CHAPTER XVI.. The Progress of Affairs in Greece.—the Siege of Missolonghi.—Its

THE PROGRESS OF AFFAIRS IN GREECE.—THE SIEGE OF MISSOLONGHI.—ITS FALL.—THE BAD GOVERNMENT AND MISMANAGEMENT OF THE GREEKS.—GENERAL PONSONBY'S ACCOUNT OF THEM.—THE EFFECT OF LORD COCHRANE'S PROMISED ASSISTANCE.—THE FEARS OF THE TURKS, AS SHOWN IN THEIR CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. CANNING.—THE ARRIVAL OF CAPTAIN HASTINGS IN GREECE, WITH THE "KARTERIA."—HIS OPINION OF GREEK CAPTAINS AND SAILORS.—THE FRIGATE "HELLAS."—LETTERS TO LORD COCHRANE FROM ADMIRAL MIAOULIS AND THE GOVERNING COMMISSION OF GREECE.

During the one-and-twenty weary months that elapsed between Lord Cochrane's acceptance of service in the Greek War of Independence and his actual participation in the work, the Revolution passed through a new and disastrous stage. In the summer of 1825, when the invitation was sent to him, the disorganisation of the Greeks and the superior strength of the Turks, and yet more of their Egyptian and Arabian allies under Ibrahim Pasha, were threatening to undo all that had been achieved in the previous years. One bold stand had begun to be made, in which, throughout nearly a whole year, the Greeks fought with unsurpassed heroism, and then the whole struggle for liberty fell into the lawless and disordered condition which already had prevailed in many districts, and which was then to become universal and to offer obstacles too great even for Lord Cochrane's genius to overcome in his efforts to revive genuine patriotism and to render thoroughly successful the cause that he had espoused.

The last great stand was at Missolonghi. Built on the edge of a marshy plain, bounded on the north by the high hills of Zygos and protected on the south by shallow lagoons at the mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto, and chiefly tenanted by hardy fishermen, this town had been the first in Western Greece to take part in the Revolution. Here in June, 1821, nearly all the Moslem residents had been slaughtered, the wealthiest and most serviceable only being spared to become the slaves of their Christian masters. In the last two months of 1822 the Ottomans had made a desperate attempt to win back the stronghold; but its inhabitants, led by Mavrocordatos, who had lately come to join in the work of regeneration, had resolutely beaten off the invaders and taken revenge upon the few Turks still resident among them. "The wife of one of the Turkish inhabitants of Missolonghi," said an English visitor in 1824, "imploring my pity, begged me to allow her to remain under my roof, in order to shelter her from the brutality and cruelty of the Greeks. They had murdered all her relations. A little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery." Missolonghi continued to be one of the chief strongholds of independence in continental Greece; and, the revolutionists being forced into it by the Turks, who scoured the districts north and east of it in 1824 and 1825, it became in the latter year the main object of attack and the scene of most desperate resistance. Here were concentrated the chief energies of the Greek warriors and of their Moslem antagonists, and here was exhibited the last and most heroic effort of the patriots, unaided by foreign champions of note, in their long and hard-fought battle for freedom.

Reshid Pasha, the ablest of the Turkish generals, having advanced into the neighbourhood of Missolonghi towards the end of April, began to besiege it in good earnest, at the head of an army of some seven or eight thousand picked followers, on the 7th of May. While he was forming his entrenchments and erecting his batteries, the townsmen, augmented by a number of fierce Suliots and others, were strengthening their defences. They increased their ramparts, and organised a garrison of four thousand soldiers and armed peasants, with a thousand citizens and boatmen as auxiliaries. At first the tide of fortune was with them. The Turks had to defend themselves as best they could from numerous sorties, well-planned and well-executed, in May and June; and fresh courage came to the Greeks with the intelligence that Admiral Miaoulis was on his way to the port, with as powerful a fleet as he could muster. While he was being expected, however, on the 10th of July, the Turkish Capitan Pasha of Greece arrived with fifty-five vessels. Miaoulis, with forty Greek sail, made his appearance on the 2nd of August. Thus the naval and military forces of both sides were brought into formidable opposition.

At first the Greeks triumphed on the sea. In the night of the 3rd of August, Miaoulis, finding that Missolonghi was being greatly troubled by the blockade established by the Turks, cleverly placed himself to windward of the enemy's line, and at daybreak on the 4th he dispersed the squadron nearest the shore. At noon the whole Turkish force came against him. He met them bravely, but being able to do no more than hold his own by the ordinary method of warfare, he sent three fireships against them in the afternoon. The Turks did not wait to be injured by them. They fled at once, going all the way to Alexandria in search of safety. Miaoulis then lost no time in seconding his first exploit by another. A detachment of the army of Eastern Greece, under the brave generals Karaïskakes and Zavellas, having been sent to harass Reshid Pasha's operations, the admiral assisted them in a successful piece of strategy. The Turks were, on the 6th of August, attacked simultaneously by the ships and by the outlying battalion of Greeks, while fifteen hundred of the garrison rushed out upon the invaders. Four Turkish batteries were seized, and a great number of their defenders were killed and captured; the remainder, after tough fighting during three hours and a half, being driven so far back that much of the besieging work had to be done over again.

Miaoulis then went in search of the Ottoman fleet, leaving the townsmen, who were enabled, by the raising of the blockade, to receive fresh supplies of food, ammunition, and men, to continue their defence with a good heart. Reshid Pasha vigorously restored his siege operations, but, attempting to force his way into the town on the 21st of September, was again seriously repulsed. The Turks were allowed, and even tempted, to advance to a point which had been skilfully undermined by the besieged. The mine was then fired, and a great number of Moslems were blown into the air, while their comrades, fleeing in disorder, were further injured by a storm of shot from the ramparts. A similar device was resorted to, with like success, on the 13th of October. Reshid had to retire to a safe distance and there build winter quarters for his diminished and starving army. Karaïskakes and Zavellas entered Missolonghi without hindrance, there to concert measures which, had they been promptly adopted, might have utterly destroyed the besieging force.

They delayed their plans too long. The Capitan Pasha having in August fled in a cowardly way to Alexandria, there effected a junction with the Egyptians, and returned to the neighbourhood of Missolonghi in the middle of November with a huge fleet of a hundred and thirty-five vessels, well supplied with troops and provisions. These he landed at Patras on the 18th, just in time to be free from any annoyance that might have been occasioned by Miaoulis, who returned to Missolonghi on the 28th with a fleet of only thirty-three sail. He had vainly attacked a part of the Moslem force on its way, and now, after landing some stores at Missolonghi, made several vain attempts to overcome a force four times as strong as his own. He soon retired, intending to return as promptly as he could collect a large fleet and bring with him further supplies of the provisions of which the Missolonghites were beginning to be in need.

The need was greater even than he imagined. Not only had the Capitan Pasha brought temporary assistance, in men and food, to the besieging force. Yet greater assistance soon came in the shape of an Egyptian army, led by Ibrahim Pasha himself. An overwhelming power was thus organized during the last weeks of 1825, and the defenders of Missolonghi were left to succumb to it, almost unaided. Their previous successes had induced the Greeks of other districts to believe that they could continue their defence alone, and almost the only relief obtained by them was from the Zantiots, who had all along been zealous in the despatch of money and provisions, and from Miaoulis and the small fleet and equipment that he was able to collect from the islands of the Archipelago. Miaoulis returned in January, 1826, and did much injury to the Turkish and Egyptian vessels. But he could offer no hindrance to the action of the Turks and Egyptians upon land. The rainy months of December and January, in which no important attack could be entered upon, were spent by Ibrahim and his companions in preparation for future work. The invaders were now well provided with every requisite. The besieged were in want of nearly everything. "Invested for ten months," says the contemporary historian, "frequently on the verge of starvation, thinned by fatigue, watching, and wounds, they had already buried fifteen hundred soldiers. The town was in ruins, and they lived amongst the mire and water of their ditches, exposed to the inclemency of a rigorous season, without shoes and in tattered clothing. As far as their vision stretched over the waves they beheld only Turkish flags. The plain was studded with Mussulman tents and standards; and the gradual appearance of new batteries more skilfully disposed, the field days of the Arabs, and the noise of saws and hammers, gave fearful warning. Yet these gallant Acarnanians, Etolians, and Epirots never flinched for an instant."

