boat which had put off from the town. She afforded us, however, an opportunity of learning some tidings about the privateers, the cause of our harassing night watches.

"We learnt from the Spaniard that the battery on the beach was manned with only thirty men, the rest of the privateers' crews having taken up their quarters in the town, deeming the battery sufficiently strong with that number to resist any attack we could make. He, however, added, that the castle was manned with twenty men, whose assistance, in case of a surprise, would be available; and after repeatedly assuring us the French had retired from the quarter, we allowed him to depart without further molestation."

"And did you dare to attack these odds with your boat's crew of seven men?" I ventured to remark.

"Wait a little," said the old mariner, his quiet manner strongly contrasting with the daring action he was relating. "As soon as the Spanish boat left us and was fairly out of sight, we held a council of war, and we did agree to attempt the battery on the beach by surprise, and if successful, either to carry off the privateers or burn them, and so end the boat duty.

"Well, having once resolved upon the attack, we did not allow our resolutions time to cool, but set about putting our plan in execution immediately; and relying upon the tried courage and steadiness of the boat's crew, our daring young midshipman, about 10 o'clock at night ran the boat ashore, and landed our little band at a place about three miles to the westward of the town.

"Leaving the boat upon the beach, we pushed on eagerly, but we were soon brought up, all standing, by a challenge from a French sentinel. We thought we were fairly trapped, and that the Spaniard had deceived us; but the presence of mind of the midshipman saved us: he instantly replied to the challenge, in Spanish, that we were peasants returning to the town. Now if the French soldier had advanced a dozen yards further towards us, we should have been discovered; but the readiness with which the answer was given was so natural, that it excited no suspicion; moreover, it was an answer which he received almost every hour of his watch, as the peasantry were constantly passing to and fro. But perhaps the very last event likely to enter his mind at that moment was the very one actually taking place; for it is barely possible to imagine an act of greater rashness than seven men and a young stripling of a midshipman attempting to carry a battery mounting six guns, and manned by at least thirty men. Our rashness, therefore, may be said, up to this time, to have been the cause of our safety; and so, favoured by these circumstances and the indistinct light of the night, we were without further hindrance allowed to advance.

Keeping the sea-shore in view, we proceeded cautiously to the battery, and arrived there in about an hour; and reconnoitring for a few minutes, we found that the Spaniard had told the truth. It was evident the crews of the privateers fancied themselves secure from harm, and hugging this belief, became careless, as many points of the battery were left undefended; and, after adjusting our arms for the attack, we unexpectedly rushed upon them from different directions, and surprised by the suddenness of our assault, and ignorant of our numbers, they soon left the battery in our possession.

"We were allowed to retain it but a short time; for the noise of our firing drew down upon us the attention of a party of two hundred French soldiers, who soon surrounded us, but as they had no information of our numbers, except the imperfect report of the runaway garrison, they acted with a caution in their approaches that raised a smile upon the face of the young midshipman, who was giving his orders to repel them.

66

However, the French soldiers soon set upon us, and their overwhelming numbers gave them great advantage: we were but few opposed to many-faint to fresh, and of course unable to make any forcible resistance; but our wills were good, and so our arms being too weak for our hearts, we may be said to have been subdued rather than conquered. After holding the battery against the troops for an hour, it was not until one of our party was killed, the gallant midshipman shot through the eye, and all our ammunition expended, that the French were able to put a foot within the outworks; but the moment our firing ceased, they rushed upon us with their bayonets, and being too weak to stand a hand-to-hand fight against such numbers, we were obliged, after the midshipman had been stabbed in seventeen places, and every man severely wounded, to give up possession of the battery.

"As soon as the commander of the soldiers found he had been held at bay for upwards of an hour by seven men and a boy, it would have been difficult to detect whether he was more pleased than vexed-for vexed he certainly was- - at the trouble we had given him; but he was a man of a generous, noble disposition, and our conduct soon called from him the most unbounded praise, and by his orders the greatest care was shown to the wounded, assisting with his own hands to relieve our sufferings; and on the following morning he made his reports to General Goudin, the French officer who held the command in that quarter, and from him, as well as all the officers under him, we received the same benevolent treatment; and, not content with mere words, but wishing to show the high esteem in which he held our conduct, he sent a flag of truce to Captain Peyton of the Minstrel, inviting him to visit him on shore, and receive in person the congratulations of himself and the other French officers, on having such men under his command."

"And did your Captain accept the courtesy of the gallant Frenchman ?" I asked.

"He did,” replied the old man ; " on the following day he dined with General Goudin and all his officers, and was received on landing with full military honours; and after the dinner the General gave him back his midshipman, and six out of his seven men, making a speech fitting for the occasion. We were then carried by French troops in our wounded state through lines of French soldiers down to the boat on the beach, the soldiers presenting arms in honour to us as we passed; and thus, I may say," said the old tar, with some tinge of bitterness in his voice, "I received more sympathy and honourable treatment from the hands of the enemy than I did from my country,- for, as soon as my wounds were healed I was discharged as unfit for farther duty."

The remnant of the old mariner's tale is soon told; it consisted of one unvarying struggle with poverty. We have seen his country claim his services when he was young and active, and that he nobly

sustained the part assigned to him, in whose service he becomes a broken man, deprived of the inheritance he had received from God -health and strength. With these helpmates he might have toiled his way to comfort in his declining days; but at the peace he was thrust out upon the world with a stung heart and disabled body, to live or die as he best could, the paltry pittance which in its magnanimity the country gave him being about equivalent to a pauper's dole; yet, with a stout heart he fought against the ills of neglect and poverty, that proved him no common hero.

