PART III., 15

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[Illustration: titlepage]

BLACKWOOD'S

Edinburgh

MAGAZINE.

VOL. LXVII.

JANUARY-JUNE, 1850.

[Illustration: Buchanan]

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND

37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1850.

BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXI. JANUARY, 1850. VOL. LXVII.

CONTENTS.

THE YEAR OF REACTION, 1

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART III., 15

AMERICAN ADVENTURE, 34

HOWARD, 50

THE DARK WAGGON. BY DELTA, 71

THE GREEN HAND--A "SHORT" YARN. PART VII., 76

BRITISH AGRICULTURE AND FOREIGN COMPETITION, 94

=SECOND EDITION.=

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXI. JANUARY, 1850. VOL. LXVII.

THE YEAR OF REACTION.

If the year 1848--"THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS" was one pre-eminent

among all others for the magnitude and interest of the events

it brought forth, the year which has just expired--THE YEAR OF

REACTION--is still more worthy of serious reflection, and affords

subjects for more cheering meditation. If the first exhibited the

whirlwind of anarchy let loose, the second showed the power by

which it is restrained; if the former filled every heart with dread

at the fierce passions which were developed, and the portentous

events which occurred in the world, the latter afforded reason for

profound thankfulness, at the silent but irresistible force with

which Omnipotence overrules the wickedness of men, and restrains the

madness of the people.

"Celsâ sedet Æolus arce,

Sceptra tenens, mollitque animos, et temperat iras.

Ni faciat, maria ac terras coelumque profundum

Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verruntque per auras.

Sed Pater Omnipotens speluncis abdidit atris,

Hoc metuens; regemque dedit qui foedere certo

Et premere et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas."[1]

[1] _Æneid_, i. 56.

The history of the world during those periods of convulsion, happily

of very rare occurrence, when an eruption of popular passions

takes place--when thrones are overturned, and the long-established

order of things is subverted--is nothing else but the folly and

wickedness of man warring against the wisdom of nature. All history

demonstrates that there is a certain order of things which is

favourable to human felicity--under which industry flourishes,

population increases, the arts are encouraged, agriculture improves,

general happiness is diffused. The basis of such a state of things

is the _security of property_; the moving power which puts in

motion the whole complicated machine of society, is the certainty

that every man will enjoy the fruits of his toil. As clearly do

past events demonstrate, that there is a state of things wherein

the reverse of all this takes place; when industry is paralysed,

population arrested, the arts languish, agriculture decays, general

misery prevails. The chief cause of such a state of things is to

be found in the insecurity of property, the dread that industry

will not reap its appointed reward; but that external violence

or domestic spoliation may interfere between the labourer and

the fruits of his toil. When such a state of things arises from

internal commotion, it is generally preceded by the warmest hopes,

and the most unbounded anticipations of felicity. It is universally

characterised by a resolute disregard of experience, and a universal

passion for innovation in all the institutions of society, and

all the relations of life. It constantly appeals to the generous

affections: speaks of humanity, justice, and fraternity; proclaims

mankind as brothers; and professes the warmest desire for general

felicity, and the diminution of the sources of human suffering. It

veils the advance of selfishness under the guise of generosity.

Revolutions demonstrate that the homage which vice pays to virtue is

not confined to individuals. The maxim of Rochefoucault applies also

to nations. Its truth is never seen with such brightness as during

the intensity of a revolution; and this demonstrates at once the

wisdom which governs, and the selfishness which desolates the world.

So prone, however, are the bulk of mankind to delusion; so easily

are they led away by expressions which appeal to their passions, or

projects which seem to forward their interests; so little are the

lessons of experience either known to, or heeded by, the immense

majority of men, that we should be led to despair of the fortunes of

the species, and dread in every age a repetition of the seductive

passions which had desolated the one that had preceded it, were it

not that a provision is made for the extinction of popular passion

in the very first effects of its ebullition. It is in its _effect

upon property_ that the curb is found which restrains the madness of

the people; by the insolvency it induces that the barrier is formed,

which as a matter of necessity forces back society to its habitual

forms and relations. In the complicated state of social relations in

which we live, it is by the capital of the rich that the industry

of the poor is put in motion; by their expenditure that it is

alimented. However specious and alluring the projects may be which

are brought forward by the popular leaders, they involve in them one

source of weakness, which inevitably ere long paralyses all their

influence. Directly or indirectly, they all tend to the destruction

of property. To excite the passions of the working classes, they are

obliged to hold out to them the prospect of a division of property,

or such a system of taxation as practically amounts to the same

thing: the immediate effect of which is a cessation of expenditure

on the part of the affluent classes; a hoarding of capital; a run

upon the banks for specie; universal scarcity of money, general

distrust, and a fearful decrease of employment. These evils are

first felt by the working classes, because, having no stock, they

are affected by any diminution in their daily wages; and they

are felt with the more bitterness that they immediately succeed

extravagant hopes, and highly wrought expectations. Invariably the

effects of revolutions are precisely the reverse of the predictions

of its supporters. No man is insensible to his own suffering,

however much he may be so to that of his predecessors; and thence

the universal and general reaction which, sooner or later, takes

place against revolutions.

That this reaction would take place to a certainty, in the end,

with the French revolution of 1848, as it had done with all similar

convulsions since the beginning of the world, could be doubted by

none who had the least historical information: and in our first

article on that event, within a few weeks of its occurrence, we

distinctly foretold that this would be the case.[2] But we confess

we did not anticipate the _rapidity_ with which the reaction has

set in. Not two years have elapsed since the throne of Louis

Philippe was overturned, and a republic proclaimed in Paris amidst

the transports of the revolutionary party over all Europe, and the

gaze in astonishment of all the world; and already the delusion is

over, the transports are at an end, the Jacobins are silent, and

the convulsed commonwealth is fast sinking back to its pristine

monarchical form of government. Every country in Europe felt the

shock. The passions were universally let loose; sanguinary wars

arose on every side; and while the enlightened Free-traders of

England were dreaming, amidst their cotton bales, of universal

and perpetual peace, which should open to them the markets of the

world, hostilities the most terrible, contests the most dreadful,

dissensions the most implacable, broke out in all quarters. It was

not merely the war of opinion which Mr Canning long ago prophesied

as the next which would desolate Europe: to it was superadded the

still more frightful contest of races. The Lombard rose against

the German, the Bohemian against the Imperialist, the Hungarian

against the Austrian; the Celt and the Saxon stood in arms against

each other. Naples was rent in twain; a revolutionary state was

established in Sicily; the supreme pontiff was dethroned at Rome;

Piedmont joined the innovating party; Lombardy rose up against

Austria, Bohemia was in arms against Vienna, the Magyars revived

against the Germans the fierce hostility of five centuries; Prussia

was revolutionised, Baden ravaged, Denmark invaded; the Poles could

with difficulty be restrained amidst the general effervescence; the

Irish openly made preparations for rebellion and separation from

Great Britain. England itself was shaken: the gravity and practical

tendency of the Anglo-Saxon character in part yielded to the general

contagion. London was threatened with a revolutionary movement; the

Chartists in all the manufacturing towns were prepared to follow the

example; treasonable placards, calling on the people to rise, were

to be seen on all sides; and the mighty conqueror who had struck

down Napoleon exerted his consummate skill in baffling the rebellion

of his own countrymen, and won a victory over anarchy not less

momentous than that of Waterloo, and not the less memorable that it

did not cost a drop of human blood.

[2] See "The Fall of the Throne of the Barricades," April 1, 1848.

What a contrast, within the short period of eighteen months, did

Europe afterwards exhibit! France, the centre of impulsion to the

civilised world, was restrained; the demon of anarchy was crushed in

its birthplace; the visions of the Socialists had been extinguished

in the blood of the barricades. Dispersed, dejected, in despair,

the heroes of February were languishing in exile, or mourning in

prison the blasting of their hopes, the ruin of their prospects, the

unveiling of their sophistries. Revolution had been crushed without

the effusion of blood in Berlin: law had regained its ascendency;

rebellion had quailed before the undaunted aspect of the defenders

of order and the throne. Naples had regained the dominion of Sicily;

the arms of France had restored the Pope at Rome; the Eternal City

had yielded to the assault of the soldiers of Louis Napoleon.

Austria had regained her ascendency in Italy; the perfidious

aggression of Charles Albert had been signally chastised by the

skill and determination of the veteran Radetsky; Milan was again the

seat of Imperial government; the dream of a Venetian republic had

passed away, and the Place of St Mark again beheld the double-headed

eagle of Austria at the summit of its domes. Baden was conquered,

Saxony pacified; the fumes of revolutionary aggression in Schleswig

had been dissipated by the firmness of Denmark, and the ready,

although unexerted, support of Russia. Poland was overawed by the

Colossus of the North; and even the heroic valour of the Magyars,

so often in happier days the bulwark of the Cross, had yielded to

that loyalty and tenacity of purpose which has so long distinguished

the Austrian people, joined and aided by the support which, on this

as on many previous occasions, Russia has afforded to the cause of

order in Europe. Though last, not least, Great Britain was pacified:

the dreams of the Socialists, the treason of the Chartists, had

recoiled before the energy of a people yet on the whole loyal

and united. Ireland, blasted by the triple curse of rebellion,

pestilence, and famine, had ceased to be an object of disquietude

to England, save from the incessant misery which it exhibited; and

its furious patriots, abandoning in multitudes the land of their

birth, were carrying into Transatlantic regions those principles of

anarchy, and deathless hatred at civilisation, which had so long

laid waste their own country.

