thor of the Victoires et Conquêtes des * Français, who pronounces on the "One would suppose it difficult to raise a doubt as to the gallantry, whatever may have been thought of the prudence, of the attack upon Algesiras; yet the French, in their version of the affair, made it appear one of the most brilliant exploits which their navy had ever performed. It was no less, than that three French sail of the line and a frigate were attacked by six English sail of the line and a frigate; that the English were completely beaten, and took refuge in Gibraltar, leaving in the possession of the French the Hannibal, of 74 guns; and that another ship of the line struck, but was afterwards towed off by a great num. ber of English gun-boats.' Fortunately for the cause of truth, the Spaniards, as well as the French, had a little self-love to gratify. The action,' says the Madrid Gazette Extraordinary, was very obstinate and bloody on both sides; and likewise on the part of our batteries, which decided the fate of the day. And, in another place, The fire of our batteries was so hot and well supported, that the enemy suffered most from them; and particularly it is to that of San lago we owe the English ship; for, her bold manoeuvre of attempting to pass between the French rear-admiral's ship, the Formidable, and the shore, made her take the ground, and, notwithstanding the utmost exertion to get her afloat, it was found impossible to move her: then the fire from the battery very soon dismasted her, and compelled her to strike."+ In his statement of the killed and wounded, on the part of the British, Thiers is more than usually incorrect. He states the loss of the French to have been 200 killed and 300 wounded, whereas there were 306 killed and 280 wounded (the Madrid Gazette says, nearly 500), and the loss of the British to have been 900 wounded, whereas there were but 121 killed, and 240 wounded, and 14 men missing. The account of the Formidable (French ship of the squadron of Linoi's) is also incorrect and partial, as any one may see on referring to the pages of James or Brenton. It is well known that the Venerable, which was engaged with this ship, got on the shoals, but was taken in tow by the Spencer, and before sunset was going round Cape Trafalgar under jury-masts, and in such efficient order as to be fit for action had an enemy appeared.§ The most audacious statements in these volumes are those in reference to the Bou 66 logne flotilla. "Our ships' crews," says Thiers, were radiant with joy. Their losses had been trifling, while the casualties of the English were, on the contrary, remarkable. The satisfaction produced by this brilliant action was enhanced by having beaten Nelson in person, and thus rendered nugatory all the threats of destruction with which he had launched forth against our flotilla." It is notorious to every man, woman, and child in England; and nowhere is it better known than at Boulogne, that many of the vessels of the flotilla were taken possession of, but they were chained with iron chains together and aground, and it was thus found impossible to cut the cables, or to remove them. Twenty prisoners of war were brought away; but on this fact Thiers is silent. As this passage in our naval history may not be familiar to the rising generation, we extract the account from the third volume of James's Naval History, p. 120. • Victoires et Conquêtes, tom. xiv. p. 157. "On the 30th July, the vice-admiral hoisted his flag on board the 18-pounder t James's Naval History, p. 172. Brenton, vol. i. p. 552; James's Naval History, vol. iii. p. 188. Brenton, vol. i. p. 550; Duncan's British Trident, p. 460. 32.gun frigate, Medusa, Captain John Gore, at anchor in the Downs; and on the 3d of August, having under his charge about thirty vessels, great and small, Lord Nelson, by orders from the Admiralty, of which Earl St. Vincent was now at the head, stood across to Boulogne, the port whence, as already stated, the main attempt was to be made, and which the French, informed by their secret intelligence that an attack would be made, had recently been fortifying with great care. "On the 4th, the English bomb-vessels threw their shells amidst the French flotilla, consisting of twenty-four brigs, lugger-rigged flats, and a schooner, moored in a line in front of the town. The effect of the bombardment was, by the English account, the sinking of three flats and a brig, and the driving of several others on shore; but the French declare, that only two gun-boats were slightly damaged, and that not a man was hurt aboard the flotilla. Nor did the British sustain any greater loss than one captain of artillery, and two seamen wounded by the bursting of a French shell. "On the night of the 15th August, Lord Nelson despatched the armed boats of his squadron, formed into four divisions, under the respective commands of Captain Philip Somerville, Edward Thornbird Parker, Isaac Cotgrave, and Robert Jones; and accompanied by a division of mortar-boats, under Captain John Conn, to attempt to bring off the French flotilla, which had been much strengthened since the last attack. At about half-past eleven, P.M., the boats put off from the Medusa, in the most perfect order; but the darkness of the night, co-operating with the tide and half-tide, separated the divisions. The first division, under Captain Somerville, on getting near to the shore, was carried, by the current, considerably to the eastward of Boulogne Bay. Find ing it impracticable to reach the French flotilla in the order prescribed, Captain Somerville ordered the boats to cast each other off, and make the best of their way. By this means, at a little before the dawn of day, on the 16th, some of the leading boats got up to and attacked a brig, lying close to the pier-head; and, after a sharp contest, carried the vessel, but were prevented from towing her off, owing to her being secured with a chain, and owing to a heavy fire of musketry and grape-shot, opened as well from the shore, as