political freedom, but for that national independence, which is become synonymous with individual existence.

They cannot now be subdued without being destroyed; and the question is, how soon the conflict shall end, and how many of either party shall survive it. I do not ask compassion, the active compassion not of words, but of money, because they are Greeks, or patriots, or Christians; but because they are men, menaced at once with slaughter, disease, and famine. Their antagonists have a government to apply to, and countrymen who will relieve them; for, with all their errors, the doctrines of Mahomet render Mussulmans charitable towards each other. The Greeks have no earthly prospect of gratuitous and disinterested aid, but from the English public; for if we, to whom Providence has given the means, have lost, what we had, the taste for charity, where shall the unfortunate look for succor ?

Deputies are daily expected from Greece, and though they may fail of persuading our government to intercede in their favor, I trust their arrival will elicit some symptoms of interest which may encourage the Greeks in the pursuit of that freedom, which like the Swiss and the Dutch they must mainly owe to their own ex

ertions.

"If any one here can be severe on their foibles, when he gazes every day on the radiant intellect, the various but concentrated beams, that shine from every page of their fathers; when he hears every day that musical language which blends sweetness with variety of sound, exuberance with brevity, and comprehensiveness with precision; I implore him by all their fathers have taught us, by the wrongs of ages, and the sufferings of millions, by the sickness of hope deferred or disappointed still, to pity rather than condemn: may I not amidst the splendid rites of worship around me, invoke even the name of HIM, whose temples have been overthrown, and whose votaries have been slaughtered? May I not, in the very sanctuary of prayer, pray that the God of mercy may soon pity the wretched, the God of justice deliver the oppressed?"

To explain the allusions in this passage, I must add that it was part of a declamation, spoken in the October term of 1816, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. All the under-graduates in succession "declaim" in pairs, on the opposite sides of a subject which is left to their choice. 1 am not silly enough to rest my argument on a declamation, necessarily rhetorical and exaggerated. I know that arguments should, like vines, be stripped of their foliage, till they are all stalk and fruit, and that a pamphlet especially must be a knotted stumpy crab cudgel, and I do not pretend to hit with these splints of lath decked with flowers; but many people like words worked into filagree better than when wrought into weapons, and prefer chased gold to hammered iron. Besides, I was perplexed with all the papers that have subsided at length into this little pamphlet, like the massive materials that melt into a pint of scientific soup, or the gigantic genii, who wound himself in wreaths of smoke into a bottle; and I was glad to use materials ready hewn to my hand, at the risk of their looking like old rubbish to fill chinks. Fearfully are they changed in these naked lines of pica, from what they looked in the sheltering drapery of a manuscript's erasures and pothooks!

TO THE

RIGHT HON. LORD MELVILLE.

MY LORD,

HAVING your Lordship's permission to address you on the subject of British Seamen, I shall take a slight review of our Marine, since the commencement of the war, in 1793, to this time. I shall also try to fix your attention on the means of our retaining our rank of first maritime power; to which purpose it will be necessary to render ourselves equal to at least half, or three-fourths, of the maritime powers united: and the experience of the late American war must have convinced even those unacquainted with nautical affairs, that there is but one means of maintaining a decided superiority, and that is to have always a sufficient number of regularly bred seamen.

In 1793 we had the greatest number of regularly bred seamen we ever possessed, arising from a peace of ten years-a time almost requisite to form able seamen; at least it will be universally admitted that seven years are necessary for that purpose; and a much longer experience is indispensable to the formation of offi

cers.

At that time the fleets of our enemies were manned with many regularly bred seamen: also the first actions of the war were generally well contested by our enemies; but it was at that period when our ships were so well manned that our decided superiority became conspicuous, particularly after the victory of Nelson. The loss they sustained in seamen in that memorable engagement, combined with preceding defeats, destroyed the confidence of their men, and with it their pretensions to maritime power. But we must also date from that period the inattention to procure good seamen, arising from excess of security which was displayed in our own navy, with progressive effect, till the commencement of the American war, as well as the consequent disregard to the merchant service, both as to ships and men.