Acknowledging, as all must do, with devout thankfulness, that

it is to the Great Disposer of events that we are to ascribe so

marvellous a DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL--so blessed an escape from a fate

which would have renewed, in Europe, a devastation as wide-spread,

and darkness as thick, as occurred during the middle ages--it may

yet, humanly speaking, be discerned how it is that our salvation

has been effected. The days of miracles are past; the law is not

now delivered amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai; the walls of

fortresses do not fall down at the sound of the Lord's trumpet;

there is no longer a chosen people, over whose safety the eye of

Omnipotence watches, and whom, in the last extremity, the destroying

angel rescues from their enemies. The direction of human affairs by

Supreme Wisdom; the coercion of wickedness; the support of virtue;

the ceaseless advance of the race of man, amidst all the folly and

selfishness with which its concerns are conducted, have not, indeed,

passed away: all these are in as complete operation now as when

the Red Sea opened to the retreating Israelites, or the walls of

Jericho fell before the blast of Joshua's trumpet, or the rending

of the vail of the Temple announced that the era had commenced when

the whole human race was to be admitted to the sanctuary of the

temple. But it is by human means alone that Providence now acts; it

is by general laws that the affairs of men are regulated. The agents

of Omnipotence are the moving principles of the human heart: the

safeguards against ruin are to be found in the barriers which, in

injured interests or counteracting passions, are raised up amidst

the agitated multitude, against the further progress of devastation.

It is not from oblivion, therefore, but with a constant recognition

of Divine superintendence, that we shall now endeavour to trace out

the means by which the most alarming moral pestilence which ever

appeared in modern times has been arrested; the happiness of Europe

saved, for the time at least, from the destruction by which it was

menaced--from the earthquake in its own bosom; and the progress of

real freedom throughout the world prevented from being blasted by

the selfish ambition or insane delusions of the demagogues who, for

a time, got possession of its current.

The first circumstance which must strike every observer, in the

contemplation of the terrible crisis through which we have passed,

is, that the destruction with which we were threatened was mainly,

if not entirely, owing to _want of moral courage_ on the part of

the depositaries of power. The Revolution in Paris, it is well

known, owed its success entirely to the pusillanimity of the _men_

of the royal family. Louis Philippe, old and enfeebled by disease,

was paralysed by a still more fatal source of weakness--the

consciousness of a throne won by treason--the terror inspired by

the sight of the barricades, behind which his own government had

been constructed. His sons who were present showed that the Orleans

family had lost, with the possession of a usurped throne, the

courage which, for several generations, had constituted the only

virtue of their race. The King of Prussia abandoned the contest

in Berlin in the moment of victory--a nervous reluctance to the

shedding of blood paralysed, as it had done in the days of Louis

XVI., the defenders of the throne. In Austria, the known imbecility,

physical and moral, of the emperor, rendered him wholly unequal

to the crisis in which he was placed--delivered over the empire,

undefended, to a set of revolutionary murderers, and rendered a

change in the reigning sovereign indispensable. In Rome, the Pope

himself began the movement--he first headed the reform crusade;

and whatever his unhappy subjects have since suffered is to be

ascribed to his blind delusion and weak concessions. Such was the

conduct of the kings of Europe--such the front which our sex in

high places opposed to the revolutionary tempest. But women often,

in the last extremity, exhibit a courage which puts to shame the

pusillanimity of the men by whom they are surrounded; and never was

this more signally evinced than in the present instance. The Queen

of France tried in vain, at the Tuileries, to inspire her husband

with her own heroic spirit; the Duchess of Orleans showed it in

front of levelled muskets in the Chamber of Deputies; and, that

order is still preserved in our country, is to be ascribed in no

small degree to the firm conduct of the sovereign on the throne, and

the determination with which she inspired her government to risk

everything rather than concede one iota to the revolutionists.

As it was the opposite conduct from this, and the moral weakness of

the depositaries of power, which mainly induced the revolutions

of 1848, and rendered them so formidable, so those causes which

have at length arrested that terrible convulsion seem to have been

no other but the moral laws of nature, destined for the correction

of wickedness and the coercion of passion, when they have risen to

such a pitch as seriously to endanger the existence of society. And,

without presuming to scan too deeply the intentions of Providence,

or the great system by which evil is brought out of good, and an

irresistible power says to the madness of the people, as to the

storms of the ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther, and

here shall thy proud waves be staid," we may probably discover,

humanly speaking, the means by which the evil has been arrested.

The first circumstance which has produced the reaction, and arrested

the progress of evil so much more rapidly than was the case in the

former great convulsion, is the memory of that convulsion itself.

It is no doubt true, that every generation is taught by its own

and none by its predecessors' sufferings; but, in the case of the

first French Revolution, the suffering was so long-continued and

dreadful, that the memory of it descended to the next generation. It

was impossible that the sons of the men who had been guillotined,

exiled, or mown down by the conscription, who had seen their estates

and honours torn from them by the ruthless hand of Revolutionary

violence, should not retain a vivid sense of the sufferings they had

experienced, and the wrongs they had undergone. All classes, not

excluding even those who had been most ardent and active in support

of the first Revolution, had writhed alike under the calamities

and exactions of the latter years of the war, and the ignominious

conquest in which it had terminated, which was only felt the more

keenly from the unparalleled triumphs to which the nation had so

long been habituated. Add to this, that the attention of all the

intelligent classes of society in Europe generally, and in France in

particular, had been long, and to an extent of which in this country

we can scarcely form an idea, riveted on the events of the first

Revolution. The Reign of Terror was not forgotten; the prophecy

of the historian[3] proved true:--"A second French Revolution, of

the same character as the former, and the age in which it is to

arise must be ignorant of the first." Its heartstirring incidents,

its mournful catastrophes, its tragic events, its heroic virtue,

its appalling wickedness, its streams of blood, were indelibly

engraven on the hearts of a considerable, and that too the most

influential, part of the people. The revolutionists, indeed,

in every country--the Red Republicans in France, the Chartists

in England, the Rebels in Ireland, the Carbonari in Italy, the

_Illuminés_ in Germany, were perfectly prepared to renew for their

own profit the same scenes of spoliation, bloodshed, and massacre.

But such extreme characters form, even in the most depraved society,

but a small part of the whole inhabitants. It is the delusion or

timidity of the great body, not the absolute strength or numbers of

the violent party, which is the principal danger. The force of the

first Revolution consisted in its novelty; in the enchantment of its

visions, the warmth of its professed philanthropy, the magnitude of

its promises. But time had dispelled these, as it does many other

delusions. The mask had fallen from the spectre which had charmed

the world, and the awful form of DEATH had appeared.

[3] ALISON.

The second circumstance which tended to coerce, more rapidly than

could have been hoped for, the progress of the revolution of 1848,

was the firmness and loyalty of the soldiers. It is historically

known that it was the defection of the troops which brought on,

and rendered irresistible the march of the first Revolution: which

induced, in rapid succession, the Reign of Terror, the assignats,

the conscription, the capture of Paris, the subjugation of the

kingdom. But here, too, experience and suffering came to the aid of

deluded and wandering humanity. It was seen that what is unjust and

dishonourable is _never_ expedient: that the violation of their

oaths by the sworn defenders of order is not the commencement of

the regeneration, but the first step in the decline of society: and

that to fear God and honour the king is the only way to insure,

not only the preservation of order, but the ultimate ascendancy of

freedom. On the foundation of the revolt of the Gardes Françaises

in 1789, were successively built the despotism of the Committee of

Public Salvation, the blood of Robespierre, the carnage of Napoleon.

The awful example was not lost on the next generation. The throne

of Charles X. was overthrown by the defection of the troops of the

line; but it was again found that the glorious fabric of civil

liberty was not to be erected on the basis of treachery and treason.

None of the troops revolted on the crisis of February 1848. The

Guards and the line were alike steady. Marshal Bugeaud, when he

received the command, speedily passed the whole barricades, and in

six hours would have extinguished the revolt. The throne was lost

not by the defection of the troops, but by the pusillanimity of

the princes of the blood; and accordingly, when the next contest

occurred--as occur it ever will in such cases--the troops were

resolutely led, the revolution was put down under circumstances ten

times more formidable, though not without a frightful loss of human

life.

We are so accustomed to the loyalty and steadiness of the English

army, that the possibility of their wavering never enters into our

imagination. But still all must admit that we too, with all our

boasted safeguards of popular representation, general information, a

free press, and centuries of freedom, stood on the edge of an abyss;

and that, not less than Austria or Prussia, our salvation had come

to depend chiefly, if not entirely, on the fidelity of the soldiers.

If the six thousand men who garrisoned London on the 10th April

1848 had wavered, and one-half of them had joined the insurgents,

where would now have been the British constitution? Had a hundred

thousand men from Kennington Common crossed Waterloo Bridge, headed

by a regiment of the Guards, and three regiments of the line, where

would now have been the British liberties? Where would have been all

the safeguards formed, all the hopes expressed, all the prophecies

hazarded, as to its being perpetual? But in that dread hour, perhaps

the most eventful that England ever knew, we were saved by the

courage of the Queen, the firmness of the government, the admirable

arrangements of the Duke of Wellington, and the universal steadiness

and loyalty of our soldiers. We are quite aware of the special

constables, and the immense _moral_ influence of the noble display

which the aristocracy and middle classes of England made on that

occasion. But moral influence, often all-powerful in the end, is not

alone sufficient at the beginning; physical force is then required

to withstand the _first assault_ of the enemy: and, highly as we

respect the civic force with batons in their hands; and fully as we

admit the immense importance of that citizen-demonstration in its

ultimate effects, we ascribe our deliverance from the instant peril

which threatened, entirely to the steadiness of the British army,

and the incomparable arrangements of their chief.