The war ended, he had to begin the world anew, to form new preferences, and, with blighted prospects, he became a fisherman in the neighbourhood of the place of our meeting. In this way he supported himself and the child of poor Phelan, who in its helplessness found a father in the old tar. How true it is, but for the poor the poor would perish! With scarcely a crust of his own, he taxed himself with finding nourishment for the child, to guard it from want, and to shield its infancy from the unnerving scrutiny of observation; and so it grew up in strength and vigour, until in its turn the child became the support of the man, the sole prop of the declining days of the benevolent mariner.

With varying success they toiled on together in their hazardous trade, the old man reaping the reward of his humanity in the protection given him by his adopted son, whose strength betokened an ability, and whose gratitude evinced a disposition to sustain him in his declining days. Their gains were attained by honest industry, and though small in bulk, were great in blessing, a divine benediction being always invisibly breathed on pains-taking and lawful diligence. All went well for a time, and the latter days of the old seaman, like unto Job's, promised to be happier than the first.

But fate had not yet done with him; by one of those accidents common to seafaring men, his adopted son was drowned while fishing. This last blow deprived him of his last stay and support; but he bore the loss meekly, and without complaint. "It is not the creaking spoke in the wheel which bears the greatest burden,” said he, and his muffled sorrow was more affecting than the choicest words. I felt that the world had borne hard upon the old man. However, his lot is the common lot of thousands; for it rarely happens that men in command fall short of their share of honour and rewards. Where many are compounded together in warlike undertakings, the leading figure makes ciphers of all the rest. Independent of this mode of classification there is also a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked before another, another filed before him. A nobility that owns no herald's college; and, endued with this spirit, the old mariner maintained erected resolutions, counting upon death as a good bargain, where he could not lose, but gain, by laying out his life to advantage; and thus he put on the boldest appearance in the lowest declination of his fortunes. Peace be with him in his dark hour! for he suffered greatly in the defence of the land.

A word to the " Gentlemen of England who live at home at ease." You cannot be ignorant that powerful rivals are striving to overmatch you on that element you fondly call your own. Think you

not there are many more old seamen along your coast who have similar tales of neglect and wrong to recount to younger mariners? Know you not there are thousands; and their warning voices perchance has influenced them to adopt a service in every respect opposed to your's, and may affect the manning of your ships at the present hour. Let the truth be told. Seamen will not enter the navy; they shirk it; it takes months in these times of peace, with a luxury of sailors, to man a ship of war. They prefer the American to the British marine; and why? because the pay is better, and the service made more palatable. This is not a flattering exponent of the spirit which your mariners bear towards the navy. Be wise in time; and remember that one decisive victory over a British fleet would be more destructive to you than the loss of a score of Waterloos; nay, your seamen have been so used to victory, that a drawn battle, ship for ship, and gun for gun, would be a triumph to your foe, and a defeat to you. You cannot afford to lower the prestige of your flag; if your seamen are not invincible, the world must not know it. There is policy in making the fox's skin piece out the

lion's hide.

You have lieutenants sufficient to man a stout fleet of line-of-battle ships on your half-pay list, and admirals and captains enough to officer all the navies in the world. Ships-noble ships you have in profusion; but seamen-the muscles and bones to put all these vast resources in motion are not to be found. The inference is plain. Jack feels himself neglected, and seeks employment where he is better treated. Be assured the seaman of the last war is an altered man; he is changed with the times; the thoughtless beings who fought so valiantly for you in the last war will not readily be found again. The days of frying watches and eating bank-notes between slices of bread and butter are gone, and are only remembered now as so much yarn.

Endeavour to make the service popular by increased pay, and comfort to the seaman; let him feel he is protected, and he will protect you; he will be, as he always has been, the van of your vanguard. Be wise in time, then, gentlemen of England, or peradventure the hazards of some future war may make it a difficult matter for you to live at home at ease.

TO JANET,

ON QUITTING THE VALE OF LLANGOLLEN.
BY LOUISA STUART COSTELLO.

WHY should I linger here with thee,
And, day by day, so idly fond,
Pause by each stream, beneath each tree,
Unmindful of the world beyond?
What life is this I dare to lead,

A life of sunshine and delight,-
Forgetting woes that must succeed,

And all the future's gloomy night! This heart was form'd for care alone, Although such moments well might please;

But all the pleasure I have known

Has been in snatches, such as these.

Yet we, who thus so lately met,
Drawn by our stars, at once were
dear,

Though mine is hastening to its set,

And thine is rising bright and clear.
Why should I lull this sinking heart,
And bid it cease to dream of pain?
'Tis better that I should depart,

Before it yield to hope-in vain.
Farewell!-thy genius and thy song

Shall cherish'd in my mem'ry be; But, lest regret should last too long, I may not linger here with thee!

THERE is not perhaps on earth a more simple woman than my aunt. She is one of those creatures who is born without guile, and who believes all the world is good, and made upon the square, like a pack of cards, and that the game of life is played with all trumps, holding it unkind to call any Jack a knave, and innocently reverencing kings and queens as so many honours. She is single, and singlehearted, with a snug little property, in which anybody with an ounce of brains might go partners, if it were not for her solicitor,— a house-dog who barks the wolves from her door. He, I believe, is the only one in whom she has not full faith; but she finds continual excuses for him, he being in the law, and forced to seize for rents, arrest people, and do other reprehensible acts.

Her good nature prompts her to believe that every woman with whom she is thrown into companionship is the sweetest of creatures, and every man under the same circumstances, as she expresses it, "a duck of diamonds." With the greatest stranger on the high road of life she makes acquaintance in a moment, by some innocent manœuvre, such as pointing out an untied shoe-string or boot-lace, or asking the way home that she had trodden for years. Her most legitimate way of scraping acquaintance is through children; she looks upon them as cherubs, opening hearts locked up by selfishness and mistrust. With what perseverance have I known her walk behind an impracticable mother, who was positively repellant to any