On the 13th of January, Ibrahim Pasha sent to say that he was willing to treat with them for an honourable surrender if they would convey their terms by deputies who could speak Albanian, Turkish, and French. "We are illiterate, and do not understand so many languages," was their blunt reply; "pashas we do not recognize; but we know how to handle the sword and gun."

Sword and gun were handled with desperate prowess during February and March and the early part of April. In April, offers of capitulation were renewed by Ibrahim, and more disinterested attempts to avert the worst calamity were made by Sir Frederick Adam, the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. Both proposals were stoutly rejected. The Missolonghiotes declared that they would defend their town to the last, and trust only in God and in their own strong arms. But on the 1st of April the last scanty distribution of public rations was exhausted. For three weeks the inhabitants subsisted upon nothing but cats, rats, hides, seaweed, and whatever other refuse and vermin they could collect. At length, on the 22nd of April, finding it impossible to hold out for a day longer, they resolved to evacuate the town in a body, and, cutting their way through the enemy, to try to join Karaïskakes and his small force, who, hiding among the mountain fastnesses, were vainly seeking for some way of assisting them, and to whom they now despatched a message, asking them to advance and help to clear a passage for their flight.

After sunset four bridges of planks were secretly laid over the outer ditch of Missolonghi, and the inhabitants were ordered to prepare to leave in two hours. Many—about two thousand—lost heart at last; some betaking themselves to the powder stores, there, when all hope was over, to end their lives by easier death than the enemy might allow them; others, crouching in corners of their homesteads, deeming it better to be murdered there than in the open country. The rest obeyed the orders of the generals. All the women dressed themselves as men, with swords or daggers at their waists. Every child who could hold a weapon had one placed in his hand. There was bitter leave-taking, and desperate words of encouragement passed from one to another, as the patriots were marshalled in the order of their departure;—three thousand fighting men to open a passage and four thousand women and children to follow;—the whole being divided into three separate parties. At length all was ready, and the first party silently passed out of the town and advanced to the bridges. To their amazement, they no sooner appeared than they were met by volley after volley of Turkish fire. A traitor had revealed their plan, and every measure had been taken for their destruction. Some rushed on in despite; others hurried back, to fall into confusion, which it was hard indeed to overcome. They felt, however, that this deadly chance was their only chance of life, and they pressed on through the fire, and the swords of their foes, and by the sheer heroism of despair forced a passage to the mountains. Karaiskakes's aid—apparently through no fault of his—was only obtained when the worst dangers had been surmounted or succumbed to. Of the nine thousand persons who were in Missolonghi on the day of the evacuation, four thousand were killed in the town or on the way out of it. Only thirteen hundred men and two hundred women and children lived to reach Salona after more than a week of wandering and hiding among the mountains.

The long siege of Missolonghi illustrates all the best and some of the worst features of the Greek Revolution. In it there was patriotism worthy, in its bursts of splendour, of the nation that claimed descent from the heroes of Plataea and Thermopylae. But the patriotism was often fitful in its working, and oftener wholly wanting. The Greeks could not shake off the pernicious influences that sprang, almost necessarily, from their long centuries of thraldom. Heroism was closely linked with treachery and meanness. The worthiest and most disinterested energy was intimately associated with ignorance as to the right methods of action, and with wilful action in wrong ways. The elements of weakness that had been apparent from the first were more and more developed as the painful struggle reached its termination. It seems as if, in spite of Reshid Pasha and Ibrahim and their fierce armies, it would have been easy for Missolonghi and its brave defenders to have been saved. But rival ambitions and paltry jealousies divided the leaders of the Revolution. They were quarrelling while the power that each one coveted for himself was, step by step, being wrested from them all; and when they tried to do well their want of discipline often rendered their efforts of small avail. No adequate attempt was made to relieve Missolonghi by land, and the brave conduct of Miaoulis on the sea was almost neutralized by the disorganization of his crews and the selfish policy of the islanders who sent him out.

"With respect to the Greek army," wrote General Ponsonby to the Duke of Wellington, from Corfu, on the 15th of June, "it is, generally speaking, a mob; and a chief can only calculate upon keeping it together as long as he has provisions to give it or the prospect of plunder without danger. There is nothing to oppose the Egyptian army but a mob kept together by the small sums sent by the different committees in foreign countries. The Greeks have a great horror of the bayonet, which, however, they have never seen near, except at Missolonghi. The Suliots, who chiefly formed the garrison of that place, are fine men, and certainly fought with great courage. Much has been said of naval actions, but there is no truth in any of the accounts. The Greeks are better sailors than the Turks, but no action has been fought since the beginning of the war, if it is understood by action that there is risk and loss on both sides. The Greeks, however, have done wonders with their fleet. They have destroyed many large ships, and, in the month of February last, with twenty-three brigs, they out-manoeuvred the Turkish fleet of sixty sail, and threw provisions into Missolonghi. This, though done by seamanship, and not fighting, was called a great battle and a great victory. I was within two miles of the fleets, and the cannonade for six hours was tremendous; but when I spoke to Miaoulis the following morning he told me he had not lost a man in his fleet."

During the summer and winter following the fall of Missolonghi a series of small disasters, the aggregate of which was by no means small, befel the Greeks. It was the opinion of all parties, and admitted even by jealous rivals, that the tottering cause of independence was only sustained by the constant and eager expectation of the arrival of the powerful fleet which was supposed to be on its way to the Archipelago, under the able leadership of Lord Cochrane, the world-famous champion of Chilian and Brazilian freedom.

His approach was hardly more a cause of hope to the Greeks than a subject of fear to the Turks. No sooner was it publicly known that he had espoused the cause of the insurgents than angry complaints were made by the Turkish Government to the British ministry, and Mr. Canning, then Foreign Secretary, had more than once to avow that the authorities in England knew nothing of his movements, and had done all that the law rendered possible to restrain him. He had also to promise that everything legal should be done to keep him in check on his arrival in Greek waters. "We have heard," he wrote in August to his cousin, Mr. Stratford Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the ambassador at Constantinople, "that Lord Cochrane is gone to the Mediterranean; whether it be really so, we know not." He then proceeded to define the bearing of English and international law in the existing circumstances. "Lord Cochrane may enter the Greek service, and continue therein. He may even, as a Greek commander, institute (as he did in Brazil) blockades which British officers will respect, and exercise the belligerent rights of search on British merchant-ships, without exposing himself to any other penalty than that which the law will inflict upon him if ever hereafter he shall again bring himself within its reach, and be duly convicted of the offence for the punishment of which that law was enacted. If, indeed, he should do any of such things without a commission he would become a pirate, and liable to the summary justice to which, without reference to the municipal laws of his country, he would, as an enemy of the human race, be liable; and liable just as much from the officers of any other country as of his own."

While that correspondence was going on, Lord Cochrane, as we have seen, was battling with a long series of delays, as irksome to himself as they were unfortunate to the Greeks. It was not till the 14th of September, about eight months after the time fixed for the arrival of his whole fleet, that the first instalment of it, the Perseverance, which he had sent on as soon as it was completed, with Captain Abney Hastings as its commander, entered the harbour of Nauplia. On the 26th of October, Captain Hastings wrote a letter, giving curious evidence of the estimate formed by him of the Greek character. It was left at Nauplia and addressed to "the commander of the first American or English vessel that arrives in Greece to join the Greeks." "An apprenticeship in Greece tolerably long," he wrote, "has taught me the risks to which anybody newly arrived, and possessed of some place and power, is exposed. They know me, and they also know that I know them; yet they have not ceased, and never will cease, intriguing to get this vessel out of my hands and into their own, which would be tantamount to ruining her. Knowing all this, I take the liberty of leaving this letter, to be delivered to the first officer that arrives in Greece in the command of a vessel, to caution him not to receive on board his vessel any Greek captain. They will endeavour, under various pretences, to introduce themselves on board, and when once they have got a footing, they will gradually encroach until they feel themselves strong enough to turn out the original commander. The presence of such men can only be attended with inconvenience, for, if you are obliged to take a certain number of Greek sailors, these captains will render subordination among them impossible by their own irregularity and bad example. If you want seamen, take some from Hydra, Spetzas, Kranidi, or Poros. The Psarians may be trusted in very small numbers. Take a few men from one, a few from another island, and thus you will be best enabled to establish some kind of discipline. Take a good number of marines. Choose them from the peasantry and foreign Greeks, and you may make something of them. You must see, sir, that, in this my advice to the first officer arriving in command of a vessel, I can have no interest any further than inasmuch as I wish well to the Greek cause, and therefore do not wish to see a force that can be of great service rendered ineffective by falling into the hands of people totally incapable and unwilling to adopt a single right measure. In Greece there cannot be any military operations except such as are carried on by foreigners in their service."

