and a warrior are not incompatible when engaged in the defence of his own King, and country, and altars.

I have endeavoured to show that, while Britain has nobly struggled for her own independence, she has never been guided by selfish principles or corrupt motives. The crafty tyrant, whom it was our glory to humble, is said to have derided our imbecility in ceding that to negotiation which we had acquired by the sword, a high eulogium from the lips of an implacable enemy, proving that we contended for peace and the real rights of men. The sacrifice of 20 millions of money to purchase the emancipation of 800,000 negroes is another demonstration of this national magnanimity, and forms the triumphal wreath to our warlike achievements: it does us as much honour as all our victories, and proves that, if we are a nation of shopkeepers, we are neither misers nor slave-dealers. In no instance in history, sacred or profane, does the effect of Christianity on the minds of an enlightened people beam forth with such transcendent splendour as in this act of justice and generosity. In short, in every part of the world where the British flag has waved, arts and civilization are softening the manners and improving the condition of the human race. The savages of New Zealand are nearly converted to Christianity. Idolatry is banished from the Polynesian Islands, through the perseverance of our missionaries.

In the course of a professional life extending to half a century, I have seen and conversed with most of the officers whose names are mentioned in the following history. I have visited many parts of the globe, and been present at some of the transactions which I have described; and it appears to me that, for these reasons only, I have drawn on myself the acrimonious strictures of a contemporary who is deeply sensible of the want of such advantages. It is very singular that he should have attacked me upon the very facts of which I was an eye-witness; but I fearlessly appeal from the dictum of an interested writer to the judgment of more discerning and better instructed authorities. I still deny that a landsman is capable of writing a naval history. He may give the letter, but he cannot give the spirit; he can neither instruct nor reprove without the charge of folly and presumption. I have selected a few

only of the numerous instances in which I have been quoted. or copied without acknowledgment. My name appears in the margin of almost every page, and I am frequently contradicted by one utterly destitute of the least professional pretension. That there may be slight errors, in a few instances, I do not deny; the Egyptian, for instance, may have carried only 24pounders instead of 32-pounders, on her main-deck; but these and similar errors cannot, in any way, affect the general truth of my historical facts; and my adversaries would do well to let the campaign of 1794 alone, to say nothing of Martinique in 1795 and 1808, of which they are totally ignorant, and equally so as to the Tribune and the Boston.

The log-books may do very well to ascertain certain facts, but they are seldom to be relied on in cases of actions with the enemy, being ever written or dictated with a spirit of partiality and exaggeration of which none but a seaman can form an idea; and perhaps the reader will be astonished to learn that scarcely two officers, even in the same ship, ever agreed in the details of an action in which they had been engaged. Whence then the use of all these diagrams, drawn by incompetent hands, to describe evolutions which most probably never occurred, or, if they did occur, certainly not in the manner described?

I am willing to give Mr. James and his Naval Editor all the merit they really deserve. I cheerfully acknowledge their great and unwearied pains and attention in the collection of facts and details; but I must aver that, in candour and kindness, if not in gratitude, they should have shown a different spirit towards me. Their reflection cast on me, when speaking of the capture of the Laurel, proves a want of knowledge that was hardly to have been expected. Nor can I admit that the account of the action off Cape St. Vincent is preferable to mine, or more accurate, because it is fifteen times longer. I have given the main facts vanity and self-love may wish for more detail of a personal nature, but the general reader will disregard it; and, in proportion as we recede from the period of action, minor points lose their importance and interest.

As it cannot be expected that Mr. James, though in other respects fully as much entitled to credit as myself, could adopt the phraseology of a seaman, so the navy will be excused for not adopting his nomenclature, particularly when found to be

derived from the Americans; and, as our decks are all properly named, I trust they will retain the good old English' appellations. It will be seen that I never use the term "man-of-war," as applied to a ship. I once observed to a noble Lord that the term was absurd, the latter substantive being feminine: "True, Sir," replied the Earl," but we now say ship of war." The term "man-of-war" was first used, I believe, as a verb, to man a ship, and not as a substantive. I cannot turn to the authority, but I have heard that King Henry (I believe the Eighth) commanded a man-of-war, that is, that he ordered a naval armament to be equipped, and thence the derivation of the term; but, even in our day, we sometimes read in our periodical papers, "Arrived the Renown man-of-war and the Spartan frigate." The first, being a ship of the line, is supposed by the writer to be exclusively a man-of-war, whereas it is notorious that every vessel, be her size what it may, if she wears the King's pendant, and carries a commissioned officer, with guns, is a man-of-war according to our acceptation of the term.

