tion must have flashed on the minds of both the admiral and the captain of the fleet, at the same moment, that a most decided advantage might be taken of it; and we think it is obvious enough, as we have already said, that some short conversation would necessarily ensue as to the best mode of profiting by that contingency. It must be recollected that it was at the hottest part of the battle' when this opening was discovered, and when the Formidable was within half-musket shot' of the enemy's line. It was therefore amidst the incessant roar of the cannon that this conversation must have taken place, and might very well have been mistaken by the youthful bystanders, who alone are the reporters of it; but that Sir George Rodney was not unprepared for such a mode of attack must be quite obvious, from his having, two years before, when he engaged the French fleet off Martinico, stated in his official letter, that he gave notice, by public signal, that his intention was to attack the enemy's rear with his whole force.' That same ⚫ idea must have risen' on the present occasion;' and, on suggesting it, he might have observed to his captain, as Mr. Yorke says he did, that it was nevertheless a hazardous experiment ;' in this he would only agree with Le Père Paul Hoste. All we contend for is, that the extract which Sir Howard has produced tells more for Sir George Rodney than for Sir Charles Douglas; for we cannot persuade ourselves, from the unassuming character of Sir Charles, that he would have thus alluded to himself, as being the author of the decisive victory,' which he on all other occasions indignantly disavowed.

In conclusion, we cannot at all agree with Sir Howard Douglas, that there existed the least call upon him to guard the fame, either of his father or of Lord Rodney, by impugning or disproving the assertion made by Professor Playfair, some eight or ten years ago, that Clerk's system of naval tactics had suggested the most remarkable feature in the battle against De Grasse. We think it clear enough, that neither Rodney nor Douglas had heard of Clerk's views at that period. But if this had been otherwise→ what then? What honour, we would ask, has Lord Duncan lost by publicly avowing, as it is certain he always did, that he followed Clerk's suggestions in the battle of Camperdown?

Sir Charles Douglas's character and reputation as a gallant, highminded, intelligent, and skilful officer, has been too well established in the naval service, to be in the slightest degree affected by what the indiscreet friends of Mr. Clerk may have said, (and) they have said nothing that we know of in his dishonour,) in support of a system which must be allowed by all to have great merit, and to be a very wonderful performance for a landsman to have accomplished. Rodney was ever ready to speak of him in the highest

6

highest terms of praise. My own captain, Sir Charles Douglas,' says the admiral in his public despatch, merits everything I can possibly say; his unremitted diligence and activity greatly eased me in the unavoidable fatigue of the day.' He was also included, by name, though but a captain, in the vote of thanks of the two houses of parliament. In short, we believe Sir Charles Douglas to have been, as he is characterized by a brother officer in Charnock's Biographia Navalis, a very good, a very brave, and a very honest man.'

Ás to Lord Rodney, the reputation of such a man is public property, and as such will not want abler defenders than ourselves, who have taken up the case solely on this ground. His family, we think, may, in the meantime, rest satisfied that some better proof must be adduced, before such statements as those now brought forward by Sir Howard Douglas will affix any stain to the character of so brave and distinguished an officer, who fought four general actions as commander-in-chief, and took three admirals of the enemy from the fleets of three of the most powerful maritime nations of his time,-one French, one Dutch, and one Spanish. Let them console themselves with the reflection, humiliating as it is, that mankind are but too prone to endeavour to pull down to a lower level every man whose deeds stand pre-eminently conspicuous; let them recollect that the victories of Marlborough were ascribed to Cadogan; of Blucher, to Gneisenau; and of Wellington to Murray. No wonder, then, that the subordinate characters of the fleet, which conquered De Grasse, should have indulged in such theories as were rife at the lower end of almost every messtable through the Peninsular campaigns-and that with midshipmen of thirteen, however sagacious observers of mankind, however deep in naval tactics, and however accurately acquainted with the habits of order and subordination practised in his majesty's naval service, it should have been considered as quite certain, that Rodney would have been nobody without his Douglas. Nelson and Buonaparte, if we may be allowed to associate two such names, (and a parallel in the manner of Plutarch' might be drawn,) are, perhaps, the only two, in modern times, who have had no other shadows than their own-so true is it, that