That letter was written after Captain Hastings had endured a month's annoyance from the trouble brought upon him by the Hydriot officers and seamen who tried to oust him from the command of his fine vessel, whose name was now changed from the Perseverance to the Karteria. Unfortunately, his letter, left at Nauplia, did not reach the captain of the next reinforcement, the American frigate, which arrived at Egina on the 8th of December. "She was one of the finest ships in the world," we are told, "carrying sixty-four guns—long 32-pounders on the main, and 42-pound carronades on the upper deck—and was filled with flour, ammunition, medicines, and marine stores for eighteen months' consumption. The Greeks contemplated her with delight, but, upon the departure of the American officers and seamen who navigated her out, they discovered that she would be more embarrassing than useful to them. To manage vessels of such a size was beyond their capacity, and the mutual jealousy of the islanders suggested to the Government the absurd notion of putting the frigate into commission, Hydra, Spetzas, and the Psarian community being desired to send quotas of men. This plan was now found to be impracticable. Repeated fights occurred on board. The ship was twice in danger of being wrecked at Egina, and at Poros she actually drifted ashore, luckily on soft mud. She was finally given up to Miaoulis, with a Hydriot crew of his own selection."

This frigate, christened the Hellas, came too late to be of much service to Admiral Miaoulis, before the arrival of Lord Cochrane. In the previous summer and autumn, however, he had been harassing and keeping at bay the Turkish and Egyptian fleets—work in which Hastings was in time to assist him.

Andreas Miaoulis, one of the least obtrusive, was almost the worthiest of all the Greek patriots. During five years he had never ceased to do the best that it was possible for him to do with the bad materials at his disposal. When the Greek Revolution was at its height, he had contributed largely to its success; and in the ensuing years of disaster upon land, he had maintained its dignity on the sea by offering bold resistance to the great naval power of the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleets. No better proof of his patriotism could be given than in the zeal with which he surrendered to Lord Cochrane the leadership of the fleet which had devolved upon him for so long and been so ably conducted by him. "I received four days ago," he wrote from Poros on the 23rd of February, 1827, "your amiable letter of the 19th of last month, and my great satisfaction at the announcement of your approaching arrival in Greece is joined with a special pleasure at the honour you do me in associating me with your important operations. I shall be happy, my admiral, if, in serving you, I can do my duty. I await you with impatience."

Just a month before that, on the 23rd of January, a like letter of congratulation was addressed to Lord Cochrane from Egina by the Governing Commission of Greece. "The intelligence of your speedy coming to Greece," they said, "has awakened the liveliest joy and satisfaction, and has already begun to rekindle in the hearts of the Greeks that enthusiasm which is the most powerful weapon and the surest support of a nation that has devoted itself to the recovery of its most sacred rights. The Government of Greece is waiting with the utmost impatience for the most zealous defender of the nation's liberty. It hopes to see you in its midst as soon as possible after your arrival at Hydra, and then to make you acquainted with the actual state of Greece, and to furnish you with all the means in its power for the achievement of the grand results proposed by your lordship." The letter was signed by Andreas Zaimes, as President of the Commission, and by seven of its members, among whom were Mavromichales, or Petro-Bey, who, with Zaimes and two others, represented the Morea, Spiridion Trikoupes, the deputy for Roumelia, Zamados from Hydra, Monarchides from Psara, and Demetrakopoulos from the islands of the Egean Sea.

By the same body was issued, on the 21st of February, a preliminary commission, intended to protect him in case of any opposition being raised to his progress by the authorities of other nations. "The Governing Commission of Greece," it was written, "makes known that Admiral Lord Cochrane is recognised as being in the service of Greece, and accordingly has the permission of the Government to hoist the Greek flag on all the vessels that are under his command. He has power, also, to fight the enemies of Greece to the utmost of his power. Therefore the officers of neutral powers, being informed of this, are implored, not only to offer no opposition to his movements, but also, if necessary, to supply him with any assistance he may require, seeing that it is our custom to do the same to all friendly nations." Armed with this document, and provided with the necessary means by the Philhellenes of England, France, and Switzerland, Lord Cochrane proceeded from Marseilles to Greece.

APPENDIX.

(Page 22.)

The following "Resumé of the Services of the late Earl of Dundonald, none of which have been Requited or Officially Recognized," was written by his son, one of the authors of the present work, and printed for private circulation in 1861.

1. The destruction of three heavily-armed French corvettes, near the mouth of the Garonne, the crew of Lord Cochrane's frigate, Pallas, being at the time, with the exception of forty men, engaged in cutting out the Tapageuse, lying under the protection of two batteries thirty miles up the river, in which operation they were also successful, four ships of war being thus captured or destroyed in a single day. For these services Lord Cochrane obtained nothing but his share of the Tapageuse, sold by auction for a trifling sum, the Government refusing to purchase her as a ship of war, though of admirable build and construction. Contrary to the usual rule, no ship ever taken by Lord Cochrane, throughout his whole career, was ever allowed to be bought into the navy. For the corvettes, which Lord Cochrane destroyed with so small a crew, he never received reward or thanks, the alleged reason being, that, having become wrecks, they were not in existence, and therefore could not have value attached to them. This decision of the Admiralty was contrary to custom, as admitted to the present day. In the late Russian war a gunboat of the enemy having been driven on shore and wrecked, compensation is said to have been awarded to the officers and crew of the British vessel which drove her on shore. The importance of wrecking a gunboat, in comparison with the destruction of three fast-sailing ships, which were picking up our merchantmen, in all directions, needs no comment.

2. Lord Cochrane's services on the coast of Catalonia, of which Lord Collingwood, then commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, testified of his lordship to the Admiralty that by his energy and foresight he had, with a single frigate, stopped a French army from occupying Eastern Spain. The services by which this was effected were as follows:—Preventing the reinforcement of the French garrison in Barcelona, by harassing the newly-arrived troops in their march along the coast, and organising and assisting the Spanish militia to oppose their progress, Lord Cochrane himself capturing one of their forts on shore, and taking the garrison prisoners.

On the approach of a powerful French corps d'armée towards Barcelona, Lord Cochrane blew up the roads along the coast, and taught the Spanish peasantry how to do so inland. By blowing up the cliff roads, near Mongat, Lord Cochrane interposed an insurmountable obstacle between the army and its artillery, capturing and throwing into the sea a considerable number of field-pieces, so that the operations of the French were rendered nugatory. For these services, Lord Cochrane, notwithstanding the strong representations of Lord Collingwood to the Board of Admiralty, neither received thanks nor reward of any kind; notwithstanding that whilst so engaged, and that voluntarily, in successfully accomplishing the work of an army, he patriotically gave up all chances of prize money, though easily to be obtained by cruising after the enemy's vessels. In place of this, he neither searched for nor captured a single prize, whilst engaged in harassing the French army on shore, devoting his whole energies towards the enterprise which he considered most conducive to the interests of his country.