The term "fleet" is a collective one, indefinite as to number; but a regulation of the Admiralty, in 1806, decided that no less a number of ships of the line than 10 sail are to have that denomination when they amount to that number, a flag-officer is to be appointed to command them, with a captain of the fleet, whose duty is somewhat analogous to that of an adjutantgeneral. He regulates the distribution of stores, the issue of public orders, receives all returns, and transmits them, in abstract, to the commander-in-chief and to the Admiralty; if a captain, he takes the rank, wears the uniform, and receives all the emoluments, of a rear-admiral.

I cannot conclude this preface to a Naval History of Great Britain more appropriately than with a few remarks on the naval power of England, extracted from the work of M. Dupin. This acute observer, in his Travels in Great Britain, remarks:

Within the last 125 years, the British navy has sustained six great maritime wars; and in each, successively, it has employed a force more formidable and better organized than in any of the preceding. It is since this period that England has realized its pretensions to the sovereignty of the sea, by occupying all the important points which serve as the keys to that domain. Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Isles ensure its dominion in the Mediterranean. With Heligoland,

its power reaches towards the Baltic. By means of St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Isle of France, it commands the passage to India. Lastly, India itself, the finest of the West India Islands, Canada, Newfoundland, and New Holland, have increased these important possessions. These are the conquests which England has made since its revolution, and which it owes to the progress of its naval force. Rome only, at the time of its most brilliant success, can afford us an example of such a system of aggrandizement.

Towards the end of the 17th century, the maritime wars of England consisted of a few battles with one or two fleets; its ships made some cruises, formed isolated blockades, and undertook certain enterprises, sufficient for the purposes of a campaign.-But, in the naval war which we have seen begun, and finished in the 19th century, England conceived the idea of attacking nearly at the same time the navies of France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Italy, and even America: it has, in short, opposed itself to every maritime power of the world. Not only has it blockaded all the war-ports which could send out any squadron or flotilla, but it has blockaded all the commercial ports; a spectacle of which, up to that time, no maritime power had offered an example. The inhabitants of an island of but small extent have succeeded in forming with their own ships a continuous line of observation along all the coasts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. All the continents of the two worlds have been simultaneously besieged, islands taken by main force, the commerce of the universe invaded; and, finally, after twenty years of combat, this naval power, which began the contest with 30 millions of subjects, has terminated it by consolidating an empire, including the conquerors and the conquered, of 80 millions. Let us, moreover, recal to mind that Great Britain has never, during the epoch, employed more than 145,000 sailors and marines in effecting these prodigies.

M. Dupin accounts for the popularity of the navy as a national force,-first, because it is calculated for the most important defence, but can never be employed to destroy the liberty of the people; secondly, because all the great towns of the empire are seated at the mouth of some port, where the citizens are in the constant habit of seeing vessels of all nations bringing to its warehouses the tribute of their respective soils, and others exporting the products of national industry: and it is impossible to be in the constant practice of remarking such spectacles, without feeling an honest pride in the navy which has ensured to the country all these benefits.

In the eyes of the English, their navy forms the elements of the British power, and the moveable ramparts of the territory of Albion. It is not only in the figurative language of poetry, but in the most familiar conversation of the English, when speaking of their ships, that they call them their bulwarks, their wooden walls.

The metropolis of the British Empire contains in its bosom the most frequented part of the universe. It is the commerce of the sea which has rendered Lendon the most populous and the most opulent capital of Europe. Ships of a hundred different countries display on the Thames their respective flags; yet the British vessels alone outnumber those of all other nations.-The citizen of London is justly proud to observe the fleets of merchant-men which every day arrive from the ocean, or which descend the stream of the Thames; the latter for the purpose of exporting the products of national industry, and the former importing the treasure of foreign nations. Who can contemplate this immense movement, without being convinced that it is the commerce of the sea which has produced the riches and grandeur of the city?

The author then observes that this spectacle, and the ideas to which it gives birth, are not peculiar to London, but appertain to all the capitals of the empire. Edinburgh stands on the borders of one of the finest gulfs of Scotland; Dublin is most conveniently situated for a rapid communication between London and Ireland reciprocally; Quebec is on the shores of the river St. Lawrence, which may be called the Thames of Canada; Halifax, on the hyperborean side of America; and Cape Town at the southern extremity of Africa, that point of tempests which vessels must double to pass from Europe to India. In a word, in all parts of the globe, the central points of British power participate in the benefits of the commerce of the sea, and by these benefits contribute to the splendour, the riches, and the power of the people, and of the government.