expected from them, which must arise from the remissness of the officers, or insufficiency of the workmen, or both; and being determined, as far as in them lies, to remedy the same, do judge it expedient forthwith to visit all his Majesty's dock and rope-yards, to examine into the ability and conduct of the officers, the sufficiency of the workmen, the condition of the ships and magazines, together with what works are carrying on, that such reformation, may be made as shall be found needful to prevent any unnecessary expenditure of the public money, to see that the several rules and orders for the government of the yards are duly carried into execution, that the ships of the Royal Navy be kept in constant condition for service, and that the money granted for keeping up the same be frugally expended; and that the Comptroller of the Navy do attend thein in their visitation."

In the minutes of their proceedings it appears that they found the men generally idle, the officers ignorant, the stores ill arranged, abuses of all kinds overlooked, the timber ill assorted, that which was longest in store being undermost, the standing orders neglected, the ships in ordinary in a very dirty and bad condition, filled with women and children, and that the officers of the yard had not visited them, which it was their duty to do; that men were found, borne and paid as officers, who had never done duty as such, for which their Lordships reprimanded the Navy Board, through the Comptroller; that the store-keeper's accounts were many years in arrear, and, what was most extraordinary, that the Navy Board had never required them;-in short, gross negligence, irregularities, waste, and embezzlement were so palpable, that their Lordships ordered an advertisement to be set up in various parts of all the yards, offering encouragement and protection to such as should discover any misdemeanours, committed either by the officers or workmen ; particularly in employing workmen or labourers on their private affairs, or any other abuse whatever.

Every thing, in short, appeared to be left to the Resident Commissioner, who, on his part, left all matters to the principal, and they to the inferior officers. The members of the Navy Board seem to have given themselves no trouble about the dock-yards. Captain (afterwards Admiral) Savage Mostyn, the Comptroller of the Navy, must have felt himself in rather an awkward position while the enquiry was going on, and at the public notice, above mentioned, being stuck up in the yards. In future years, when Lord Sandwich was again First Lord of the Admiralty, he caused frequent visitations to be made, and left a record of them in the Admiralty Office, as an inducement for subsequent boards to pursue the same practice, which was partially followed by Lord Howe, Lord Spencer, Lord St Vincent, and is continued to the present time. From these visitations much good has resulted, many abuses have been corrected, and a vast expenditure of money and stores saved to the public.'-P. 213.

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Sir John adds, in a note, that

Sir Edward Hawke, in 1770 (then First Lord of the Admiralty), being dissatisfied with the reports he received from the surveyor of the Navy and the dock-yards, procured an order in Council which directed that, in future, his Majesty's ships and dock-yards should be inspected by the Board of Admiralty once every two years :-they are now visited annually.'

No naval officer could have been chosen more fitted for the vacant station than Lord Anson; he having, in fact, carried on the duties of the First Lord during the preceding five years. In point of talent and energy,' adds our author, he might, perhaps be considered inferior to Lord Sandwich; but by much his superior in professional knowledge and sound judgment in 'naval concerns, as was frequently acknowledged by his Lord'ship.'

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We confess that we were not aware before, how considerable a share Anson took in public affairs; nor how much of the naval successes by which England was distinguished in those days, is directly due to his skill, perseverance, and professional knowledge. In nothing, however, is that professional knowledge more remarkable than in his penetration in discovering talents in others; and bringing forward valuable officers. His opportunities for learning the characters of the persons under him must have been great, on his South Sea voyage; and, accordingly, we also read, with an uncommon degree of interest, the same names, figuring as captains, commodores, and admirals, with whom we had made acquaintance as lieutenants and midshipmen in the voyage round the world'-a voyage which is still about the most delightful of any with which we are acquainted; and we believe, has sent more young fellows to sea, than even the renowned Robinson Crusoe'!

In considering the manner, however, in which Anson stood by his officers, we are naturally led to enquire how it happened that he who appointed the unfortunate Byng, should not have interposed, effectually, to save that brave officer from a fate at once so shocking to humanity, and so entirely unjust; even had it been -which we must ever think it was not-within the strict letter of any technical law. It is truly astonishing that the individual share which Anson had in this tragedy has baffled the enquiry of his indefatigable biographer. Not a scrap of paper either from Anson or him, as we understand, has been discovered which throws light upon the matter; not a word of it is to be found in Lady Anson's voluminous correspondence, if that can be called correspondence, which is all on one side.

Anson, it is true, resigned, along with the Duke of Newcastle, and Pitt, and with the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, his father-inlaw, in consequence of the outcry about Byng, and the determination of the country, right or wrong, to have his blood. But, although this resignation may have been perfectly proper, and under the circumstances was probably quite inevitable, and although it removed Anson from that position in which his power

to save Byng was at its maximum, to one in which his influence was at the lowest point; still we can by no means excuse him for not standing by his own officer-an officer whom he had appointed to the command in which, if he did not succeed, he certainly did nothing worthy of death. If this were so-as we believe all men, professional and otherwise, are now pretty well agreed upon-we must even think that Anson, if he could do nothing in the king's closet, or could not move the ministry, ought to have stepped boldly forward in his place in the House of Lords; and, at all hazards, have interposed himself between poor Byng and the senseless fury of the multitude.

This view of the matter recalls to our minds the noble conduct of that excellent officer, Sir John Colpoys, who, when the mutineers on board the London, exasperated to the highest pitch of fury against one of his officers who had fired on the crew, were hurrying him to the yard-arm, ran forward, and, taking the rope from the young man's neck, insisted that, if any one was to be hanged, it was he himself who had given the orders, and not Lieutenant Bover, who had merely obeyed them.* We do not, of course, say that the cases are strictly parallel; but we firmly believe that, if Anson had made the case of Byng his own so far as to insist upon himself being impeached, rather than that Byng should be shot, this terrible stain upon the justice of the country would have been saved.