In the Continental states, order succeeded in regaining the

ascendency over anarchy entirely in consequence of the fidelity of

the soldiers. On that memorable day, when the Prussian army marched

into Berlin playing the old airs of _the monarchy_, and formed in

a circle around, distant only twenty-five paces from the insurgent

host, and there tranquilly loaded their pieces, the opposing forces

were directly brought into collision; it was seen that, in a few

seconds, law or rebellion would be victorious. Law prevailed, as

it generally does where its defenders are steady and resolutely

led--and what has been the result? Is it that freedom has been

extinguished in Prussia, that liberty has sunk under the pressure of

tyrannic power, and that a long period of servitude and degradation

is to close the bright meridian of her national splendour? Quite

the reverse: anarchy has been extinguished in Prussia only to make

room for the fair forms of order and liberty, which cannot exist but

side by side; the revolutionists are overawed, but the lovers of

real freedom are only the better confirmed in their hopes of the

ultimate establishment of a constitutional monarchy, such as Prussia

has been sighing for for thirty years. It is ever to be recollected

that the prospects of freedom are never so bright as when they are

in the inverse ratio to those of revolution; liberty is never so

safe as where anarchy is most thoroughly repressed; despotism is

never so near at hand as immediately after the greatest triumphs of

insurrection.

In AUSTRIA a different and more melancholy prospect has been

exhibited. That great and noble country has been the victim,

not merely of the passions of revolution, but of those of race.

It has been torn asunder, not only by the ambition of the

revolutionists, and the ardent zeal of a people yet inexperienced

in social dissensions sighing after freedom, but by the force and

inextinguishable rivalry of different and discordant races. The

Lombard has risen up against the German, the Bohemian against

the Austrian; the Magyars have buckled on their armour against

both, and, animated alike by revolutionary zeal and national

jealousy, have striven to obtain what they deem the first of

blessings--national independence--by revolting against the

government of Austria, in the moment of its utmost need. That

strange compound of races and nations, the Austrian monarchy,

in which it is hard to say whether the Slave, the Magyar, the

Teuton, the Lombard, or the old Roman had the preponderance, and

the union of which, for so long a period, had been a subject of

astonishment to all observers, at length revealed its inherent

weakness. Worse than the war of opinion, the war of races began.

Like the Lacedemonian confederacy, after the defeat of Leuctra, or

the Athenian after the catastrophe of Aigos Potamos, or the Roman

republic after the disaster of Cannæ, the Austrian aggregate of

kingdoms threatened to fall to pieces on the dreadful shock of

opinion which resulted from the success of the French revolution.

The contest of nations did not now intervene, to bar the spread

of democratic ideas; the military passions were not arrayed in

opposition to the civic. Lamartine was perfectly right in his

prognostic: the pacific French revolution of 1848 achieved greater

conquests, in three months, than the warlike republic of 1793 had

gained in ten years. Prussia was apparently revolutionised; Austria

was all but won to the democratic side; Vienna, Prague, and Milan

were in the hands of the insurgents. Never, in the darkest periods

of the revolutionary war, was Austria in such desperate straits,

as when Radetsky retreated behind the Mincio, and the treacherous

assault of Charles Albert was aided by the whole strength of

revolutionary Italy, and the tacit support or lukewarm indifference

of France and England.

But in that awful hour, by far the most perilous which Austria

ever knew, and which threatened with immediate and irrevocable

destruction the whole balance of power in Europe, she was saved by

the fidelity of her native soldiers, and the incomparable spirit of

her German nobility. Then appeared in its highest lustre what is

the principle of life and the tenacity of purpose which exist in an

aristocratic society, not yet wholly debilitated by the pleasures

and the selfishness of a court. Although the Hungarian nobles,

for the most part, sided with the Magyar insurgents; although the

whole Lombard troops had passed over from the standards of Radetsky

to those of Charles Albert, and all the Hungarians in his service

sullenly wended their way back to their native places; although

Prague was wrested from the crown by the Bohemian insurgents, and

Vienna by a vehement urban tumult in the capital; although Hungary

was not only lost, but arrayed in fierce hostility against the

monarchy--the noble Austrian leaders never lost heart--they realised

the dream of the Roman poet--

"Si fractus illabatur orbis,

Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

Windischgratz in Bohemia, Radetsky in Italy, Jellachich in Austria,

stood forth as the saviours of the monarchy, and, with it, of the

cause of European freedom. Though deserted by their sovereign, who

had bent before the revolutionary tempest, they fronted, sometimes,

it is believed, in opposition to constrained orders, the dangers

with which they were assailed--they acted in conformity with the

maxim of a noble people not yet debased by democratic selfishness:

VIVE LE ROI QUAND-MEME! Slowly, but steadily, the forces of order

regained their ascendant over the assaults of anarchy. The Tyrol,

ever steadfast in its loyalty, first offered an asylum to the

emperor, when driven from his capital; Prague was next recovered,

and Bohemia coerced by the moral courage and skilful dispositions

of Prince Windischgratz; Radetsky, shortly after, reinforced by

the loyalty of Austria, regained his ascendant on the Mincio,

routed the revolutionary rabble of Italy, and restored Milan to the

Imperial government; Vienna, after a desperate conflict, was won by

the forces of Order; and Jellachich and Windischgratz enjoyed the

proud triumph of having restored his capital to their discrowned

sovereign. Hungary, inhabited by a bolder and more numerous race,

actuated by stronger passions, held out longest, and was only

subdued after a sanguinary conflict, by the aroused vigour and

national passions, aided by the support of the Colossus of the

North, which has so often sent forth its battalions as the last

resource of order and religion, when all but vanquished by the

forces of anarchy and infidelity. Yet, though thus constrained,

in the last extremity, to call in the aid of the Czar, and array

a hundred thousand Muscovites on the plains of Hungary, the stand

thus made by the Austrian monarchy is not the less glorious and

worthy of eternal remembrance. It demonstrates what so many other

passages in the history of that noble people indicate, how great is

the strength, and unbounded the resources, of a brave and patriotic

nation, even when afflicted by the most terrible disasters; and how

uniformly Providence, in the end, lends its protection to a people

who have shown themselves worthy of its blessings, by faithfully

discharging their duty in a period of disaster. The year 1849 will

ever rank with the glories of Maria Theresa, the triumph of Aspern,

the devotion of Wagram, as the brightest periods in the long and

glorious Austrian annals.

The people of England, ever ready to sympathise with even the name

of freedom, and prone beyond any other nation to delusions springing

from generous feelings, acting on erroneous information, were at

one time much disposed to sympathise with the Hungarian insurgents.

They enlisted the wishes of a considerable part, especially of

the citizens of towns, on their side. Never were generous and

estimable feelings more misapplied. The contest in Hungary, it is

to be feared, was not in the slightest degree a struggle for public

freedom: it was an effort only to establish the _domination of a

race_ in opposition to a lawful government. Like the Sikhs or Ameers

in India at this moment, the Normans in England in former times,

or the "insane plebeian noblesse" of Poland, whom John Sobieski

denounced as the authors of the ruin of his country, the Magyars

were a proud and haughty dominant race, not a fourth part of the

whole inhabitants of Hungary, but brave and ambitious, and animated

with the strongest desire of establishing an independent oligarchy

in their wide-spread country. They took the opportunity for

asserting their principles when Austria was pierced to the heart,

and its provinces, apparently all falling asunder, had the fairest

prospect of establishing separate dominions, as in the ancient Roman

empire, on the ruins of the Imperial authority. Had they succeeded,

they would have established the same monstrous tyranny of a dominant

race, which has so long blasted the happiness, and at length

destroyed the independence of Poland.

That the contest in Hungary was one for the domination of a race,

not the freedom of people, is evident from two circumstances

which have been studiously kept out of view by the Liberal party,

both on the Continent and in England. The first is that _after_

the emperor had conceded to Hungary the most extreme liberal

institutions, based on universal suffrage, the Magyar leaders sent

private orders to all the Hungarian regiments in Radetsky's army

to leave his banners, and return to Hungary; thus rendering to

all appearance the dismemberment of the monarchy inevitable, and

surrendering the Italian provinces, the brightest jewel in the

Imperial crown, to the tender mercies of Charles Albert. The second

is, that, in the contest which ensued, the Hungarians were in the

end overthrown. Possessing, as Hungary does, fourteen millions of

inhabitants--nearly a moiety of the whole Austrian empire, and four

times more than Upper and Lower Austria, with the Tyrol, which

alone could be relied on in that crisis--it is evident that, if the

_whole_ Hungarian people had been united, they must have proved

victorious, and have decided the contest long before the distant

Muscovite battalions could have appeared on the theatre of war. The

Hungarian insurrection broke out in April 1848, and was aided by

contemporaneous revolts in Prague, Lombardy, Venice, and Vienna. To

all appearance the Austrian monarchy was torn in pieces. Muniments

of war they had in abundance: Comorn, with its vast arsenal and

impregnable walls, opened its arms to receive them. When Georgey

capitulated, he had one hundred and thirty-eight guns, besides

those in the hands of Kossuth and Bem. Fully half the military

stores of Austria fell into the hands of the Hungarians, the moment

the insurrection broke out. Yet, with all these advantages, they

were overcome. This demonstrates that the war was not a national

one, in the proper sense of the word: that is, it did not interest

the _whole_ people. It was an effort of a gallant and ambitious

race, forming a small minority of the population, to establish a

domination over the whole remainder of the inhabitants, and sever

themselves from the Austrian empire; and a greater calamity than

such a separation, both to the Hungarians themselves and the general

balance of power in Europe, cannot be imagined.