3. Having effected his object, Lord Cochrane sailed for the Gulf of Lyons, with the intention of cutting off the enemy's shore communications. This he accomplished by destroying their signal stations, telegraphs, and shore batteries along nearly the whole coast, navigating his frigate with perfect safety throughout this proverbially perilous part of the Mediterranean. In order further to paralyse the enemy's movements, Lord Cochrane made a practice of burning paper near the demolished stations, so as to deceive the French into the belief that he had burned their signal books; he rightly judging that from this circumstance they might not deem it necessary to alter their code of signals. The ruse succeeded, and, transmitting the signal books to Lord Collingwood, then watching the enemy's preparations in Toulon, the commander-in-chief was thus fully apprised, by the enemy's signals, not only of all their naval movements, but also of the position and movements of all British ships of war on the French coast. Lord Cochrane's single frigate thus performed the work of many vessels of observation, and Lord Collingwood testified of him to the Admiralty that "his resources seemed to have no end." Notwithstanding this testimony from his commander-in-chief, Lord Cochrane neither received reward nor thanks for the service rendered.

4. On his return to the Spanish coast, Lord Cochrane found the French besieging Rosas, the Spaniards maintaining possession of the citadel, whilst Fort Trinidad had just been evacuated by the British officer who had been co-operating with the Spaniards in the larger fortress. Lord Cochrane, believing that if Fort Trinidad were held till reinforcements arrived, the French must be compelled to raise the siege of Rosas, persuaded the Spanish Governor not to surrender, as he was about to do, on its evacuation by the British officer aforesaid, and threw himself into the fort with a detachment from the seamen and marines of the Impérieuse, with which frigate he maintained uninterrupted communication, in spite of the enemy, who, on ascertaining it to be Lord Cochrane who was keeping them at bay, redoubled their efforts to capture the fort, the gallant defence of which is amongst the most remarkable events of naval warfare. Lord Cochrane held Fort Trinidad till, the Spaniards surrendering the citadel, he would not allow his men to run further risk in their behalf, and withdrew the seamen and marines in safety. For this remarkable exploit Lord Cochrane, though himself severely wounded, neither received reward nor thanks, except from Lord Collingwood, who again, without effect, warmly applauded his gallantry to the Admiralty.

5. Immediately on his arrival at Plymouth, on leave of absence in consequence of ill health from his extraordinary exertions, Lord Cochrane was immediately summoned by the Admiralty to Whitehall, and asked for a plan whereby the French fleet in Basque Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources. He gave in a plan, and was ordered to execute it, which order he reluctantly obeyed, having done all in his power to decline an invidious command, for fear of arousing the jealousy of officers to whom he was junior in the service. What followed is matter of history, and needs not to be recapitulated. Yet for the destruction of that powerful armament he neither received reward nor thanks from the Admiralty, though rewarded by his sovereign with the highest order of the Bath, a distinction which marked his Majesty's sense of the important service rendered.

Nine years afterwards head money was awarded to the whole fleet, of which only the vessels directed by Lord Cochrane and a few sent afterwards, when too late for effective measures, took part in the action. The alleged reason of this award was that the Calcutta, one of the ships driven ashore by Lord Cochrane, did not surrender to him, but to ships sent to his assistance. This was not true, though after protracted deliberation so ruled by the Admiralty Court, and officers now living and present in the action have recently come forward to testify to the ship being in Lord Cochrane's possession before the arrival of the ships which subsequently came to his assistance. A small sum was therefore only awarded to him as a junior captain, in common with those who had been spectators only, and this he declined to receive. Such was his recompense for a service to the high merit of which Napoleon himself afterwards testified in the warmest manner; and it may be mentioned as a further testimony that a French Court Martial shot Captain Lafont, the commander of the Calcutta, because he surrendered to a vessel of inferior power, viz., Lord Cochrane's frigate, the Impérieuse of forty-four guns, the Calcutta carrying sixty guns.

The exploits of Lord Cochrane in the Speedy and Pallas are too well known in naval history to require recapitulation, and of these it may be said that the numerous prizes captured by these vessels constituted their own reward. It may here be mentioned in confirmation of what has previously been said, that the Gamo, a magnificent xebeque frigate of thirty-two guns, was not allowed to be bought into the navy, but was sold for a small sum to one of the piratical Barbary States, notwithstanding that Lord Cochrane had said that if he were allowed to have her in place of the Speedy, then in a very dilapidated condition, he would sweep the Mediterranean of the enemy's cruisers and privateers. His capacity so to do may be judged from what he effected with the Speedy, mounting only fourteen 4-pounders.

With regard to the services previously enumerated, the case is different, notwithstanding their national importance in comparison with his minor acts, which may be classed as brilliant exploits only. But that no reward should have been conferred for doing effectively the work of an army, and that without the cost of a shilling to the nation beyond the ordinary expenditure of a small frigate, necessary to be disbursed whether she performed any effective service or not, is a neglect which, unless repaired in the persons of his successors, will for ever remain a blot on the British Government. Still more so will the worse neglect of not having in any way rewarded him for the destruction of the French fleet in Basque Roads, for though only four ships were destroyed at the moment, the whole fleet of the enemy was so damaged by having been driven on shore from terror of the explosive vessel, fired with Lord Cochrane's own hand, that it eventually became a wreck; and thus our West India commerce, then the most important branch of national export and import, was in a month after Lord Cochrane's arrival from the Mediterranean relieved from the panic which paralysed it, and restored to its wonted security;—a service which can only be estimated by the gloom and panic which had previously pervaded the whole country.

Were reference made to the pension list, and note taken of the pensions granted to other officers and their successors for services which in point of national importance do not admit of comparison with those of Lord Cochrane, the present generation would be surprised at the national ingratitude manifested towards one, who, in his great exploits, had so patriotically sacrificed every consideration of private interest to his country's service. His cruise in the Impérieuse, which has no parallel in naval history, procured for Lord Cochrane nothing whatever but shattered health from the incessant anxiety and exertion he had undergone in the profitless but high-minded course he adopted to thwart the French in their attempts to establish a permanent footing in Eastern Spain. His exploits in Basque Roads procured him nothing but absolute ruin; for, from his refusal as a Member of Parliament to acquiesce in a vote of thanks to Lord Gambier, even though the same thanks were promised to himself, may be dated that active political persecution which commenced by depriving him of further naval employment and did not cease till it had accomplished his utter ruin, even to striking his name out of the Navy List.

The animosity of this political partisanship towards one who had effected so much for his country is an anomaly even in political history. That amended representation of the people in Parliament, for which he strove up to 1818, had only fourteen years afterwards become the law of the land, and the boast of some who had persecuted Lord Cochrane for no offence beyond having been amongst the first to give expression to the popular will subsequently adopted by themselves.

The efforts of Lord Cochrane in favour of reforming the abuses of the Navy and of Greenwich Hospital, which at that time brought upon him the wrath of the Administration, are at this moment seriously engaging the attention of parliament, as being of paramount national necessity. The doctrine then openly laid down, that no naval officer in parliament had a right to interfere with naval administration, has long been abrogated, and many of the brightest ornaments of the navy are now amongst the foremost to denounce naval abuses in the House of Commons. It is, in fact, to them that the country now looks for that vigilance which shall preserve the navy in a proper state of efficiency. Yet for these very things was Lord Cochrane persecuted, though modern Governments, which have been liberal enough to acquiesce in popular reforms, of which he was the early advocate, have not been liberal enough to make him amends for the wrongs he suffered as one of the indefatigable originators of their now-cherished measures. Still less have they deemed it inconsistent with the honour of this great country to refrain from rewarding him in the ordinary manner for his most important services, rendered when others shrank from them, as was the case at Basque Roads, where his plans, declined by his seniors in the service, were successfully executed by himself under the greatest possible discouragement and disadvantage.

But the injustice manifested towards the late Earl of Dundonald did not end here. Driven from the service of his own country, and without fortune, he was compelled by his necessities to embark in the service of foreign states. With his own hand, directed by his own genius, which had to supply the place of adequate naval force, he liberated Chili, Peru, and Brazil from thraldom, consolidating the rebellious provinces of the latter empire on so permanent a basis, that its internal peace has never again been disturbed. Yet not one of these states has to this day satisfied the stipulated and indisputable arrangements by which he was induced to espouse their cause; the reason of their breach of contract being distinctly traceable to the course pursued towards Lord Dundonald in England. Seeing that the British Government paid no attention to the yet more important claims he had upon its gratitude, the South American States believed that they might with impunity disregard their own stipulations, and the dictates of national honour; the chief of one of them having had the audacity to tell Lord Cochrane that he would find no sympathy in the British Government.