Envy doth merit as its shade pursue,

And, like the shadow, proves the substance true.' Rodney's character, both public and private, though it did not escape calumny, passed successfully through the ordeal, and we have no doubt that the laurels, which have flourished on his tomb for eight-and-thirty years, will stand a more severe gale than a mere transient breeze, which, though it may have just ruffled their leaves, will pass away without leaving the smallest blight behind.

ART.

ART. IV.-Forest Scenes and Incidents in the Wilds of North America; being a Diary of a Winter's Route from Halifar to the Canadas, and during Four Months' Residence in the Woods on the borders of Lakes Huron and Simcoe. By George Head, Esq. London. Svo. 1829.

THE

HE Rough Notes' of Captain Head on his gallop across South America, are not more unlike ordinary travels than this Diary of a winter's journey in British America, and a summer residence in the woods there. The authors (if we mistake not) are brothers, and grandsons of Moses Mendez, well known among the men of letters of his day.

Mr. Head, being ordered to a station in Upper Canada, landed at Halifax in the latter end of November; the passage of the river St. Lawrence was already closed, and he had therefore to make his way thither over land, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles. The time of year could hardly have been worse for the journey though November is to the Nova Scotians their best month, so much so, indeed, as to be called, for its fresh frosty air and bright sun,' the Indian summer. There is an old proverb in our own country which prays for deliverance from Hull, Halifax, and one other place that may as well be nameless: it is no longer applicable to either of these English towns, but Mr. Head's account of the climate of Halifax in Nova Scotia brought the deprecative aspiration to our lips. The sun is powerful and oppressive in July and August; cold evenings in September, with frosts increasing in severity. October variable-with rough gales from the north-west, sweeping the frozen continent, and answering to our easterly winds. Then the Indian summer, in which, however, some days are close and foggy, others clear and intensely cold, and the temperature sometimes varying as much as forty degrees in four-and-twenty hours! December, the snow begins to lie, thermometer usually about twelve degrees below the freezing point. January, sometimes ten or fifteen below zero. Violent and frequent snow-storms in February. In March, clouds of hail and sleet sweep along the streets with a force hard to be withstood by man or beast. One day you have to wade through deep fresh snow, before night a fog sets in with a rapid thaw; heavy rain succeeds, and torrents of water and melting snow rush down the steep streets; the thick cake of ice which encrusts the ground is then laid bare; it cracks into fissures,' which form, as it were, the beds of little rivers, discharging the melted snow into the sea, and walking becomes even more disagreeable and dangerous than ever.' Hardly two days in April are alike. You have the varieties of deep and fresh snow, soft and sloppy, or covered with a crackling

crackling coat of ice; and the north-west wind rages with a violence against which only the young and active can make way. In May, the weather has but little improved; frequent snow mixes with mud, till the streets are like a bog, and would be considered, in any other part of the world, impassable. Weak constitutions are tried by keen, frosty winds, with a warm sun, as well as by the excessive variation of temperature; those who are subject to pulmonary attacks suffer considerably, but rheumatic people do not complain--rheumatism, which in England is more prevalent than any other disease, belonging rather to a damp climate than a severe one. In June, though the sun is powerful, summer has not yet arrived: floating ice islands infest the coast; in the hottest day the sea-wind drives before it a dense, chilling fog, like a moving pillar over the town, and the very eyes feel wet and cold.'