How was the balance of power to be maintained in Europe, especially

against Russia, if the Austrian monarchy had been broken up?

Experience had long ago proved that no coalitions for the

preservation of the independence of central Europe, either against

Russia on the one side or France on the other, had the least chance

of success, in which Austria did not take a prominent part. Even the

disasters of the Peninsular campaigns, and the awful catastrophe

of the Moscow retreat, could not enable Europe to combat Napoleon,

till Metternich, at the Congress of Prague, threw the weight of

Austria into the scale. It was by an alliance of Austria, France,

and England that, at the Congress of Vienna, a curb was put on the

ambition of Russia: by a similar alliance that the Turkish empire

was saved from ruin, when the Muscovite standards were advanced to

Adrianople, and the Pacha of Egypt was encamped on Scutari. It was

a coalition of Austria, England, Russia, and Prussia, which in 1834

coerced the ambition of France, when M. Thiers had sent orders to

the French admiral to attack and burn the English fleet in the bay

of Vourlas, at dead of night. But if Austria had been broken up into

a Hungarian, a Lombard, and a Bohemian republic, how was such an

alliance to be formed? What central power could, in such an event,

have existed under such circumstances, to oppose a mid impediment to

the grasping ambition of Russia on the one side, and France on the

other? Prussia, it is well known, is entirely under the influence

of Russia, and does not, except in the first fervour of revolution,

venture to deviate from the policy which it prescribes. Sweden and

Denmark are mere subsidiary states. Austria alone is so strong as

to be able, with the aid of England, to bid Russia defiance; and

is situated so near to its southern provinces, as to be actuated

by a ceaseless dread of its encroachments. The breaking up of the

Austrian empire would have been a fatal blow to the balance of

power, and with it to real liberty in Europe. It would have left the

field open to the Cossacks on the one side, and the Red Republicans

on the other.

It is deeply to be regretted that Austria was not able to regain its

dominion over its rebellious Hungarian subjects, without the aid

of the Muscovite arms. Although the Czar has recalled his troops

after the vast service was rendered, and no projects of immediate

aggrandisement are apparent, yet it is impossible to doubt--it is

fruitless to attempt to disguise--that the influence of Russia in

the east of Europe has been immensely extended by this intervention.

So weighty an obligation as saving an empire from dismemberment is

too great to be easily forgotten; and supposing, what is probably

the case, that gratitude is a feeling unknown to cabinets--and

that the recollection of salvation from ruin is likely to produce

no other sentiment but that of dislike--still the contest, which

was adjourned, rather than decided, on the Hungarian plains, has

for a very long period, it is to be feared, thrown Austria into

the arms of Russia. They are united by the common bond of enduring

interest. The Magyars in Hungary, the Poles in Sarmatia, are the

enemies of both; and each feels that it is by a close alliance

of the cabinets, that the evident dangers of an insurrection of

these powerful and warlike races can be provided against. It is

more than probable that a secret treaty, offensive and defensive,

already unites the two powers; that the crushing of the Magyars was

bought by the condition, that the extension of Muscovite influence

in Turkey was to be connived at; and that the Czar will one day

advance to Constantinople without fear, because he knows that his

right flank is secure on the side of Austria. Certain it is, that

the _joint_ demand made by Austria and Russia, for the extradition

of the Hungarian refugees, and which, as all unwarrantable stretch

against the independence of Turkey, was resisted with so much spirit

and wisdom by England and France, looks very like the first-fruits

of such an alliance. And observe, now, the immediate effects on the

balance of power of the revolution of 1848. This invasion of the

independence of Turkey was made by Russia and Austria in concert,

and was only resisted by France and England! Woful, indeed, for the

interests of real freedom, has been the result of those convulsions

which have ended in transplanting Austria from its natural position,

and have converted the jealous opponent of Muscovite power into its

obsequious ally. Nothing could have effected such a metamorphosis,

but the terrible convulsion which almost tore out the entrails of

the Austrian empire. But that is ever the case with revolutionists.

Blinded by the passions with which they are actuated, they rush

headlong on their own destruction; and destroy, in their insane

ambition, the very bulwarks by which alone durable freedom is to be

secured in their own or any other country.

It is commonly thought in this country that the war in Hungary was

a contest for national independence, and that it bears a close

analogy to the memorable conflicts by which, in former times,

the independence of Scotland was maintained, or the liberties

of England purchased. There never was a more unfounded opinion.

_After_ the Hungarian insurrection had taken place, indeed, and

when the Austrian empire had been wellnigh torn to pieces in the

shock, Hungary was formally incorporated with Austria, just as

the grand-duchy of Warsaw was with Russia after the sanguinary

revolt of 1831, and Ireland with England after the rebellion of

1798. But _anterior_ to the revolution, what step had the cabinet

of Vienna taken which was hostile to the independence of Hungary?

Not one. The constitution which the Austrian government had given

to the Hungarians, if it erred at all, did so on the liberal side:

for it conceded to a people, scarcely emerged from barbarism, a

constitution founded on universal suffrage, such as England, with

its centuries of freedom, could not withstand for three months. It

was the Hungarian insurgents who are responsible for the loss of

their national independence; because they first put it in issue by

joining Lombardy and the revolutionists of Prague and Vienna, in

their assault upon the Imperial government, at a time when nothing

whatever had been done which menaced their separate existence. The

truth is, they thought, as many others did, that the Austrian empire

was breaking up, and that now was the time to become a separate

power. Having voluntarily, and without a cause, committed high

treason, they cannot complain with reason, if in a mitigated form

they incur its penalties by forfeiting their national existence.

The ultimate suppression of the revolt in Hungary has been attended

with a most distressing amount of bloodshed on the scaffold, and the

occurrence of several mournful scenes, in which courage and fidelity

have asserted their wonted superiority, in the supreme hour, over

all the storms of fate. God forbid that we should either justify or

approve of such severity, or deprive the heroic Hungarian leaders of

the well-earned praise which some of them deserve, for their noble

constancy in misfortune! But while fully admitting this on the one

hand, we must, in justice to the Austrian government on the other,

recall to recollection the circumstances in which they were placed

at the close of the contest, the dangers they had undergone, and

the dreadful devastation which the Hungarian war had brought upon

their country. When Georgey capitulated and Comorn surrendered,

Austria was wellnigh exhausted by the conflict: she had owed her

salvation in part at least to foreign intervention. She had been

forced to proclaim her weakness in the face of Europe, and to bring

down the hated Muscovite battalions into the heart of the empire. In

judging of the course which her rulers, when victorious, pursued,

we must in justice recall to mind the perils they had escaped, and

the humiliations to which they had been reduced. We must recollect

also the state of civilisation which Hungary has attained, and go

back, in imagination, to what we ourselves did in a similar stage of

national progress. Hungary is hardly more advanced in civilisation

than England was during the Wars of the Roses, when the prisoners on

both sides were put to death without mercy, and eighty princes of

the blood or nobles were massacred in cold blood; or than Scotland

was when the Covenanters murdered all the Irish in Montrose's army,

with their wives and children. What did the English government do

at Carlisle after the advance of the Pretender to Derby, or in

Ireland after the rebellion of 1798? What has she recently done in

the Ionian islands, after the insurrection in Cephalonia? Nay, would

we have been less rigorous than the Austrians, even at this time,

if we had been reduced to similar extremities? It is very easy to

be lenient after an insurrection which has been extinguished in a

cabbage garden, and rendered the insurgents ridiculous in the eyes

of all the world; but what should we have done, and how would we

have felt, if Smith O'Brien at the head of the Irish rebels had

invaded England, taken London, nourished for a year and a half a

frightful civil war in the heart of the empire, and compelled us to

call in the legions of France into the midland counties to save the

nation from ruin? We do not mean, by these observations, to justify

the executions of Haynau and the other Imperial generals: God knows,

we deplore them as much as any one can do, and yield to none in

admiration of the heroism of the Hungarian leaders, who have shown

themselves so worthy of the noble nation to which they belong. But

we extenuate, if we cannot justify, the severity of the Austrians,

by the recollection of their sufferings; and reserve the weight of

our indignation for those insane and selfish demagogues who, for

their own elevation, lighted so terrible a conflagration, and caused

so much noble blood to be shed, alike on the part of those who

fanned and those who sought to extinguish the flames.

The third circumstance which seems to have mainly tended to stop

the progress of revolution in Europe, has been the great amount of

_interests_ in France which could not fail to be injured, either

by foreign warfare or domestic Socialist triumph. This is mainly

owing to France having already undergone fusion in the revolutionary

crucible. Scarcely anything remains to melt, but the dross which

had flowed out of the first furnace. The great estates and church

lands were divided; two-thirds were cut off from the national debt.

Nobody remained to despoil but the _tiers état_ and revolutionary

proprietors. They stood shoulder to shoulder in defence of their

all, which they saw was seriously menaced; and thence the stoppage

of the revolution at Paris, and the rapid retrograde movement of

opinion on the subject, in the majority, over all France. Foreign

war was not less an object of apprehension than internal spoliation.