Three of the most distinguished officers in the British service, Sir Thomas Hastings, Sir John Burgoyne, and Colonel Colquhoun, have felt it their duty, when officially reporting on the efficacy of Lord Dundonald's war plans, to give him the highest credit for having kept his secret " under peculiarly trying circumstances," and from pure love of his native country. The "trying circumstances" were these,—that he had been driven from the service of that country by the machinations of a political faction, which, in the conscientious performance of his parliamentary duties, he had offended. Even this injury, which blasted his whole life and prospects, did not detract one iota from the love of country, which to the day of his death was with him a passion; his acute mind well knowing how to draw the distinction between his country and those who were sacrificing its best interests to their love of power, if not to less worthy purposes. Never was praise more honourably given, than in the Ordnance Report of the above-named distinguished officers, and never was it more nobly deserved.

Another "peculiarly trying circumstance" alluded to by those officers, was that, when compelled by actual pecuniary necessity, in consequence of the deprivation of his rank and pay, and the demands of increasing family, to accept service under a foreign state as his only means of subsistence, he lay before the castles of Callao, into which had been removed for security the whole wealth of the rich capital of Peru, including bullion and plate, estimated at upwards of a million sterling, he preserved his war secret, though strongly urged to put it in execution. Had he listened to the temptation, in six hours the whole of that wealth must have been in his possession. For not listening to it, he incurred the enmity of his employers, who urged that they were entitled to all his professional skill and knowledge, as a part of his bargain with them; and his non-compliance with their wishes is doubtless amongst the chief reasons why they have not, to this day, satisfied their own offered stipulations for his services. Yet, at the very moment when he was displaying this self-sacrificing patriotism, lest his country might suffer from his secret being divulged, the Government of Great Britain had, at the suggestion of the Spanish Government, passed a "Foreign Enlistment Act," with the express intention of enveloping him in its meshes.

II.

(Page 23.)

As a striking instance of Lord Cochrane's method of exposing naval abuses, part of a speech delivered by him in the House of Commons, on the 11th of May, 1809, is here copied from his "Autobiography," vol. ii. pp. 142-144.

An admiral, worn out in the service, is superannuated at 410£. a year, a captain at 210£., a clerk of the ticket office retires on 700£. a year! The widow of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell has one third of the allowance given to the widow of a Commissioner of the Navy.

I will give the House another instance. Four daughters of the gallant Captain Courtenay have 12£. 10s. each, the daughter of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell has 25£., two daughters of Admiral Epworth have 25l. each, the daughter of Admiral Keppel 24£., the daughter of Captain Mann, who was killed in action, 25£., four children of Admiral Moriarty 25£. each. That is—thirteen daughters of admirals and captains, several of whose fathers fell in the service of their country, receive from the gratitude of the nation a sum less than Dame Mary Saxton, the widow of a commissioner.

The pension list is not formed on any comparative rank or merit, length of service, or other rational principle, but appears to me to be dependent on parliamentary influence alone. Lieutenant Ellison, who lost his arm, is allowed 91£. 5s., Captain Johnstone, who lost his arm, has only 45£. 12s. 6d., Lieutenant Arden, who lost his arm, has 9£. 5s., Lieutenant Campbell, who lost his leg, 40£., and poor Lieutenant Chambers, who lost both his legs, has only 80£., whilst Sir A.S. Hamond retires on 1500£. per annum. The brave Sir Samuel Hood, who lost his arm, has only 500£., whilst the late Secretary of the Admiralty retires, in full health, on a pension of 1500£. per annum.

To speak less in detail, 32 flag officers, 22 captains, 50 lieutenants, 180 masters, 36 surgeons, 23 pursers, 91 boatswains, 97 gunners, 202 carpenters, and 41 cooks, in all 774 persons, cost the country 4028l. less than the nett proceeds of the sinecures of Lords Arden (20,358£), Camden (20,536£), and Buckingham (20,693£).

All the superannuated admirals, captains, and lieutenants put together, have but 1012l. more than Earl Camden's sinecure alone! All that is paid to the wounded officers of the whole British navy, and to the wives and children of those dead or killed in action, do not amount by 214l. to as much as Lord Arden's sinecure alone, viz. 20,358£. What is paid to the mutilated officers themselves is but half as much.

Is this justice? Is this the treatment which the officers of the navy deserve at the hands of those who call themselves his Majesty's Government? Does the country know of this injustice? Will this too be defended? If I express myself with warmth I trust in the indulgence of the House. I cannot suppress my feelings. Should 31 commissioners, commissioners' wives, and clerks have 3899l. more amongst them than all the wounded officers of the navy of England?

I find upon examination that the Wellesleys receive from the public 34,729£, a sum equal to 426 pairs of lieutenants' legs, calculated at the rate of allowance of Lieutenant Chambers's legs. Calculating for the pension of Captain Johnstone's arm, viz. 45l., Lord Arden's sinecure is equal to the value of 1022 captains' arms. The Marquis of Buckingham's sinecure alone will maintain the whole ordinary establishment of the victualling department at Chatham, Dover, Gibraltar, Sheerness, Downs, Heligoland, Cork, Malta, Mediterranean, Cape of Good Hope, Rio de Janeiro, and leave 5460£ in the Treasury. Two of these comfortable sinecures would victual the officers and men serving in all the ships in ordinary in Great Britain, viz. 117 sail of the line, 105 frigates, 27 sloops, and 50 hulks. Three of them would maintain the dockyard establishments at Portsmouth and Plymouth. The addition of a few more would amount to as much as the whole ordinary establishments of the royal dockyards at Chatham, Woolwich, Deptford, and Sheerness; whilst the sinecures and offices executed wholly by deputy would more than maintain the ordinary establishment of all the royal dockyards in the kingdom.

Even Mr. Ponsonby, who lately made so pathetic an appeal to the good sense of the people of England against those whom he was pleased to term demagogues, actually receives, for having been thirteen months in office, a sum equal to nine admirals who have spent their lives in the service of their country; three times as much as all the pensions given to all the daughters and children of all the admirals, captains, lieutenants, and other officers who have died in indigent circumstances, or who have been killed in the service.

III.

(Page 258.)

The following letter, too long to be quoted in the body of the work, but too important to be omitted, was addressed by Lord Cochrane to the Brazilian Secretary of State. It gives memorable evidence of the treatment to which he was subjected by the Portuguese faction in Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro, May 3rd, 1824.

MOST EXCELLENT SIR,

I have received the honour of your excellency's reply to my letter of the 30th of March, and as I am thereby taught that the subjects on which I wrote are not now considered so intimately connected with your excellency's department as they were by your immediate predecessor, nor even so far relevant as to justify a direct communication to your excellency, I should feel it my duty to avoid troubling you farther on those subjects, were it not that you at the same time have freely expressed such opinions with respect to my conduct and motives as justice to myself requires me to controvert and refute.

With regard to your excellency's assurance that it has ever been the intention of his Imperial Majesty and Council to act favourably towards me, I can in return assure your excellency that I have never doubted the just and benign intention of his Imperial Majesty himself, neither have I doubted that a part of his Privy Council has thought well of my services; and if I have imagined that a majority has been prejudiced against me, I have formed that conclusion merely from the effects which I have seen and experienced, and not from any undue prepossession against particular individuals, whether Brazilian or Portuguese. But when your excellency adds that those transactions between the late minister and myself, which, owing to their having been conducted verbally, have been ill-understood, have invariably been decided in a manner favourable to me, I confess myself at a loss to understand your excellency's meaning, not having any recollection of such favourable decisions, and therefore not feeling myself competent either to admit or deny unless in the first place your excellency shall be pleased to descend to particulars. I do indeed recollect that the late ministers, professing to have the authority of his Imperial Majesty, and which, from the personal countenance I have experienced from that august personage, I am sure they did not clandestinely assume, proffered to me the command of the imperial squadron, with every privilege, emolument, and advantage which I possessed in the command of the navy of Chili; and this, your excellency is desired to observe, was not a verbal transaction, but a written one, and therefore not liable to any of those misunderstandings to which verbal transactions, as your excellency observes, are naturally subject. Now, in Chili my commission was that of commander-in-chief of the squadron, without limitation as to time or any other restriction. My command, of course, was only to cease by my own voluntary resignation, or by sentence of court-martial, or by death, or other uncontrollable event. And accordingly the appointment which I accepted in the service of his Imperial Majesty, and in virtue of which I sailed in command of the expedition to Bahia, was that of commander-in-chief of the whole squadron, without limitation as to time or otherwise; and this, too, your excellency will be pleased to observe, was not a verbal transaction, but a solemn engagement in writing, bearing date the 26th day of March, 1823, and now in my possession. I had also the assurance in writing of the Minister of Marine, that the formalities of engrossment and registration of such appointment were only deferred from want of time, and should be executed immediately after my return.