For the rest, we think we may safely say, that of the numberless accounts of Admiral Byng's story, there is none extant which

*We regret that our space does not admit of giving an admirable letter, written by John Fleming, one of the delegates, or leaders of the mutiny on board the London, about this business of Lieutenant Bover, and which Sir John Barrow, with great propriety and good feeling, has given at length in his Preface, p. xxii. It sets honest Johnny' very high; and, considering the irritation and other inflammatory circumstances under which it was written, is certainly a most extraordinary document to have come at such a time from such a quarter.

ᎥᏝ

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Read this letter,' says Sir John Barrow, written the day after the blood of the writer's messmates had been shed, and then say whether such men as Joyce and Fleming, delegates as they were, and mutineers, you will, are not an honour to human nature; and who will doubt that there are thousands among our brave seamen possessing kindred feelings.' (Preface, p. xxii.) Sir John writes on a subject with which he is well acquainted; and we take the opportunity of adding, that we know of no page in our naval history which throws more light on the singular character of our naval seamen than the painful one of the great mutiny at Spithead. It has often been our agreeable fortune to witness these characteristics of moderation and good feeling, no less highly developed on occasions when no one need have blushed for his countrymen.

is written with more clearness, and more fairness, than that by Sir John Barrow, or which gives us so complete an insight into those official details upon which the merits of such a question very often turn.

Every one who has read Walpole's letters-and who has not? must have seen what he says of Voltaire's interference, or rather, as it appears his intended interference, in order to serve Byng, by sending to that officer, when his trial was going on, a letter, which he (Voltaire) had received from the Marechal Duke of Richelieu. Sir John Barrow publishes both letters, though he thinks they never reached Byng's hands, as there was no mention of them at the trial; and he has sought for them in vain amongst the papers of the Byng family- those at the State Paper and Record Office, as well as those of Lord Hardwicke, at Wimpolenor are these curious letters to be found in the daily papers of the day. At last they were discovered in the Gentleman's Ma'gazine,' from which they are reprinted in this volume, p. 275. They are curiosities in their way; but, we imagine, they would have done Byng no good had they been read at the Court-Martial. We strongly suspect that Voltaire got up the correspondence with a view to effect—and, perhaps, as a 'pendant' to his well-known sarcasm on the object of this execution being 'pour encourager 'les autres.' Sir John Barrow ingeniously gives a new direction to Voltaire's satire, by maintaining that Byng's fate' did really encourage the others, by rousing naval officers to a higher 'sense of responsibility, and to that spirit and enterprise, revived ' under an indignant feeling of the sacrifice to popular clamour.' The interest of the seventh chapter, which relates to the expeditions to the coast of France in 1757 and 1758, has been forestalled by Sir John's previous life of Howe-but Anson's share in these matters is so fully developed, that we think it worthy of careful study by professional men.

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The busy and successful campaign of 1759 is next described; and Sir John Barrow's address, in pressing into the service of his hero all sort of topics of interest is here very conspicuous; for we read not only about Anson, but of the old stories of Wolfe at Quebec, and of the action in which

Our Hawke did bang
Monsieur Conflans.'

of Sydney attacking Havre-of Boscawen defeating M. de la Clue-and of Pocock driving away the French fleet in India, just as if they were events we had never heard before. Not much less

interesting is the last chapter, giving an account of the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, and the quarrel with Spain. This chapter is remarkable, from its containing one of the very few samples of Anson's letters. He is describing his wife's illness; and, after attempting to report what the doctors said, he adds, in a style both of thought and expression very characteristic of the man:- I don't understand their jargon, and always feel when I • have any of them in my house as I always did when I had a ⚫ pilot; being ignorant myself, I always doubted whether my pilot knew as much as he ought to do; but in both cases, there is ⚫ nothing else to trust to."

Sir John Barrow frequently alludes to the difficulty he has had in writing the life of a man of whom so little remains under his own hand;-even of familiar letters, which generally form the staple commodity of biography. To this was added the analogous circumstance of Lord Anson's silence both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords. With all these drawbacks, however, his biographer-chiefly from the extent and variety of his own knowledge, historical, official, and professional -has not only written a most interesting volume, but added essentially to the naval department of our literature.

The following masterly comparison between Anson and Howe, is not a mere piece of ingenious composition, but a useful portraiture of two officers well worthy of being examined in juxtaposition.

On every consideration it appeared to me desirable, that the name of Anson should no longer want a place in the naval biography of Great Britain; and, having ascertained that materials, to a certain extent, were to be found for the purpose, I ventured to undertake it; and I am not sure that in doing so the similarity, real or fancied, between the circumstances and characters of Anson and Howe might not have had its share in stimulating me to the attempt. The parallel might run thus :—each of those distinguished officers entered the naval service without a prospect of early promotion from any great interest or hope of patronage; the success of both appears to have been owing to constant service and strict attention to their duties, which rarely fail; at the period in question, when the lists were not so swelled as now, young men like these were sure to succeed. Howe rose to the flag at the age of forty-five; Anson at fortyseven. Both attained to the highest honours of the profession; both were raised to the peerage; and both were placed at the head of the naval administration. And it may be noticed, as one among the numerous instances of Anson's discriminating faculty in the character of naval officers, that to him, and his recommendation to Mr Pitt, Howe, while a to the coast of France in the Seven Years' War. captain, was indebted for the distinguished command of the expeditions

The moral and physical character of these two officers was very sipersonal qualities and constitution of mind were common

milar.

The same