The peasants recollected the conscription and the Cossacks, and

the weighty contributions of the Allies; the bourgeois dreaded

the cessation of foreign travelling in their country, and the

termination of the prolific shower of English gold. It was a general

terror that the best interests of society were in danger which

produced the determined resistance to the insurgents in Paris on the

23d of June, and formed the majority of four millions who elected

Prince Louis Napoleon to the president's chair. Beyond all doubt,

the greater part of the electors, when they recorded their suffrages

for him, understood they were really voting for an emperor, and

opposing the barrier of force to the revolution.

This circumstance suggests a very important consideration, on which

it well becomes the people of this country to ponder, in reasoning

from the example of France to themselves. It is not unusual now to

hear the opinion advanced, that the result of universal suffrage in

France proves that the apprehensions entertained on this subject, on

this side of the Channel, are unfounded; and that, in truth, there

is no such effectual barrier against revolution as universal, or, at

least, a very low suffrage. America is frequently referred to, also,

in confirmation of the same opinion. But under what circumstances

has universal suffrage been forced to uphold property in these two

countries? Recollect that both are overspread with a host of small

proprietors: in France no less than 6,000,000 persons, for the most

part in very indigent circumstances, being holders of land; and in

America, the whole soil, from its having been so recently reclaimed

from the forest, and the law of equal succession, _ab intestato_,

being in the hands of the actual cultivators. But can any opinion

be formed from this as to what would be the effect of a change in

the electoral law, which created 6,000,000 of voters in a country

where there are not 300,000 holders of land, and not above an equal

number of proprietors in the funds? It is evident that we can never

argue from a country which _has been revolutionised_, and where

property _has been divided_, to one where neither of these events

has taken place. Doubtless the robber will make a fight before he

allows his prey to be torn from him; and when there are six millions

of persons, for the most part possessed of the fruits of robbery,

the rendering these back will not be very easily effected. But

if we would see the effect of an extended suffrage, in a country

which has not been revolutionised, and where the strong curb-chain

of individual interest does not exist to restrain the majority,

we have only to look to what the electors of France in 1793 did

with the estates of the church and the nobility; to what the

American freeholders did in 1837, when they destroyed five-sixths

commercial wealth of the country, by raising the cry "Bank, or no

Bank:" or what the British ten-pounders have done with the other

classes of society, and, eventually, though they did not intend it,

with themselves, by their measures of free trade and a restricted

currency. Beyond all doubt, _these_ measures would at once be

repealed by an extended constituency; but are we sure they would

stop there? What security have we they would not apply the sponge to

the National Debt, confiscate the church property, and openly, or by

a graduated assessment on land, divide the estates of the nobility?

But perhaps the most powerful agent, which has been at work, in

stopping the progress of revolution in Europe, has been the public

and private INSOLVENCY which in an abandoned state of society

inevitably and rapidly follows such convulsions. This is the great

check upon the government and the madness of the people. That

France, ever since the revolution of February 1848, has been in a

state of almost hopeless monetary embarrassment, is well known to

all the world. In fact, nothing but the most consummate prudence,

and the adoption of the wisest measures on the part of the Bank of

France, has saved them from a general public and private bankruptcy.

What those measures were, will immediately be explained. In the mean

time, to show the magnitude of the difficulties against which they

had to make head, it is sufficient to observe, that in twenty-one

months the Revolutionary Government has incurred a floating debt

of £22,000,000; and that the deficiency for the year 1849, wholly

unprovided for--and which must be made good by Exchequer bills, or

other temporary expedients--is no less than _eleven millions and a

half sterling_. It is not surprising it should have swelled to this

enormous amount; for the very first demand of revolutionists, when

they have proved victorious, is to diminish the public burdens and

increase the public expenditure. And they did this so effectually

in France, that in one year after the revolution of 1848, they had

increased the public expenditure by 162,000,000 francs, or about

£6,500,000; while they had caused the public revenue to fall by

248,000,000 francs, or nearly £10,000,000!

The dreadful prostration of industry which such a state of the

public revenue implies, would have proved altogether fatal to

France, had it not been rescued from the abyss by the surpassing

wisdom with which, in that crisis, the measures of the Bank of

France were conducted. But the conduct of that establishment, at

that trying crisis, proved that they had taken a lesson from the

archives of history. Carefully shunning the profuse and exorbitant

issue of paper which, under the name of assignats, effected

so dreadful a destruction of property in France in the first

revolution, they imitated the cautious and prudent policy by which

Mr Pitt surmounted the crisis of 1797, and brought the nation

triumphant through the whole dangers of the war. They obtained an

act from the legislature authorising the issue, not of £600,000,000

sterling of notes, as in 1793 and 1794, but of 400,000,000 francs,

or £16,000,000 sterling, not convertible into gold and silver.

This, and this alone, it was that brought France through the crisis

of the Revolution. Specie, before this aid was obtained, was fast

disappearing from circulation; the Bank of France had suspended cash

payments; three of the principal banks in Paris had become bankrupt;

the payment of all bills was suspended by act of government--for

this plain reason, that no debtor could find cash to discharge his

engagements. But this wise measure gave the French people that most

inestimable of all blessings in a political and monetary crisis--a

currency which, without being redundant, is sufficient, and, being

not convertible into the precious metals, neither augments the

strain on them, nor is liable to be swept away by foreign export. In

consequence of this seasonable advance, the crisis was surmounted,

though not without most acute general suffering; and industry, since

a government comparatively stable was established, in the person

of Prince Louis Napoleon, has revived to a surprising degree over

the whole country. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the general

misery which prevailed in France, desolated by a revolution, but

sustained by a moderate inconvertible paper currency, was greater

than was felt in the manufacturing cities of Great Britain, saved

by the firmness of government and the good sense of the nation

from a political convulsion, but withering under the fetters of

a contracted currency, and unrestricted admission of foreign

produce.[4]

[4] In Paris, after the Revolution in April and May, it was

stated there were 300,000 persons out of employment, including

the dependants of those without work. This number was, doubtless,

fearfully great out of a population of 1,200,000 souls. But it was

exceeded in some parts of Great Britain. In April 1848, the number

of unemployed persons in and around Glasgow was so excessive, that

an examination of them was made, by order of the magistrates of that

city, with a view to an application to government for assistance.

The men out of work were found, in that city and its vicinity, to

be 31,000, which, allowing two and a half dependants to each male,

implies 93,000 persons destitute of employment, out of a population

at that time estimated at 360,000; being somewhat more than 300,000

out of 1,200,000 in Paris.

One thing is perfectly apparent from the result of the revolution in

Italy, that the establishment of either civil liberty or political

independence is hopeless in that beautiful peninsula. The total

and easy rout of the Piedmontese and Tuscan forces by Radetsky is

a proof of this. Venice was defended by its Lagunæ--Rome not by

the descendants of the ancient masters of the world, but by the

revolutionary mercenaries of Poland, Hungary, and Germany, whom the

Austrian victories drove back from the banks of the Po to those

of the Tiber. On the other hand, the example of Naples, where the

firmness of the king has preserved in the end his dominions entire,

though Sicily for a time was severed from the kingdom, and Naples

itself was the theatre of a bloody convulsion, proves alike of what

flimsy materials revolution is composed in the south of Europe, and

through what a perilous crisis a nation can be safely conducted,

when the depositaries of power are not unworthy of the elevated

duties with which they are entrusted.

Still more important is the lesson read to the world by the

attempted revolution in England and Ireland. That Great Britain was

threatened with the convulsions, in the throes of which France and

Germany were labouring, is universally known. The Chartists openly

declared that monarchy could not stand two months in England or

Scotland; the Repealers were counting the hours till the Saxon was

expelled from the Emerald Isle, and a Hibernian republic proclaimed

in Dublin, in close alliance with the great parent democracy in

Paris. Where are these boasters now? The English revolutionists

were morally slaughtered in London on the 10th April: the Irish

rebels were blown into the air by the fire of the police in the

cabbage garden. They have been more than vanquished; they have been

rendered ridiculous. In despair, they are now leaving in crowds

their wo-stricken isle; and it is to be hoped a better race, more

industrious habits, and a more tractable people, will gradually be

introduced into the deserts which Celtic improvidence and folly has

made. It is a glorious spectacle to see an attempted revolution

which broke out in both islands suppressed almost without the

effusion of blood; and England, the first-born of freedom in modern

times, reasserting, in its advanced period of existence, at once the

order and moderation which are the glorious inheritance of genuine

Liberty.

Would that we could say that our foreign policy during the two last

eventful years has been as worthy of praise, as the conduct of our

government in combating our internal enemies has been. But here the

meed of our approbation must fail. Contrary alike to our obvious

interests and to our real and long-established principles, we have

apparently been guided by no other principle but that of fomenting

revolution, after the example of France, in every country which the

contagion had reached. We all but severed Sicily from Naples, and

openly assisted the Sicilian insurgents with arms and ammunition.

We once stopped, for "humanity's sake," the Neapolitan expedition

from sailing to combat the rebels: we more than once interposed

in favour of Charles Albert and the Piedmontese revolutionists:

we have alienated Austria, it is to be feared, beyond redemption,

by our strange and tortuous policy in regard to the Hungarian

insurrection: we, without disguise, countenanced the revolutionary

Germans in their attack upon the Danes. What object Ministers had

in that, or how they thought the interests of England, a great

commercial and exporting nation, were to be forwarded by throwing

its whole customers into confusion and misery, we cannot divine.

Apparently, their sympathy with revolution anywhere but at home,

was so strong, that they could not abstain from supporting it all

around them, though to the infinite detriment of their own people.

And it is a most curious circumstance, that, while the Chancellor of

the Exchequer constantly told us--no doubt with a certain degree of

truth--that the failure of our exports, and the general distress of

the country, was, in a great degree, to be ascribed to the European

revolutions, the whole policy of the Foreign Office, during the

same period, was directed to countenance and support these very

revolutions.