And now I most respectfully put it home to your excellency whether these engagements have or have not been fully confirmed and complied with under the present administration. I ask your excellency whether the patent which I received, bearing date the 25th November, 1823, did not contain a clause of limitation by which I might at any time be dismissed from the service under any pretence or without any pretence whatever—without even the form of a hearing in my own defence. Then again I ask your excellency whether my office as commander-in-chief of the squadron was not reduced for a period of three months—as appears by every official communication of the Minister of Marine to me during that period—to the command only of the vessels of war anchored in this port? and further on this subject I ask your excellency whether after my repeated remonstrances against this injurious limitation of my stipulated authority, it was not pretended by the decree published in the Gazette of the 28th February, that I was then for the first time, as a mark of special favour, elevated to the rank of commander-in-chief of the squadron, and that too during the period only of the existing war: although nothing less than the chief command had been offered to me at the first, without any restriction as to time, and although it was only in that capacity I had consented to enter into the service, and under a written appointment as such I had then been in the service nearly twelve months. And then I ask your excellency whether the limitation introduced into the patent of the 25th of November last, in violation of the original agreement, and confirmed and defined by the decree published on the 28th of February following; to which may be added the communication which I received from your excellency, excluding me from taking the oath, and becoming a party to the constitution, the 149th article of which provides for the protection of officers until lawfully deprived by sentence of court-martial; I say that I respectfully ask your excellency whether these proceedings were not well adapted for the purpose of casting me off with the utmost facility at the earliest moment that convenience might dictate; either with or without the admission of those claims for the future to which past services are usually considered entitled, as might best suit the inclination of those with whom my dismissal might originate. And is it not most probable that their inclination would run counter to those claims, especially when it is considered that my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine, in which I made the inquiry whether my right to half-pay would be recognized on the termination of the war, has never been answered, although my application for a reply has been repeated? If then the explicit engagements in writing between the late minister of his Imperial Majesty and myself have, as I have shown, been set aside by the present ministry and council, and other arrangements far less favourable to me, and destructive of the lawful security of my present and future rights, have without my consent been substituted in their stead, where, I entreat your excellency, am I to look for those favourable constructions of "ill-understood verbal transactions," which your excellency requires me to accept as a proof that the intentions of the present ministry and council, in respect to me, have ever been of the most favourable and obliging nature?

I would beg permission, too, to inquire how it happened that portarias from the Minister of Marine, charging me unjustly from time to time with neglecting to obey the command of his Imperial Majesty, were constantly made public, while my answers in refutation were always suppressed. And why, when I remonstrated against this injustice, was I answered that the same course should be persisted in, and that I had no alternative but to acquiesce, or to descend to a newspaper controversy by publishing my exculpations myself? Is it possible not to perceive that the ex parte publication of these accusatory portarias was intended to lower me in the public estimation, and to prepare the way for the exercise of that power of summary dismissal which was so unfairly acquired by the means above described?

On the subject of the prizes your excellency is pleased to state: "Les difficultés survenues dans le jugement des prizes ont eu des motifs si connus et positifs qu'il est assez doloureux de les voir attribuir à la mauvaise volonté du Conseil de S.M.I." To this I reply that I know of no just cause for the delay which has arisen in the decision of the prizes, and consequently I have a right to impute blame for that delay to those who have the power to cause it or remove it. If the majority of the voices in council had been for a prompt condemnation to the captors of the prizes taken from the Portuguese nation, is it possible that individuals of that nation would be suffered to continue to be the judges of those prizes after an experience of many months has demonstrated either their determination to do nothing, or nothing favourable to the captors? The repugnance of Portuguese judges to condemn property captured from their fellow-countrymen, as a reward to those who have engaged in hostilities against Portugal, is natural enough, and is the only well-known and positive cause of the delay with which I am acquainted; but it is not such a cause for delay as ought to have been permitted to operate by the ministers and council of his Imperial Majesty, who are bound in honour and duty to act with fidelity towards those who have been engaged as auxiliaries in the attainment and maintenance of the independence of the empire. I did, however, inform your excellency that I had heard it stated that another difficulty had arisen in the apprehension that this Government might be under the necessity of eventually restoring the prizes to the original Portuguese owners as a condition of peace. But this, your excellency assures me, proves nothing but that I am a listener to "rapporteurs," whom I ought to drive from my presence. Unfortunately, however, for this bold explanation of your excellency, the individual whom I heard make the observation was no other than his excellency the present Minister of Marine, Francisco Villala Barboza. If your excellency considers that gentleman in the light of a "rapporteur," or talebearer, it is not for me to object; but the imputation of being a listener to or encourager of talebearers, so rashly advanced by your excellency against me, is without foundation in truth. It may be necessary for ministers of state to have their eavesdroppers and informers, but mine is a straightforward course, which needs no such precautions. And if there be any who volunteer information or advice, I can appreciate the value of it, and the motives of those who offer it. Those who know me much better than your excellency does, will admit that I am in the habit of thinking for myself, and not apt to act on the suggestions of others, especially if officiously tendered.

As to the successive appointment and removal of incompetent auditors of marine, for which your excellency gives credit to the council, I can only say that the benefit of such repeated changes is by no means apparent. And to revert again to the difficulty of decision, for which your excellency intimates there is sufficient cause, I beg leave to ask your excellency what just reason can exist for not condemning these prizes to the captors. Can it be denied that the orders under which I sailed for the blockade of Bahia authorized me to act hostilely against the ships and property of the crown and subjects of Portugal? Can it be denied that war was regularly declared between the two nations? Was it not even promulgated under the sanction of his Imperial Majesty in a document giving to privateers certain privileges which it is admitted were possessed by the ships of war in the making and sale of captures? And yet did not the Prize Tribunal (consisting chiefly, as I before observed, of Portuguese), on the return of the squadron, eight months afterwards, pretend to be ignorant whether his Imperial Majesty was at war or at peace with the kingdom of Portugal? And did they not under that pretence avoid proceeding to adjudication? Was not this pretence a false one, or is it one of those well-founded causes of difficulty to which your excellency alludes? Can it be denied that the squadron sailed and acted in the full expectation, grounded on the assurance and engagements of the Government, that all captures made under the flag of the enemy, whether ships of war or merchant vessels, were to be prize to the captors? and yet when the prize judges were at length under the necessity of commencing proceedings, did they not endeavour to set aside the claims of the captors by the monstrous pretence that they had no interest in their captures when made within the distance of two leagues from the shore? Will your excellency contend that this was a good and sufficient reason? Was it founded in common sense, or on any rational precedent, or indeed any precedent whatever? Was it either honest to the squadron or faithful to the country? Was it not calculated to prevent the squadron from ever again assailing an invading enemy, or again expelling him from the shores of the empire? Then, in the next place, did not these most extraordinary judges pretend that at least all vessels taken in ports and harbours should be condemned as droits to the crown, and not as prize to the captors? Was not this another most pernicious attempt to deprive the imperial squadron not only of its reward for the past but of any adequate motive for the risk of future enterprise? And in effect, were not these successive pretences calculated to operate as invitations to invasions? Did they not tend to encourage the enemy to resume his occupation of the port of Bahia, and generally to renew his aggressions against the independence of the empire on her shores and in her ports without the probability of resistance by the squadrons of his Imperial Majesty? And have not these same judges actually condemned almost every prize as a droit to the crown, thereby doing as much as in them lay to defraud the squadron and to damp its zeal and destroy its energies? Nay, have not the auditors of marine actually issued decrees pronouncing the captures made at Maranhão to have been illegal, alleging that they were seized under the Brazilian flag, although in truth the flag of the enemy was flying at the time both in the forts and ships; declaring me a violator of the law of nations and law of the land; accusing me of having been guilty of an insult to the Emperor and the empire, and decreeing costs and damages against me under these infamous pretences? Can your excellency perceive either justice or decency in these decrees? Do they in any degree breathe the spirit of gratitude for the union of so important a province to the empire, or are they at all in accordance with the distinguished approbation which his Imperial Majesty himself has evinced of my services at Maranhão?

