(_From a Correspondent._)
Colonel Phillips was the last surviving person who accompanied Captain
Cook in his last voyage of discovery to ascertain the practicability of
a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, along the northern
coast of America. I was an inmate of his residence in Lambeth in the
summer of 1828, for some few weeks, and during that period received
many commissioned attentions, for he ever avoided meeting or seeing
strangers. He was invariably his own cook; slept but little, and seldom
retired regularly to bed, but rested on a sofa, or chairs, as accident
might dictate. His employment chiefly consisted in turning fanciful
devices at his lathe, but he seldom completed his designs: however, I saw
the model of a mausoleum dedicated to Napoleon, which evinced much taste
and ingenuity. His workshop at once intimated that its occupant was
not abundantly gifted with the organ of order. Plates, dishes, knives,
forks, candlesticks, coats, hats, books, and mathematical instruments,
lay in one confused mass, each enveloped with its portion of dust.
To attempt any thing like arrangement, was at once sacrilege in the
estimation of the Colonel. To summon his attendant he usually approached
the stairs, and rang a small hand bell, accompanying it with his
deep-toned voice with the words: "Ahoy! ahoy! all hands ahoy!" His
liquors, and tankards of ale he always drew up from the window of his
room, to avoid intrusion, and in returning the empty pewters he would
frequently take too sure an aim at the potboy's head. Then came a
concert of "curses" and every association but amity. The close of the
scene was generally modified with something in the shape of a shilling,
and the parties separated, mutually satisfied. Colonel Phillips, during
his residence in Ireland, was possessed of considerable property, but
from what circumstance he suffered a reverse of fortune I am not
informed; indeed, so unwilling was he to connect himself with bygone
days that it was impossible to gather from him a clue to the active
services he had given to the world.
Thus lived Colonel Molesworth Phillips, glorying in most of the
eccentricities of human nature. It is astonishing, considering the
active part he took in society, that he should, towards the close of
life, have secluded himself so entirely from the world, and those with
whom he must have from circumstances have been associated. Colonel
Phillips might probably have survived some years longer, had he not
fallen a victim to cholera.
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