But from the painful contemplation of the follies and aberrations

of man, let us turn, with thankfulness, to the contemplation of the

great moral lessons which the events of the two last years teach

us as to the wisdom and beneficence of Nature. It is now clear

beyond the possibility of doubt, that the wisdom of Providence has

provided barriers against the passions, vices, and follies of men;

and that if the leaders in thought and station fail in their duty,

an invisible bulwark against the progress of anarchy is provided

in the general misery which is the consequence of their excesses.

Pre-eminent above all others in the history of mankind, THE YEAR

OF REACTION, immediately succeeding THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS, is

fraught with the demonstration of these great and consoling moral

and religious truths. From it the patriot will derive consolation

and hope, amidst the darkest periods which may yet be in store for

the human race: for never was a darker period than that through

which we have passed; and from its checkered scenes the virtuous

and upright will draw the conclusion that there are limits to human

wickedness even in this scene of trial; and that the safest, not

less than the most honourable course, for all classes, from the

throne to the cottage, in periods of danger, is to be found in the

fearless discharge of DUTY.

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.

BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART III.--CHAPTER VII.

Next morning, shortly after daybreak, we were all hurried out of

our berths by Joey, to come on deck, and take a first view of the

coast of Spain. We made the land to the north-east of Cape Villano,

and were not a little struck with the bare, black, scowling aspect

of that mountainous and iron-bound coast. Off Oporto we stood in,

with the design of entering the river. But a signal from the shore

announced the bar impassable, and we had nothing before us but

the delightful prospect of standing off and on, till the weather

permitted us to land the bags. Gingham, I observed, stood anxiously

peering with his telescope in the direction of the bar, where the

sea, for miles, was foam and fury. "Well," said I at last, "are you

looking for a cork in that yeast?"--"I am," replied Gingham, "and

there it is. See, they have passed the bar. We shall soon have them

alongside."

I saw nothing, but at length was able to discern in the distance

a small speck, which was executing most extraordinary vagaries in

the midst of the surf. Now it was high, now low; now visible, now

lost. Its approach was indicated, not so much by any perceptible

change of position, as by an increase of apparent magnitude.

Gingham now handed me the glass, and I saw a large boat, full of

men, pulling towards us like Tritons. At length they reached the

ship. Smart fellows those Oporto boatmen--know how to handle those

clumsy-looking, enormous boats of theirs. What a scene was that

alongside! The wind high; the sea rough; the boat banging against

the ship's side; the men in her all talking together. Talking? Say

jabbering, shouting, screaming. I was in perfect despair. Where was

my Portuguese? Hadn't I studied it at Trinity College, Cambridge?

Couldn't I make out a page of my Portuguese Gil Blas? Hadn't I got

a Portuguese grammar and dictionary in my trunk? And hadn't I got

a nice little volume of Portuguese dialogues in my pocket? Yet not

one word could I understand of what those fellows in the boat were

bawling about. Their idiom was provincial, their pronunciation

Spanish. That I didn't know. It seemed to me, at the time, that all

my toil had been wasted. Never despair, man. If you want to learn a

language, and can't learn it in the country, why, learn it at home.

You may, you probably will, feel at a loss, when you first get among

the natives. But, after two or three days, all will begin to come

right: your ear, untutored hitherto, will begin to do its part; then

your stores of previously acquired knowledge will all come into use,

and you may jabber away to your heart's content. But mind, whatever

the language you learn--Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, or

High Dutch--go to work in a scholarlike, businesslike manner; learn

the verbs, study the syntax, master all the technicalities, or you

are doing no good. Doubtless, in your travels abroad, you will fall

in with lively old English residents, who "speak the language as

fluently as a native," and tell you it's all nonsense, _they_ never

looked into a grammar, nor into a book neither. But never mind that;

follow your own plan. Speak the language whenever you can--that of

course; hear it spoken; dine at the table d'hôte--that's worth a

five shilling lesson at any time, and you get your dinner extra;

but, all the while, read daily, work your grammar, turn out the

words in your dictionary, and mark the result. You, after a space,

can not only speak the language, but _write_ it; whereas those

intelligent individuals, let alone writing, can't _read_ it. Another

suggestion, which I--but where are we? What are we talking about?

While I am boring you with suggestions, the despatches have been

handed into the boat; the boat has shoved off, and is making for the

shore--plunging, ramping, tearing through the surf under a press

of sail: and, on the deck of the Princess Wilhelmina gun-brig,

stand three new and very rum-looking passengers--a Spaniard, a

Portuguese, and a nondescript--one deal box, one old leathern

portmanteau, one canvass bag, two umbrellas (blue,) one ditto

(red,) and a high-crowned Spanish hat, tied up in a faded cotton

pocket-handkerchief.

Our new companions were all a little "indisposed" the first day;

but, the weather moderating in the night, they grew better the next,

and were able to take their places at the dinner table. The Spaniard

had come on board, assuming that he was to victual himself, or pay

extra. Under this impression, opening his box in the forenoon, he

produced with much gravity a bundle, consisting of half-a-dozen

oranges, some very coarse brown bread, a flask of wine, and a chump

of splendid garlick sausage, all tied up together, in a second

cotton pocket-handkerchief. Spreading said handkerchief on the cabin

table as a cloth, he next brought out from his pocket a formidable

cheese-toaster, and was preparing to do battle with the prog. The

Major, perceiving his mistake, addressed him in Spanish, politely

explaining that the passage-money covered everything, and that

he could call for whatever the ship afforded. The Hidalgo, thus

advised, and courteously thanking the Major, contented himself with

an orange, carefully tied up the remaining provender as before, and

restored it to the sky-blue deal box.

This act of the Major's, benignant reader, piqued my curiosity. The

Major was a very good fellow, as you have doubtless discovered ere

this; but he was not a man to do anything without a _motive_. I

couldn't feel easy, without getting to the bottom of it.

"Very kind of you, Major," said I, "to give the Don that information

respecting his rights _in transitu_."

"Kind?" said the Major indignantly; "what do you mean by kind? Had

he once attacked that sausage, we should have smelt garlic all the

way to Lisbon." I now appreciated the Major's urbanity.

"Close fellows, those Spaniards," added the Major. "I knew very well

he wouldn't give me part of his sausage. Didn't go for it."

"Why, if you had shared the feast," said I, "we should have smelt

garlic twice as bad."

"Yes," replied the Major "but _I_ shouldn't have smelt it _at all_."

Said hidalgo was a tall, kiln-dried attomy of a man--hair black

and lanky--forehead high and corrugated--eyebrows pencilled and

elevated--eyes almost closed by the dropping of the eyelids--nose

long, thin, and very inexpressive--mouth diminutive--chin

sharp--cheek-bones high and enormously prominent--cheeks hollow and

cadaverous, regular excavations; half one of his oranges, stuck in

each, would about have brought them to a level with his face. Of

course he was dubbed Don Quixotte. The Portuguese came on board

with his hair dressed as a wig, enormous white choker, no neck

(that's why I called him Punch,) _chapeau de bras_, short black

cock-tail coat, white silk waistcoat flowered green and gold, black

satin unmentionables, black silk stockings, and top-boots--the

tops a sort of red japan. As to the third visitor, no one could

assert who he was, or what he was. He obtained a passage without

any document from the Oporto authorities, on the plea that he was

a courier, and carried despatches from Oporto to Lisbon. This, the

Colonel remarked, was rather odd, as the bag generally went by

land. One said he was a Spaniard; another said he was a Jew. Gingham

pronounced him a Frenchman:--but what could a Frenchman be doing

there? The one index of his identity was a nose, which forthwith won

him the name of 'Hookey.' Hookey spoke French, Spanish, Portuguese,

lots besides--disclaimed English--yet seemed always listening while

we talked. He was constantly smiling, too; the habit had given him a

deep semicircular maxillary furrow--say trench if you will--on each

side of his ugly mug. There was something in his smile that I didn't

like. If he saw you looking at him, he put on a smile.

At dinner the Colonel, anxious to do the honours, took an early

opportunity of challenging Don Quixotte to a glass of wine. The Don

filled a bumper; the Colonel nodded: the Don, with majestic and

silent gravity, rose slowly from his seat, his glass in one hand,

the other on his heart; bowed profoundly to each of the company in

succession; tossed off the wine; melo-dramatically extended the

empty glass at arm's length; bowed again; sighed; squeezed his hand

very hard upon his heart, and sat down. The Major challenged Punch,

who half filled his tumbler, sipped, filled up with water, sipped

again, nodded then, not before, as if he would say "Now it will do,"

and drank off the whole. Captain Gabion challenged Hookey, who,

alone of the three, performed correctly. "Hookey, my boy," thought

I, "where did you learn that?"

Neither Punch nor Don Quixotte manifested the least disposition to

amalgamate with us. They kept themselves apart, replied civilly

when addressed--that was all. I must say, speaking from my own

observations, it is a slander which describes the English abroad as

exclusive. The exclusiveness, so far as I have seen, lies much more

with the Continentals.

But if, on the present occasion, the Spaniard and the Portuguese

kept their distance, it certainly was far otherwise with my friend

Hookey. I take the liberty of calling him my friend, because

I was particularly honoured by his attentions. I have already

said that he seemed interested in our conversation. The interest

extended to everything about us. He inquired respecting each and

every one; his name, his rank, his department, his destination:

asked me, in an off-hand way, if I could guess how many troops

the British general had--what was to be the plan of the ensuing

campaign--did our Government intend to carry on the war with

vigour? When, by inquiring elsewhere, he discovered that I was

attached to the military chest, he redoubled his attentions, and

eke his interrogatories. Had I bullion on board? How much? Should I

convey treasure from Lisbon to headquarters? On bullock-cars or on

mules? By what route? Of course I should have a guard--did I know?