After this time, the Navigation Act also was not so particu larly attended to as it ought to have been, making every due allowance for the circumstances of the times. Hence originated the cause of so much foreign shipping having been employed by British subjects, which was in many instances unnecessarily done; and unfortunately this practice still exists to this day; thereby preventing the use of British shipping, and the rearing of British seamen. The allowing ships to run with small force and few men; say ten guns and fifteen men; whereas no ship ought to be allowed to run, in time of war, with less than sixteen guns, and from fifty to sixty men at least, constituted another cause of the decline of British seamen, and why so many were not comparatively reared as in the war of American independence. I knew one ship in that war to have had thirty-nine servants belonging to her; which had of course the effect of augmenting the number of seamen. At the commencement of the late American war, when we had to cope again with regular bred seamen, (to use a seaman's phrase, we were taken all aback,) it was then found that our ships, generally, were not manned; that our discipline had not been regularly attended to: in fact, that we had not regularly bred seamen to man half the ships of our navy. When I say this, I am well aware that the American ships in general were of a larger size, had more guns, heavier metal, and were manned with seamen; yet we had some instances where the only difference was, their being manned with regular bred seamen: but to those advantages we certainly ought to have opposed superior talent for command and greater expertness of discipline; whereas this does not generally appear to have been the case. It proves what I have advanced to your Lordship, viz. that the character of a seaman is peculiar to himself, formed from early youth; and it will ever raise him superior to other men, while acting on his peculiar element.

After twenty-two years war, when we ought to have to boast (if proper methods had been adopted) of having a greater number of regular bred seamen than this country ever before possessed, there never were fewer for the last sixty years than at the present time. The cause, there is no doubt, arises from the improper mode of impress, which is attended with the most wanton insults, both to officers and men of merchants' ships, through the improper conduct of your officers sent on that service, and of those to whom they too often intrust it, who are, generally speaking, the refuse of mankind. This irritates the minds of men; and impresses on the minds of our youth an aversion to our naval service, which is seldom ever after eradicated. Both officers and men are torn, with such wanton disregard, from their ships, that the latter are left without help to aid them into port; and when help is procured, it is frequently at a great expense to the owner. Hence the decided

preference, in all foreign voyages, which is given to foreigners over Englishnien, as men or apprentices.

Another cause of the evil, to which I have directed your Lordship's attention is, that, in the war just terminated, the navy was more divided than at any former period, from the merchants' service; in consequence of which distinction, few, if any, brought up in the latter, could have any hopes of advancing in the former. The view of this subject fully, in all its bearings, I know will never be listened to by naval men: however, when France shall have acquired regularly bred seamen once more, and America a small navy, and a junction be effected between both, then the acknowlegement will be made, when it shall be perhaps too late, that the superiority of your navy must arise from the merchants' service. As that period must sooner or later arrive, some regulations ought to be made which give seamen a chance of promotion, as they are more likely to prove efficient officers, than the generality of navybred officers are to become seamen. That it is too general a doctrine in the navy, that a man may be a good officer and not a good seaman, cannot be denied: that a man may perform as an officer certain duties under the command of another, I can easily conceive; but that any man is fit to command a ship, or manage a ship's company of seamen, who is not a seaman, I most resolutely deny. The person exercising command should have no superior in that knowlege which is the first point of his profession, and on which his own judgment ought to decide; and this applies particu larly to seamen, who, of all other men most despise their superior when he is deficient in professional skill.

Having had some opportunities through life to form a judgment of the education given to young men trained for the navy, I am sorry to say, few are taught the real duties and requisites of an officer, and few indeed the real duties and tactics of seamanship. This was fully exemplified in the general mutiny, when, to the best of my remembrance, I only read of one solitary instance of an officer having performed his duty under such grave circumstances. This will appear almost incredible, but I believe it to be the fact.

I do not think, my Lord, that, with the present ideas of seamen, any mode for raising men for the navy without impress can be immediately adopted; particularly at the commencement of a war, or in a certain emergency, although I have no doubt but it may be brought about in the course of time, by properly training the minds of our youth following the sea. Registering-men by tonnage and giving a pension-three plans proposed before this time to do away the impress-all have their good points: yet as the welfare of this country depends on her maritime power, and as there is a rising state consisting of people the same as ourselves, having all the hardihood and enterprise of Britons, it becomes more than