Can it be unknown to your excellency that the late ministers, acting doubtless under the sanction of his Imperial Majesty, and assuredly under the guidance of common sense, held out that the value of ships of war taken from the enemy was to be the reward of the enterprise of the captors? And yet are we not now told that a law exists decreeing all captured men-of-war to the crown, and so rendering the engagements of the late ministers illegal and nugatory? Can anything be more contrary to justice, to good faith, to common sense, or to sound policy? Was it ever expected by any government employing foreign seamen in a war in which they can have no personal rights at stake, that those seamen will incur the risk of attacking a superior, or even an equal, force, without prospect of other reward than their ordinary pay? Is it not notorious that even in England it is found essential, or at least highly advantageous, to reward the officers and seamen, though fighting their own battles, not only with the full value of captured vessels of war, but even with additional premiums; and was it ever doubted that such liberal policy has mainly contributed to the surpassing magnitude of the naval power of that little island, and her consequent greatness as a nation?

Can your excellency deny that the delay, the neglect, and the conduct generally of the prize judges, have been the cause of an immense diminution in the value of the captures? Have not the consequences been a wanton and shameful waste of property by decay and plunder? Can your excellency really believe in the existence of a good and sufficient motive for consigning such property to destruction, rather than at once awarding it to the captors in recompense for their services to the empire? Is it not true that all control over the sales and cargoes of the vessels, most of which are without invoices, have been taken from the captors and their agents and placed in the hands of individuals over whom they have no authority or influence, and from whom they can have no security of receiving a just account? And can it be doubted that the gracious intentions of his Imperial Majesty, as announced by himself, of rewarding the captors with the value of the prizes, are in the utmost danger of being defeated by such proceedings?

Since the 12th day of February, when his Imperial Majesty was graciously pleased to signify his pleasure in his own handwriting that the prizes, though condemned to the crown, should be paid for to the captors, and that valuators should be appointed to estimate the amount, is it not true that nothing whatever, up to the date of my former letter to your excellency, had been done by his ministers and council in furtherance of such his gracious intentions? On the contrary, is it not notorious that, since the announcement of the imperial intention, numerous vessels and cargoes have been arbitrarily disposed of by authority of the auditors of marine, by being delivered to pretended owners and others without legal adjudication, and even without the decency of acquainting the captors or their agents that the property had been so transferred? And has not the whole cost of litigation, watching and guarding the vessels and cargoes, been entirely at the expense of the captors, notwithstanding the disposal of the property and the receipt of the proceeds by the agents of Government and others?

So little hope of justice has been presented by the proceedings of the Prize Tribunal, that it has appeared quite useless to label the stores found in the naval and military arsenals of Maranhão, or the 66,000 dollars in the chests of the Treasury and Custom House, with double that sum in bills, all of which was left for the use of the province, or permitted to be disbursed to satisfy the clamorous troops of Ceara and Pianhy. Has any remuneration been offered to the navy for these sacrifices, of which ministers were duly informed by my official despatches? or has any recompense been awarded for the Portuguese brig and schooner of war, both completely stored and equipped, which were surrendered at Maranhão, and which have ever since been employed in the naval service? To a proportion of all this I should have been entitled in Chili, as well as in the English service; and why, I ask, must I here be contented to be deprived of every hope of these the fruits of my labours? In addition to the prize vessels delivered to claimants without trial, have not the ministers appropriated others to the uses of the state without valuation or recompense?

In short, is it not true that though more than a year has elapsed since the sailing of the imperial squadron under my command, and nearly half a year since its return, after succeeding in expelling the naval and military forces of the enemy from Bahia, and liberating the northern provinces, and uniting them to the empire; I say is it not true that not one shilling of prize money has yet been distributed to the squadron, and that no prospect is even now apparent of any distribution being speedily made? Is it not true that the only substantial reward of the officers and seamen of the squadron for the important services they have rendered has hitherto been nothing more than their mere pittance of ordinary pay; and even that in many instances vexatiously delayed and miserably curtailed? And with respect to myself individually, is it not notorious that I necessarily consume my whole pay in my current expenses; that my official rank cannot be upheld with less, and that it is wholly inadequate to the due support of the dignity of those high honours which his Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer?

Under all these circumstances, it is in vain that I endeavour to make that discovery which your excellency assures me requires only a moment's reflection: "Au reste" (your excellency says), "que V'e. Ex'ce. réfléchisse un moment, celle trouverá que le Gouvernement de S.M.I. simplement et uniquement pour faire plaisir à V'e. Ex'ce. á s'est attiré une enormé responsabilité dans les engagemens pris avec V'e. Ex'ce." It is not one moment only nor one hour that I have reflected on these words, but without making the promised discovery, or any probable guess at your excellency's meaning. I would therefore entreat your excellency to tell me what it is that the Government has engaged to do. All that I know is they have engaged to pay me a certain sum per annum as commander-in-chief of the squadron; and this engagement, I admit, they have so far fulfilled. But the amount is little more than is received by the commander-in-chief of an English squadron; and is it not found in that service, and in every regular or established naval service, that for one officer qualified for any considerable command there are probably ten that are not qualified; though all have necessarily been reared and paid at the national expense? Whereas, in this case, so far from your having been at the expense of money in order to procure a few that are effective, you obtained at once, without any previous cost whatever, the services of myself and the officers that accompanied me, all of whom were experienced and efficient. Now, the united amount of the salaries you are engaged to pay to myself and the officers whom I brought with me does not exceed 25,000 dollars a year. To speak of this as an "enormous responsibility" as an empire, requires more than a "moment's reflection" to be clearly understood. The Government did, however, engage to pay to myself and my brother officers and seamen the value of our captures from the enemy, pursuant to the practice of all maritime belligerents, but this engagement has not hitherto been fulfilled. If, however, your excellency admits the responsibility of the Government to fulfil this engagement also, I am still equally at a loss to conceive in what sense that responsibility can be considered enormous, inasmuch as these prizes were not the property of the state, nor of individuals belonging to this nation, but were the property of Portugal, with whom this nation was and is engaged in lawful war. The payment, therefore, of the value of these prizes to the captors, supposing even the full value to be paid, does not in effect take one penny out of the national treasury, or out of the pocket of any Brazilian. If it be false—and your excellency appears to scout the idea—that any danger exists of having to pay twice for these prizes; if there really is no danger of being compelled to purchase peace with a defeated enemy by restoring them their forfeited property—it follows that the responsibility of the Government in fulfilling its engagement with the captors is so far from being enormous, that it is literally nothing. How the fulfilment of a lawful engagement by the simple act of paying over to the squadron the value of its prizes taken in time of war from the foreign enemies of the state (such payment occasioning no expense, and no loss to the state itself) can be attended with an enormous responsibility, I am utterly unable to comprehend. So far as the engagements of the Government with me, or with the captors in general of the Portuguese prizes, are of a pecuniary nature, they appear to me to lay no great weight of responsibility on the herculean shoulders of this vast empire. And it is only in a pecuniary sense that I can conceive it to be possible for your excellency to have thought of complaining of the responsibility attending the fulfilment of the engagements of the Government with me.