Travelling up the country would be dangerous as the army advanced

into Spain--wouldn't it advance?--when?--he knew every part of the

Peninsula--was himself bound for headquarters after delivering his

despatches--would be happy to go with me--wouldn't mind waiting a

day or two in Lisbon--would assist me in obtaining a servant--a

horse--a mule--anything. I, communicative as he was inquisitive,

lavished information in floods; advised him as to the amount of

bullion on board, to go down into the hold, and see with his own

eyes; informed him, as a particular secret, that I shouldn't wonder

if I was sent to headquarters, unless it happened otherwise; and

hadn't the least doubt that I should have the conveyance of whatever

amount of treasure was placed under my charge for that purpose;

declined saying anything then about a servant, horse, or mule, as I

should probably find "Milord Vilinton" had thought of me, and had

everything of that kind ready against my arrival; begged to tell him

I was a person of great importance, but maintaining the strictest

incognito--hoped he wouldn't mention it. Presently he stole away to

the forecastle, where I got a sight of him. He was jotting down like

mad.

On the evening of our second day from Oporto, we made the Berlings;

been six weeks at sea, from leaving the Tagus. If, instead of

coasting it, which secured them a foul wind, they had struck out at

once, from the mouth of the river, two or three days' sail into the

Atlantic, they would probably have got the wind they wanted. That is

what Captain Nil did, when I came home, passenger from Lisbon, 1843,

in his clever little fruit-ship, the King Alfred. Didn't we give the

go-by to the northerly current which blows down the coast, and catch

a south-wester, which was just what we needed? Didn't we jockey two

other orangemen, that started in company, and thought to beat us by

working up along shore? And didn't we bring our prime oranges first

to market, and sell them off-hand at London Bridge, with an extra

profit of ten shillings a chest?

The morning after we passed the Berlings, we saw the Rock of Lisbon.

This, I suppose, is about the most striking object the mariner

beholds, in approaching any coast in the known world. Not more than

fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, it stands so dark

in tint, so grim in aspect, so ragged in outline, you fancy some

fresh earthquake has heaved it up, crude and pinnacled, from the

volcanic bowels of the soil, and there left it to frown above the

waves that thunder at its base, and spout up in unavailing froth and

fume. "There it stands," said Gingham, "the old Rock! Often have I

rounded it before; often have I viewed it; often have I ranged it:

worthy the attention of the naturalist; still more of the geologist;

but, above all, of the meteorologist: the Promontory of the Moon;

yes,

The hill where fond Diana looked and loved,

While chaste Endymion slept and dreamed of heaven:

the advanced guard of mountain ridges, that condense the

invisible vapours of the ocean; the medium and thoroughfare of

electric communication between Europe and the Atlantic! See how

the thin air of the tropics becomes mist, when it reaches those

thunder-splintered pinnacles--hem! _Lady of the Lake_. See how

it caps them with a perpetual cloud, which, though perpetual, is

constantly diminished by the moisture which it discharges, and

constantly replenished by fresh supplies of vapour from the sea.

Here, the wind is north: but there, in that elevated region, the

upper current is blowing steadily from the south-west. Take my

advice, Mr Y----. Don't leave Lisbon without visiting the Rock. Go

to Cintra. Inquire for Madam Dacey's hotel; and don't allow her to

charge you more than two dollars a-day, wine included, spirits and

bottled porter extra."

Gingham now drew out his telescope. "Ah!" said he, "there's Colares;

and there's Cintra, just at the base of the Penha. There goes a

donkey party, on a visit to the Cork Convent. My respects to the

old Capuchins. There's Madam Dacey herself, fat and rosy as ever,

scolding Francisco the cook for spoiling that omelet. How are you,

old lady?--Villain! He's making a _pâté_ with one hand, and taking

snuff with the other! Don't roast that hare, blockhead; it's dry

enough already. Make it into soup. That's the way to serve a Cintra

hare. Clap a thin slice of bacon on the breast of each of those red

partridges, before you put them down. What, boil that gurnet? Bake

it, bake it, stupid! Serve it up cold for supper: beats lobster,

and should be dressed the same way--oil, cayenne, vinegar, and a

modicum of salt. I say, Francisco; mind you send up the soup hot.

What an extraordinary fact, Mr Y----! You may get good soups, and

all the materials for good dinners, go where you will; but our

own countrymen are the only people in the world who know how a

dinner should be served up, and set on table. Why, sir, at those

hotels at Lisbon and Cintra, I've tasted most splendid soups,

magnificent!--but, positively, sent to table lukewarm--neither hot

nor cold--tepid, sir! what do you think of that?"

I was thinking, just at that moment, that I should like to hear

more about Cintra. But Gingham had now got on the subject of

_la cuisine_; _la cuisine_ was one of his hobbies (he kept a

_stud_)--and, once mounted, there was no getting him off. Yet

Gingham, much as he delighted in dinner-giving, was not himself a

gourmand. In him the passion was disinterested--a matter of taste--a

sentiment. And ah! need I add how it enhanced the value of his

friendship?

About noon we crossed the bar; by two P.M. were off Lisbon, and,

while I was all agape, admiring the surpassing beauties of the

scene, had dropped our anchor. Captain Gabion took me by the elbow,

and proposed that we should sojourn at the same hotel. The motive

transpired that afternoon. Gingham had his own quarters, in the Rua

d'Alecrim. We all landed together at the Yellow House, where our

luggage underwent an examination--in those days a very off-hand

business, the English, in fact, being in military occupation of the

country. My traps were despatched among the first; and I sat waiting

for the Captain, whose turn came later. Meanwhile Hookey's bag was

opened, and the contents turned out. Among them I expected to see a

letterbox; but there was nothing that looked like despatches. While

Hookey was engaged with his bag, he was joined by a shabby-genteel

personage, who had the look of a military man in plain clothes--an

Englishman, or, I rather thought, an Irishman. They recognised each

other at once, and seemed to meet by appointment--left the office

arm in arm, the new-comer carrying Hookey's bag. They passed without

observing me, as I sat in the background near the door, among bags

and boxes. _Both_ were speaking _English_: _i. e._, Hookey, English

as it is spoken by Frenchmen; his companion, English as it ought

to be spoken, the pure vernacular of the Sister Isle. "Kim, kim

away wid ye, now; isn't it aal krikt and wrigler?"--"Oh, yase;

now I sal comb vid you, presently." "Aha! Mister Hookey; so you

don't understand English," thought I. Not to be an eavesdropper,

I started up, and put out my paw, in tender of a parting shake.

Hookey, a little taken aback, clasped it fervently in both his; and,

repudiating disguise, laughed, and spoke English again, grasping

and shaking my fist with intense cordiality. I suppose it was his

surprise, that made him substitute greeting for leave-taking: "Ah,

how you do, sare? I hope you varraval."

Gingham took a kind but rather distant leave. The Captain and I

adjourned with our luggage, which was first cleverly laid together

and packed, and then borne, swinging by ropes from two bars, which

rested on the shoulders of four stout Gallegos, who walked two and

two, hugging each other round the neck, and stepping together in

admirable time. The Captain indicated the road; and we soon reached

our domicile, MacDermot's Hotel (as it was then called), Rua do

Prior, Buenos Ayres,--for air and prospect, the finest situation in

all Lisbon; and that is not saying a little.

I was for ordering dinner forthwith. The Captain, for reasons best

known to himself, wished an hour's delay. Reluctantly acceding, I

retired to my private apartment, and commenced operations in the

soap and dowlas line. Presently the Captain tapped at my door,

and entered. Wanted me just to walk down with him to the water's

side--wanted me particularly. Away we went. The Captain spoke

little--seemed to have some project. At length he opened: "I rather

think the skipper will catch a precious good hiding presently; serve

him right." All this was Greek to me, though I had heard something

of the skipper's bad conduct to the Major.

We now, having descended by a side street as steep as a ladder,

entered the main road, or broadway, which runs by the water's side.

Who should meet us there, but the Major? He was evidently on the

look-out for us, and joined forthwith. "Has the boat left the brig

yet?" said Captain Gabion.

"Not yet, I think," said the Major; "I saw her alongside, though.

Come down to the water's edge. That's the place."

We descended, through a passage between stone walls. Captain Gabion

now addressed me a second time: "Mr Y----, I have already undertaken

to officiate as the Major's friend. You must pick up the skipper."

"Well, but what's it all about?" said I. "Hadn't any idea of your

intention. You never told me."

"No time for explanation now," said the Captain. "Will you

officiate, or will you not?"

"Always ready to do the needful when the case requires," said

I. "But, if the Major feels himself aggrieved, is there no other

redress? Won't it be _infra dig._?"

"The fact is," said the Major, "I don't intend to give him a

_heavy_ licking--only just to polish him off a bit. As to redress,

if I lodged a complaint, it must come ultimately before our own

authorities. Now Englishmen abroad, when ill-treated, are always

ignored or deserted by their government. I've seen that often.

That rascal would get off scot-free; and the very fact of my

having applied would be remembered to my disadvantage, and perhaps

would injure me in my profession. If I was a Frenchman or a Yankee

travelling abroad, and had been oppressed or ill-treated, I would

apply to my government. But as I am an Englishman, what would be the

use?"