from three luggers and a second brig, lying within half-pistol-shot of the first. Thus compelled to abandon their prize, and the daylight putting a stop to further operations the boats of the first division pushed out of the bay. The persevering efforts of the officers and men of this di vision had cost them dearly; their loss, amounting to one master's mate (Alex. ander Rutherford), fourteen seamen, and three marines killed; four lieutenants (Thomas Oliver, Francis Dickenson, Jeremiah Skelton, and William Basset), one captain of marines (George Young), one master's mate (Francis Barney), one midshipman (Samuel Spratley), twenty. nine seamen, and nineteen marines wounded. Total, eighteen killed and fifty-five wounded. to "The second division, under Captain shipmen (William Gore and William "The third division, under Captain "The fourth division of boats, under The appellation of gun-brig, and of flat or raft, convey, without some explanation, a very imperfect idea of the description of vessels of which the Boulogne flotilla was composed. The brigs were vessels of from 200 to 250 tons, armed with from four to eight heavy long guns, generally 24 and 18-pounders, and, in some instances, 36-pounders. The account of a comparatively small luggar. fiat, taken at Havre in the early part of the present year (1801), may suffice for the generality of those at Boulogne. This flat drew but three and a half feet water, had very stout bulwarks, and carried thirty men in crew, besides 150 soldiers. She was armed with one 13.inch mortar, one long 24-pounder, and four swivels; and had also abundance of small arms." The statements as to the battle of Copenhagen are equally incorrect. Thiers states, that we lost 1200 men killed and wounded, and that the loss of the Danes was not much greater; but the loss of the British really amounted to 234 killed and 644 wounded, in all 878; while the loss of the Danes, according to Brenton, was double. thus Pitt is an "homme d'état peu éclairé," "obstinate, but not enlightened," "with more passion than understanding," "who made the war with France his glory, the very pivot of his existence.' What inconceivable ignorance, or what unblushing prejudice and misrepresentation are here! Bernadotte, as every one knows, was a person of the most solid understanding and one of the clearest heads in France. He was not only a great administrator, but a great general, and the tact and discretion with which he filled a throne to the last, disposes of the hasty accusation now, for the first time, made against him. As to Moreau, he was undoubtedly the greatest tactician and strategist that the wars of the Revolution produced. The victor of Hohenlinden was also superior in literary attainments to every one of Napoleon's generals, having, in early life, received a superior education, and being, in his eighteenth year, a distinguished pupil of the Ecole de Droit of Rennes in Brittany. In government, Moreau was never tried, but there is no reason to suppose that his reflective, calculating, and methodical spirit would not have raised him to a high rank in the administration of civil affairs. As to the statement, that Pitt had this rabid disposition for war, never was there a greater calumny. The Duke of Bassano bore testimony to the peaceful disposition of Pitt in 1793; and we know, from other sources, that so anxious was he for peace that he had given directions to surrender Ceylon rather than break off the negotiations. Lord Malmesbury, in every page of his recently published correspondence, attests the peaceful efforts and perfect sincerity of Pitt; and we must say, it requires a more than ordinary-an ex-French minister's share of audacity and hardihood to assert that Pitt only desired war, whilst Napoleon was anxious for peace. The war undertaken by Mr. Pitt, before Napoleon became a prominent actor on the political stage, was a war of inevitable necessity; and it was in the prospect and in the hope of peace, which he greatly desired, that Mr. Pitt resigned office in March 1801. We by no means deny that M. Thiers gives not only a bold but a brilliant outline of the wonderful character which occupies the foreground of his picture, for he, in fact, does so. His colouring is at once brilliant and varied, but is sometimes too thickly laid on, and distributed without a due attention to light and shade. M. Thiers is always a Frenchman of the Buonaparte school, and his work is, therefore, rather a perpetual panegyric than a history-it is the apotheosis of Napoleon, and not a sincere or solemn judgment on the man. All who were Napoleon's friends or admirers-all who were actuated by the idem relle et idem wolle of the great conqueror are praised and admired by M. Thiers, while the men who either thwarted or opposed him are decried and depreciated. Thus, Bernadotte and Moreau are both esprits mediocres ; The sketches of the statesmen and generals who aided Napoleon by their talents or the sharper service of their swords are, for the most part, striking likenesses. The portraits of Talleyrand and Fouché are exquisitely drawn, but little justice is done to either the one or the other in the inelegant translation of Mr. Campbell. The sketches of Kleber and Dessaix are, indeed, most eloquent morsels, but the former is disfigured by some gasconading trash about the "conquest of the world." This is silly stuff in the mouth of any man, but criminal in a deputy again aspiring to the place of president of the council. Such nauseous Hectoring can only be properly described by the words of Sosie in the Amphi tryon of Molière: "C'est pure fanfaronnerie Et ce n'est pas en user bien." There are one or two more topics on which we would offer a remark ere we conclude. There is no subject on which M. Thiers displays more malevolence, and ignorance, and misrepresentations, than on the right of belligerents to search neutral vessels; but, as we have treated this branch of the question in an article on the "Right of Search," in the pages of this