr. Osler gives is one which we quote only to contradict. He states that the northern pilots having one day refused, on account of the state of the weather, to take the fleet out of the Downs, when there was an alarm of the enemy's putting to sea-

'Pellew then enforced his order to sail, declaring that he would hang

the

the pilot who should run his ship on shore; and to give effect to this threat, he caused gantlets to be rove to the yard-arms.'—p. 264. Such a menace would have been absurd on the face of it, and we can venture to state that nothing whatsoever of the kind occurred. The pilots certainly represented the difficulty of the case; but,they nevertheless promising to do their utmost to secure the safety of the fleet, Sir Edward, with his usual decision, at once took upon himself the whole responsibility. Not even a verbal threat was used. Indeed we wonder that a man of Mr. Osler's good sense should have repeated so idle a story.

In the spring of 1811 Sir Edward Pellew succeeded Sir Charles Cotton in the Mediterranean command. The magnitude and state of readiness of the Toulon squadron, and the symptoms of resistance to the despotism of Buonaparte which began to exhibit themselves on all the European shores of that sea, rendered this now in every point of view the most important of our naval commands. The events are too recent to need, and too various and complicated to admit, any illustration from us; we must, however, observe that as to this most important part of Sir Edward's life, Mr. Osler seems very imperfectly informed, and gives us very little detail. The following passage is almost all that he says to illustrate a species of merit which Sir Edward had not before an opportunity of displaying :

Perhaps there was no ambassador on whom a greater diplomatic responsibility was imposed, than the commander in the Mediterranean. It formed by much the largest, and most anxious portion of Collingwood's duties; and the greatness of the trust-the impossibility of confiding it to another than the commander on the station,--and the uncommon ability with which Collingwood sustained it, gave the British Government much uneasiness when the state of that officer's health threatened to deprive them of his services. It increased materially in extent and importance after Sir Edward had succeeded to the command, when the reverses of the French in Russia opened a prospect of deliverance to all the states along the shores of the Mediterranean, including the southern provinces of France itself. Sir Edward exerted himself unceasingly to prepare them for this consummation, and to encourage them to seize the first opportunity to effect it; and the judgment he displayed in these services obtained from a British Cabinet Minister the declaration that, "Great as he may be as a sea-officer, he is still greater as a statesman."'—pp. 278, 279.

All this diplomatic honour he would have gladly exchanged for what he called one glorious day' with the Toulon fleet; and once or twice he had, by the extraordinary skill and boldness with which the inshore squadron was directed by him, and managed by its officers, a chance of bringing them to action-but the affairs of Buonaparte had now become too critical to allow him to run the risk of a naval defeat, and, accordingly, the magnificent array of twenty-two

twenty-two sail of the line-including six large three-deckers-which he had collected in Toulon, remained idle spectators of the waning fortunes of their master. One of the last blows struck was the capture of Genoa by a land-force under Lord W. Bentinck and a squadron of Sir Edward's fleet under Commodore Sir J. Rowley. All the places of strength round the Gulf of Spezzia capitulated, and preparations were making for the attack of the town, when the arrival of Sir Edward himself with several line-of-battle ships rendered resistance unavailing-the city surrendered-four gunbrigs were taken, and a fine 74 on the stocks was completed and launched, and still remains in our service under the appropriate name of the Genoa. Thus it was Sir Edward's good fortune to give to the British navy the first prize of the Revolutionary war and the last! and to have received, also, the first and the last title of honour which had been conferred for naval services.

Even before his arrival in England he was created Baron Exmouth of Canonteign, a mansion and estate in the South of Devon which he had purchased for a family property, and the pension was settled on him which is usually granted when a peerage is conferred for eminent public services. He also received, on the extension of the Order of the Bath, the Cross of Knight Commander. Some surprise has been expressed, and Mr. Osler seems to share it, that Lord Exmouth did not at once receive the Grand Cross; but it is to be observed, that in the first instance the second cross was given to all those officers who had previously received the distinction of knighthood for service, and that it was, as Sir Edward Pellew, that he was made, according to the general rule, a Knight Commander. Next year his general services were most properly acknowledged by the further distinction of the Grand Cross.

The return of Napoleon from Elba soon required a British force in the Mediterranean, and Lord Exmouth was again selected for this service, and again he performed with his usual prudence and energy all the duties which the position of affairs required or admitted.

Marseilles had shown some disposition to the Bourbons, and Marshal Brune was marching from Toulon upon that city, avowedly to destroy it. Lord Exmouth on this emergency took upon himself to embark about 3000 men, part of the garrison of Genoa, with which he sailed to Marseilles and landed in time to defeat the intentions of Brune. Forty years before he had landed at Marseilles a poor penniless boy turned out of his ship-he now entered it a British admiral and peer, and, what was still more gratifying to him, a conqueror and deliverer! The inhabitants, grateful for their preservation, were unceasing in their attentions

VOL. LV. NO. CIX.

M

to

to the fleet and army, and, as a mark of their sense of his important services to their city, they presented him with a large and beautiful piece of plate executed in Paris, bearing a medallion of the noble admiral and a view of the port of Marseilles, and the Boyne, his flag-ship, entering it full sail, with this simple and expressive inscription-"A l'Amiral Lord Exmouth-La Ville de Marseilles reconnoissante." —p. 292.

Peace now having been restored on the European continent, the British Government took advantage of the large fleet which had been assembled in the Mediterranean to put a check upon the piratical oppressions of the Barbary powers, to which,' says Mr. Osler, all the maritime population of the smaller Mediterranean states were continually exposed, while the great naval powers were deterred from exterminating these pirates, either by more pressing concerns, or by the failure of different expeditions which had been attempted.' This is not, we conceive, an exact statement of the case, which was not quite so clear in principle as Mr. Osler seems to think-the Barbary cruisers were indeed commonly called pirates, and undoubtedly their vessels were often, particularly in former times, guilty of piratical practices, but they affected to recognize the theory, at least, of international law, and to capture the subjects only of states with which they should be at war. This principle, which no maritime nation could deny, the Barbary states abused by maintaining, from the earliest times, perpetual hostilities against all Christendom-an outrageous assumption, in which, however, we fear, Christendom was the first aggressor, for it had from the times of the Crusades professed everlasting war to all infidels. This abuse, however, had been gradually corrected by both parties in modern times, and latterly the Barbary states affected only to capture the subjects of those with whom they were actually at war. We do not say bona fide at war, for these wars were for the most part only pretexts for piratical practices, and of course were made only against the weaker powers. The interests of England are so identified with the maintenance of the maritime right of belligerents, that it was neither her duty nor her policy to volunteer the redressing of the abuses of a system which did not injure her, and which were founded on a principle which she herself always maintained. This and the complicated connexion of the Barbary states with the Turkish empire, and the fear-now so fully justified*—of disturbing the

The English government seems to have become quite indifferent to the occupa tion of Algiers by the French, and to have lost sight of all the strange circumstances attending it. Let it, however, not be forgotten, that the Duke of Wellington's ministry-though it could not object to a fair belligerent attack on Algiers-insisted upon and obtained from Charles X.'s government an assurance that it was not to be held as a possession, and that this assurance was repeated by Louis Philippe with the strongest personal pledges of sincerity and good faith. Yet see the result!

balance