"Well," said I, "the skipper's conduct on board was very bad, I

admit; to you, I've heard, particularly. But it's all over now.

Come, let him off this time."

"Very well," said the Major. "In a fortnight he sails for

England--takes home a ship-load of British officers, sick, wounded,

invalided. If he ill treats such fine fellows as you and me, and

goes unpunished, how will he treat them, do you think? I'll tell you

what. All I fear is, after he has got a few taps, he'll go down;

then there'll be no getting him up again, and he'll escape with only

half his deserts. Now that's just what I want you to prevent."

"Well," said I; "if I am to officiate as the skipper's friend, of

course I must do him justice. I only tell you that."

"Very well," said the Major, between his teeth. "You pick him up;

that's all."

We reached the high bank by the water's edge, just above the

landing-place. A boat was seen approaching from the Princess

Wilhelmina: four men pulling, skipper steering. Captain Gabion

addressed the Major:

"I'll tell you what; it won't do here. First, there isn't room.

Secondly--don't you see?--when he gets more than he likes, he has

nothing to do but to roll down the bank, jump into the boat, and

shove off. Thirdly, the boat's crew might interfere; and then we

should get the worst of it."

Meanwhile the boat reached the jetty; the skipper landed; ascended

the bank by a zigzag path with Snowball at his heels; passed without

noticing us, as we stood among other lookers on; and walked up the

passage. The Major followed him. Captain Gabion and I followed the

Major.

Just as the skipper was emerging from the passage into the street,

the Major stepped smartly after him, and tapped him on the shoulder,

exclaiming, "Take that, you ruffian." _That_ was a sharp application

of the toe.

Like a caged lizard touched in the tail, the skipper sprang fiercely

round.

"What's that for?" he cried, with a furious look.

"Ah, what's that for?" replied the Major, administering a stinging

soufflet.

The skipper, calm in an instant, and savage in cold blood, commenced

peeling. I stepped up to him, received his jacket, and handed it to

the nigger, thereby installing myself in office. The Major turned up

the cuffs of his coat-sleeves.

"Now, coolly, my man," said I, as the skipper went in like a mad

bull.

The first three rounds, like the Three Graces, had a

mutual resemblance. Superior to the Major in weight and

strength--formidable, too, as a hitter--the skipper did not succeed

in planting a single effective blow. Some were stopped, some were

dodged, some fell short, and one or two hit short. Still worse for

the skipper, he had no idea of guard. His antagonist, a first-rate

_artiste_, went on gradually painting his portrait. At the end of

the third round, "his mammy wouldn't a' knowed him." The Major, in

striking, did not throw in his weight, merely hit from the shoulder

and elbow. But his punishing told: he hit with a snap; he hit fast;

he had the faculty of rapidly hitting twice with the same hand.

In short, the skipper was evidently getting the worst of it. All

this time, the Major continued perfectly cool and fresh; and, like

Shelton, the navigator--whom I remember well, though you, perhaps,

do not--as often as he stopped a hit, he politely inclined his

head, as much as to say, "Well intended--try again." At the close of

the third round, however, in consequence of the skipper's attempting

a rush, the Major was constrained to put in a really hard blow as a

stopper. It not only answered that purpose, but nearly lifted the

skipper, and sent him reeling some paces backwards.

Instead of coming, as before, to my extended arms, and seating

himself, like a good child, on my knee till time was up, the skipper

now staggered towards Snowball, and began rummaging in his jacket. I

was too quick for him. Just as he extracted an enormous clasp-knife,

I whipped it out of his hand, and passed it to Captain Gabion. On

this demonstration, supposing that "legitimate war" was at an end,

and my "occupation gone," I was quietly walking away, with my hands

in my pockets. But the Captain, having first communicated with the

Major, met and stopped me, saying, "Come, we overlook that. The next

round."

The fourth round presented no novelty. The painting went on; I may

say, this time, was pretty well finished. Never was an ugly monkey

more completely "beautified" than the poor skipper. He still had

his strength and wind, and there was as yet no reason why he should

not ultimately win--especially as he hit out like the kick of a

horse, and one of his blows, if it told, might have turned the day.

I began, however, to be apprehensive that he would soon be put _hors

de combat_, by losing the use of his peepers. When, therefore, I

sent him in the fifth time, I whispered, "You must try to close, or

you'll have the worst of it."

Suddenly rushing in, giving his head, and boring on with his right

arm extended, the skipper, at the commencement of the fifth round,

contrived to get his left about the Major's waist. This led to

a grapple, and a short but fierce struggle. The skipper had the

advantage in physical power; but the Major was his superior in

wrestling, as well as in the nobler science. They fell together, the

Major uppermost. On the ground, strength resuming its advantage,

the skipper soon rolled the Major over, and had the ascendency.

Supposing the round concluded, I was going to pull him off. "Let

alone, let alone," said the Major; "leave him to me." The Major, I

presumed, was waiting an opportunity for a "hoist."

The skipper now, with his right arm extended, held the Major's

extended left, pinned down by the wrist. The skipper's left arm and

shoulder were passed under the Major's right, so as completely to

put it out of commission. With his left hand, the skipper seemed to

be pulling the Major's hair. All this was so completely _hors des

règles_, that nothing but the Major's veto kept us from interposing.

At this juncture of the combat there was evidently something out of

the usual course, which particularly interested the nigger. Stooping

down almost to a squat, his face peering close over the heads of

the two combatants, his big eyes bulging and gloating with eager

expectation, his mouth open, his blubber lips projecting, and his

two hands uplifted and expanded with intense curiosity, he watched

the result. Just in time, I grasped the skipper's thumb! Half a

second more, and the Major's eye would have been out of its socket!

Captain Gabion, breathing the only execration I ever heard from his

lips, choked the skipper off.

The Portuguese bystanders, though much interested in the fray, had

not been thoroughly sensible of its character. To them, probably,

the fight had looked as if a man, in perfect possession of his

temper, had been merely playing with a very savage assailant, so

clean and easy was the Major's style of punishing. But now, when

they walked up, and looked in the miserable sufferer's face, they

perceived the serious nature of the castigo administered. Instead of

features they beheld--a mask, I was going to say, but that would be

incorrect; for in most masks, you have eyes, nose, and mouth. Here,

distinctness was obliterated; and as to eyes, why, you couldn't see

the eyelashes. I handed the skipper to Snowball, advising he should

be taken on board, and seen to. Snowball walked of, conducting him

down the passage. I thought of the knife, procured it from the

Captain, ran, and handed it to the nigger. "Tell him," said I,

"never to use that again, except for cheese-toasting, picking his

teeth, and so forth." "Yes, massa; me tell him you say so." "I say,

Snowball," added I, "hadn't you better put a little oil on his face,

to keep off the mosquitos? If they get at him as he is now, they'll

drive him mad." "Ah no, massa," said Blackey, regretfully; "no

muskitto here, dis tree, five week; dis place too cold, mosh very.

Let alone, no muskitto on de wottah here, nebber at no time."

I hurried back, and found Captain Gabion supporting the Major, who

stood with both hands spread out over his right eye, and, to all

appearance, suffering intense agony. Blood was visible between his

fingers, and on his cheek. The Captain, solicitous to ascertain the

amount of injury, made a gentle attempt to withdraw the Major's

hands.

"Don't! don't!" gasped the Major. "Has he--got my eye--in his

pocket?"

"All right, all right," replied the Captain; "you have still a spare

eye to wink with. Near thing, though."

"To-night I meant to have slept at Villa Franca," said the Major,

still speaking as if his agony was extreme. "My man is waiting just

by with the horses, at the _chafriz_."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Captain Gabion; "to-night you must sleep

at our quarters. Pledget is there, and will look at your eye. Mr

Y----, there's the _chafriz_; that stone fountain, where you see the

open space."

I stepped in that direction, and found an English servant, holding

two horses. The Major had intended to "polish off" the skipper,

mount forthwith, and away for Sacavem at a hand-gallop. So he might;

only that the skipper, according to his own ideas of manly combat,

having got his opponent undermost, and secured a grip of the Major's

love-lock with his four fingers, had hooked his thumb-nail, and eke

a portion of his thumb, in the ----but enough. I brought up the man

and horses, and with some difficulty we got the Major to the hotel.

Pledget was there, examined the eye, did not consider the injury

serious, but deferred giving any decided opinion. Ordered the Major

to bed, and prescribed leeches: wanted to apply a poultice, but

the patient couldn't bear the pressure. For a few days he remained

a prisoner. After that, I met him in the streets with a green

shade--eye doing well. Next spring, saw him on duty. No damage was

then visible, save and except a small scar at the inner corner of

the eye.

How soon, or how slowly, the skipper recovered from his polishing

I never learned. The skipper, it appears, a year or two before the

American war broke out, had put into the Tagus in a vessel from New

Orleans, damaged. She was detained for repairs; and he, not liking

an idle life, had procured employment in a Falmouth ship. After the

war commenced, he chose to continue in the packet line. The exact

nature of his offence, offered to the Major, I never ascertained.

But it was something connected with the pumping of bilge-water,

when the Major was suffering from sea-sickness, prostrate on the

deck. Some years after, I heard of the skipper again. He had left

Falmouth, and had obtained the command of a packet running between

Southampton and the coast of France. He still had a bad name for

insulting and ill-treating his passengers; and, what is curious,

he again received a polishing from an English officer, at Dieppe.

On this occasion, if I mistake not, the operator was an officer

of the engineers. Whether said officer came out of the _mêlée_ a

Cyclops--the little dog forgot to mention.