It is no less difficult to comprehend how this supposed enormous responsibility has been incurred, "simplement et uniquement pour faire plaisir" to me; and it is still more difficult to comprehend how it happens that your excellency, "after all that you have heard and seen" (après ce que j'ai entendu et vu), should be at a loss to know in what manner I am to be contented (je ne saurais pas dequelle maniére on puisse vous contenter). If, indeed, your excellency imagines that I ought to be contented with honorary distinctions alone, however highly I may prize them as the free gift of his Imperial Majesty; if your excellency is of opinion that I ought with "remercimens et satisfaction" to put up with those honours in lieu of those stipulated substantial rewards, which even those very honours render more necessary; if your excellency thinks that I ought, like the dog in the fable, to resign the substance for a grasp at the shadow; if this is all that your excellency knows on the subject of giving me content, it is then very true that your excellency does not know in what manner it is to be done. But if, "after all that your excellency has heard and seen," you would be pleased to render yourself conversant with those written engagements under which I was induced to enter into the service, all that your excellency and the rest of the ministers and council of his Imperial Majesty would then have to do in order to content me to the full, would be to desist from evading the performance of those engagements, and to cause them at once to be fully and honourably fulfilled. And I do believe that my "Correspondance Officielle une fais rendue publique, en faira foi;" for I am not conscious that I have ever called on the Government to incur one farthing of expense on my account beyond the fulfilment of their written engagements, which were the same as those which I had with Chili, which were formed precisely on the practice of England. There was, indeed, a verbal and conditional engagement with the late ministers that certain losses which I might incur in consequence of leaving the service of Chili should be made good; and the question as to the obligation of fulfilling that engagement I submitted (in my letter of the 6th of March to the Minister of Marine) to the consideration of their successors. It will be fortunate for me if this should prove to be one of those "ill-understood verbal transactions" which your excellency assures me the present ministers and council always decide in my favour. I shall not in that case be backward to receive the benefit of the decision with "thanks and satisfaction;" but I am willing to resign it rather than it should add an overwhelming weight to that "enormous responsibility" which your excellency complains has already been incurred with a view to my contentment. I repeat that I have never asked for more than I possessed in Chili, or than any officer of the same rank is entitled to in England; though British officers have heretofore received in the service of Portugal double the amount of their English pay; and though the burning climate of Brazil is injurious to health, while those of Chili and Portugal are salubrious. Your excellency, therefore, is perfectly welcome to publish the whole of my official correspondence, because instead of proving, as your excellency asserts, the great difficulty of contenting me, it would go far to prove the much greater difficulty of inducing those with whom I have to do to take any one step for that purpose.

I confess, however, that in order to content me effectually it is necessary to fulfil not only all written engagements with myself individually, but generally with all the officers and seamen with whom, while I hold the command, I consider myself identified; and the more particularly because, in my own firm reliance on the good faith of the Government, I did in some sort become responsible for that good faith to my brother officers and seamen. But with whom, I put it to your excellency, has good faith been kept? Is it not notorious that previous to the departure of the expedition to Bahia, declarations were made to the seamen in writing by the late Minister of Marine, through my medium, and in printed proclamations, that their dues should be paid with all possible regularity, and all their arrears discharged immediately on their return? And is not your excellency aware that specific contracts were entered into by the accredited agent of his Imperial Majesty in England, with a number of officers and seamen, who, in consequence, were induced to quit their native country and enter into the employ of his Imperial Majesty? Can it be denied that these declarations and contracts, written and printed, were known to, and are actually in the possession of the ministers, or in the hands of the officers of the pay department, and yet is it not true that they were neglected to be fulfilled for a period of upwards of three months after the return of the Pedro Primiero ; and was not the tardy fulfilment which at length took place procured by my incessant representations and remonstrances?

Permit me also to ask whether the good effects of prompt payment were not illustrated on the arrival of the frigates Nitherohy and Caroline, which happened just at the period I had succeeded in procuring payment to be made. Was it not in consequence of immediate payment that the greater part of the English crew of the Nitherohy remained quietly on board, and are now actually engaged on an important service to his Imperial Majesty? And, on the other hand, is it not equally true that the English seamen of the Pedro Primiero were so disheartened and disgusted with the long delay which in their case had occurred, and the manifest bad faith which had been evinced, that by far the greater part of them actually abandoned the ship? And generally, is it not true that the violations of promise, the obstructions of justice, and the arbitrary acts of severity, have produced dissatisfaction and irritation in the minds of the officers and seamen, and done infinite prejudice to the service of his Imperial Majesty and to the interests and prospects of the empire?

Can it be denied that the treatment to which the officers are exposed is in the highest degree cruel and unjust? Have they not in many instances been confined in a fortress or prison-ship without being told who is their accuser or what is the accusation? And are they not kept for many months at a time in that cruel state of suspense and restraint without the means or opportunity of justification or defence? Have not some of them while incarcerated in the fortress of the Island of Cobras been deprived of their pay for a great length of time, and even denied the provisions necessary for their subsistence? And if, after all, they are brought to trial, are not their judges composed of the natives of a nation with whom they are at war? Is it possible that English, or other foreign officers in the service, can be satisfied with such a system? Can your excellency entertain a doubt, that open accusation, prompt trial, unsuspected justice, and speedy punishment, if merited, are essential to the good government of a naval service? Nay, is it possible that your excellency should not know that the system of government in the naval service of Portugal is the most wretched in the world, and consequently the last that ought to have been adopted for the naval service of Brazil?

And here I would respectfully ask your excellency whether you know of any one thing recommended by me for the benefit of the naval service being complied with? Have the laws been revised to adapt them to the better government of the service? Has a corps of marine artillery been formed and taught their duty? Have young gentlemen intended for officers been sent on board to learn their profession? Have young men been enlisted and sent on board to be bred up as seamen? Or has any encouragement been given to the employment of Brazilians in the commerce of the coast?

With regard to those difficulties, delays, and other impediments of which I have complained as existing in the arsenal and other offices, and which your excellency supposes me to have represented as being caused, or at least tolerated, by the minister, and which you are pleased to characterise as "tout a fait imaginaires, et n'ayant d'outré source que l'ambition sordide de quelque intrigant," I shall not now enter into them again at any length, as much that I have already written tends to refute your excellency's notions on the subject. That such abuses do really exist I have proved beyond the power of contradiction; and that they are at least tolerated by those—whoever they may be—who possess without exercising the means of preventing, does not require the ingenuity of an "intrigant" to discover, as the fact is self-evident. I cannot, therefore, admit that either my complaints or suspicions are "tout a fait imaginaires," or that they are "des petitesses," as your excellency is pleased contemptuously to term them; but whatever they are, they originate in my own observation, without any assistance from the spectacles of an "intrigant," with which I am so gratuitously accommodated by your excellency.

In still further proof, however, of the real existence of the evils in question, I may just observe that since the return of the Pedro Primiero, that ship has been kept in constant disorder by the delay in commencing and the idle and negligent mode of executing even the trifling alterations in the channels, which were necessary to enable the rigging to be set up, and which, after the lapse of upwards of five months, is now scarcely finished, though it might have been accomplished in forty-eight hours. Even the time of caulking was spun out to a period nearly as long as was occupied last year in the accomplishment of that thorough repair which the ship then underwent; and the painting is far from being completed after sixteen or eighteen days' labour, though a British ship of war is usually painted in a day. Even my own cabin is in such a state that when I am on board I have no place to sit down in. All these things may appear to your excellency as "des petitesses," or even "tout a fait imaginaires," but to me they appear matters of a serious nature, injurious and disgraceful to the service.

I may not, perhaps, succeed in convincing your excellency, but I have the satisfaction of being inwardly conscious that, independent of my natural desire to obtain justice for myself and for all the officers and men of the squadron, no small part of my anxiety for the fulfilment of the engagements of the Government proceeds from a desire to see the navy of his Imperial Majesty rendered efficient; which it can never be unless the same good faith is observed with the officers and men as is kept between the Government and navy of England, and unless indeed many other important considerations are attended to, which appear to have hitherto escaped the regard of the Imperial Government. Why, for instance, is there that indifference in regard to the clothing of the men? What but discontent, debasement, and enervation, can be the effects of that ragged and almost naked condition in which they have so long been suffered to remain, notwithstanding the numerous applications that have been made for the necessary clothing? I would also inquire the reason that officers and men, strangers to each other, and destitute of attachment and mutual confidence, are hastily shipped together in vessels of war going on active service, when better arrangements might easily be made. What can be expected from the vessels of war just gone out, in case they should meet with any serious opposition, but disgrace to those by whom they were so imperfectly and improperly equipped?

If this communication were not already too long, or if, after the