Magazine for April 1842, it will only be necessary to refer our readers to page 453 of that volume. As to what is to be the extent of the catalogue of contraband, it would be impossible to discuss a subject of such magnitude and such minute detail within the compass of a magazine article; but the best opinions and the most received legal practice concur, that all direct instruments of war-that hemp, pitch, tar, spar, and all ship-building materials, are contraband, if carried to an enemy of Great Britain, so that the materials of hostile fleets are liable to be always considered as contraband where not protected by particular convention. Grotius's dis tinction of goods into three kinds, has been adopted by most subse quent writers; and all the authori ties, even Vattel himself, are against the views of M. Thiers, which are not merely incorrect, but disinge nuous. There are many other points on which we might remark, but we are obliged to hold our pen. In the third volume there is a serious error in talking of Novosilzoff and Adanı Czartosisky as being young men of the same age as the Emperor Alexander. Novosilzoff, whom we well knew, both in Germany, Poland, and Rus sia, was at least fifteen, and we firmly believe, twenty years older than Alexander; and Prince Adam Czartosisky was seven years older than the Czar. M. Thiers also commits deliberately wilful error in intimating that Napoleon adopted the intention and purposes of the first Revolution, whereas the direct reverse is the fact. On the whole, these volumes are clearly and eloquently written. The style is at once facile and flowing-occasionally brilliant and vigo sometimes pathetic and often dramatic in the highest degree; but the work is neither deep nor profound, and it contains little or nothing that is new. It is the produc tion of a brilliant Buonapartist partisan, who would again set the world in a blaze for what is most sillily called the glory of France. THE MOURNER AND THE COMFORTER. It was a lovely day in the month of August, and the sun, which had shone with undiminished splendour from the moment of dawn, was now slowly declining, with that rich and prolonged glow with which it seems especially to linger around those scenes where it seldomest finds admittance. For it was a valley in the north of Scotland into which its light was streaming, and many a craggy top and rugged side, rarely seen without their cap of clouds or shroud of mist, were now throwing their mellowtinted forms, clear and soft, into a lake of unusual stillness. High above the lake, and commanding a full view of that and of the surrounding hills, stood one of those countryfied hotels not unfrequently met with on a tourist's route, formerly only designed for the lonely traveller or weary huntsman, but which now, with the view to accommodate the swarm of visitors which every summer increased, had gone on stretching its cords and enlarging its boundaries, till the original tenement looked merely like the sced from which the rest had sprung. Nor, even under these circumstances, did the house admit of much of the luxury of privacy; for, though the dormitories lay thick and close along the narrow corridor, all accommodation for the day was limited to two large and long rooms, one above the other, which fronted the lake. Of these, the lower one was given up to pedestrian travellers,-the sturdy, sunburnt shooters of the moors, who arrive with weary limbs and voracious appetites, and question no accommodation which gives them food and shelter; while the upper one was the resort of ladies and family parties, and was furnished with a low balcony, now covered with a rough awning. Both these rooms, on the day we mention, were filled with numerous guests. Touring was at its height, and shooting had begun; and, while a party of wayworn young men, coarsely clad and thickly shod, were lying on the benches, or lolling out of the windows of the lower apartment, a number of travelling parties VOL. XXXI. NO. CLXXXV. were clustered in distinct groups in the room above; some lingering round their tea-tables, whilst others sat on the balcony, and seemed attentively watching the evolutions of a small boat, the sole object on the lake before them. It is pleasant to watch the actions, however insignificant they may be, of a distant group; to see the hand obey without hearing the voice that has bidden; to guess at their inward motives by their outward movements; to make theories of their intentions, and try to follow them out in their actions; and, as at a pantomime, to tell the drift of the piece by dumb show alone. And it is an idle practice too, and one especially made for the weary or the listless traveller, giving them amusement without thought, and occupation without trouble; for people who have had their powers of attention fatigued by incessant exertion, or weakened by constant novelty, are glad to settle it upon the merest trifle at last. So the loungers on the balcony increased, and the little boat became a centre of general interest to those who apparently had not had one sympathy in common before. So calm and gliding was its motion, so refreshing the gentle air which played round it, that many an eye from the shore envied the party who were seated in it. These consisted of three individuals, two large figures and a little one. "It is Captain H and his little boy," said one voice, breaking silence; they arrived here yesterday." They'll be going to see the great waterfall," said another. 66 "They had best make haste about it; for they have a mile to walk uphill when they land," said a third. "Rather they than I," rejoined a languid fourth; and again there was a pause. Meanwhile the boat party seemed to be thinking little about the waterfall, or the need for expedition. For a few minutes the quickglancing play of the oars was seen, and then they ceased again; and now an arm was stretched out towards some distant object in the landscape, as if asking a question; and then the little fellow pointed M M |