But if this be no land for the vine and the olive, the myrtle and the orange, there are few parts of the globe where earth and sea afford more abundant returns to industry and enterprise. Its numerous harbours are some of the finest in the world, and the climate itself, with all its rigour, brings with it some conveniences, and even some pleasures, to the inhabitants. Sleighing becomes the fashion in the town when the snow has been sufficiently trodden, as much to the delight of the sleighers as to the annoyance and danger of those who make their way on foot; and the young women in groupes of three or four, holding by each other's arms, slide down such declivities, that a stranger from Europe cannot behold them without alarm. The larder, too, is supplied at this season, for the winter.

Waggon loads of frozen pigs were exposed for sale, quite hard and stiff, and in a fit state to keep till the spring. They had an unusually uncouth appearance; for their mouths were generally open, and the last services seemed never to have been properly paid to the defunct. Their limbs were not arranged with decent regularity, and they appeared to have given up the ghost in the act of squalling, and at full gallop. Some were placed standing at the doors in the streets, like rocking-horses before a toyshop, upon their four legs, just as if they had been alive. This mode of keeping a pig for a winter without giving him a grain of any thing to eat, or being subject to his noisy, illmannerly conduct,-nay, to be enabled to eat him piecemeal without even the trouble of cutting his throat, is indisputably one advantage of a cold climate. But frozen meat, on the other hand, disappoints the epicure, being always tasteless and bad.'-pp. 16, 17.

It might appear from this statement, that frost is made to kill the pig as well as to preserve it!-a substitute for butchering, by which little would be gained on the score of humanity. Mr. Head hired a sleigh to take himself and his servant to Annapolis,

VOL. XLII. NO. LXXXIII.

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Annapolis, one hundred and thirty-two miles, for which he paid 201., and set off on the 8th December, glad to leave an uncomfortable and ill-conducted hotel. The snow lay above a foot deep, and was still falling heavily; it became 'slushy and soft,' on the third day's journey, in consequence of a thaw, with heavy rain; and on the fourth day he reached Annapolis after a journey which we might be disposed to call miserable, by the fireside, but which was luxurious in comparison with what he had afterwards to go through: for though the innkeepers, as in the United States, seemed to imagine, that by admitting a traveller they conferred a favour on him,' yet he found clean beds, glorious fires, and good fare, tea and beef-steaks to wit, with homemade cheese and cider, both of excellent quality. From Annapolis he proceeded twenty miles to Digby, finding the people as expert in making a knavish bargain for conveying him, as the most knowing horse jobbers in Switzerland. At Digby he had to wait first for the arrival of the packet from St. John's, and then for a fair wind to cross the bay of Fundy. His quarters were at a neat little inn some three miles from the town, that in the town itself, luckily for him, being full.

'The person who kept the house was a widow, from whom,' says he, I experienced extreme kindness and attention. Her daughters were well behaved and exceedingly pretty, and the house was managed altogether with such quiet regularity, that I blest my stars for the good fortune which had established me in such quarters during the uncertain period of my sojourn.

I had the pleasure of seeing what industry and good management could effect in the country; and a house more tidy and scrupulously clean I never entered in any part of the world I ever visited. I went to a large piece of water in the neighbourhood, where I amused myself by skating for a few hours before dinner, which was served in a room warmed by an excellent coal fire, and furnished with every sort of English comfort. My landlady was provided with preserved fruits of every description afforded by the soil, and these are sufficiently numerous. There are currants and raspberries, gooseberries, cranberries, strawberries, apples, pears, and quinces; and of these she was so liberal, that I could not satisfy her kind intentions. She pressed me to eat more of them; "for," said she, stirring my fire at the same time," you will be both cold and hungry before you arrive at Quebec." I thanked her heartily for her good-will.

I was led involuntarily to think favourably of a country, in a state of Georgic simplicity; where a man can build a house in a week; where, by the help of his gun and fishing implements, there is no chance of his starving; where, for five shillings an acre, good land may be purchased, capable of growing wheat, buckwheat, barley, oats, maize, rye, turnips, potatoes, &c. I had seen the facility with which the countrymen wielded the axe, and had been surprised by the