and religion; and united to England, for years to come, in colonial dependency, and for ever by the ties of a common origin, tongue, and literature, of commercial intercourse and mutual benefit-if experience unites with argument to prove that this is possible, easy, certain can they reconcile it to their reason or their consciences to throw any obstacles in the way of the realization of a prospect so gratifying to humanity, of such an extension of the empire of civilization over the globe, of such an immense accession to the aggregate of human happiness and virtue, and of the multiplication of mankind in that form which must be most pleasing to the contemplation of the Creator, and which, of all the world has yet witnessed, appears least unworthy of representing the high and mysterious character of His Image? ་་ اور ART. IV. Fragments of Voyages and Travels, including Anecdotes of a Naval Life; chiefly for the use of young persons. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1831.. THE merits and demerits of this writer are so generally under stood and acknowledged, that we feel no temptation to introduce these little volumes with the pomp and circumstance of a regular critique. Captain Hall has lived in this world some forty years, and during eight-and-twenty of them he has been performing voyages and travels, keeping all the while copious journals, and therein recording his impressions fresh as they were stamped; and his method of working up these materials for the press is familiar to us all. That he has a keen, quick eye, voracious curiosity, restless activity, a gay temperament, and an upright, virtuous mind-no man who has perused his previous lucubrations can doubt. That he is apt to see one side of a thing so vividly as to forget that there is another side at all that his complete satisfaction with himself and everything about him, though unaccom panied with the slightest shade of cynicism, is too prominent not to move now and then a passing smile and that his sincerity cannot always excuse his dogmatism-are facts which his warmest admirers seem to admit. That he tells a story with clearness and energy describes manners and scenery with very considerable skill and effect-seizes the strong points of a moral or political question, in general, with ready shrewdness, and delivers his opinions on call subjects fairly and frankly-writes in a manly, unaffected style,erought but racy and makes us feel throughout that we are in the hands of a practical man, clever, humorous, kindhearted, who has read much, seen more, studied and enjoyed life C in in a hundred spheres and shapes, a staunch and ardent lover of his country, and in all respects a gentleman-these are statements to which we presume the Captain's bitterest political opponent would hardly refuse his imprimatur. He has been for some time past, on the whole, the most popular writer of travels in England; and we have no sort of doubt that his present work will find even wider acceptance than the last and best of its predecessors. The field is wider, the interest more various, and the execution, we think, even more lively. Here is, in truth, a fragment of a thing which has never before been attempted-and which we hope the gallant author will live to complete-a straightforward autobiography of a thorough-bred British sea-officer. Never did good book hang out a worse concocted title-page-but such is the fact. Captain Hall entered the navy, quite a boy, in 1803, and these three volumes bring down his career to the close of 1810, being, in short, the cream of seven years' letters and diaries of a midshipman and young lieutenant, who seems never to have been three days off duty all the while, and saw in the course of it almost every possible variety of service. The words on the title-page-' chiefly for the use of young persons,' are, perhaps, meant to apologise for the minuteness with which things, familiar to grown persons in the Captain's profession, are occasionally explained: but, judging from ourselves, it is exactly this minuteness that will give the book its chief value in the eyes of grown landsmen. The actual details of what passes on board a man-of-war were never described with half so much clearness as in these pages; and the man who has read them, before he opens Lord Collingwood's letters, Southey's Life of Nelson, or Beechey's Voyage, will have as essential an advantage over him who has not, as the student of one of Buonaparte's campaigns owes to the possession of a good map. The whole existence of the midshipman, in particular, is painted with exquisite truth, pith, and drollery;-honest Jack himself is exhibited in many an attitude, equally graphic and grotesque; and the different methods and systems adopted by superior officers, of different characters and dispositions, to maintain order and discipline, are touched to the life, and illustrated and commented on with a breadth and freedom of handling, which, delighting the uninitiated, will, peradventure, here and there startle and confound the adept. The Captain is, we need hardly tell any of our readers, an optimist-a veritable optimist, diametrically opposed in all his views and opinions to him whose creed is summed up in the famous 'conclusion,' que l'homme est fait pour vivre dans les convulsions de l'inquietude, ou dans la lethargie de l'ennui, Though he exposes and dissects, cruelly enough, certain errors into which naval commanders commanders are apt to fall, and severely criticises (of course without naming names) various Admiralty appointments of his time-he professes a thoroughgoing admiration of the general system on which our naval service has been conducted; and his enthusiasm about the charms of sea-life, in every rank, and in all sorts of duty, is supreme. According to him, there is no profession in which a man may, if he pleases, find more uniformly and constantly the means of keeping his mind active-and his heart contented. Three things only are necessary-that he should enter the service very early, and bring a boy's indifference as to what is called roughing it into those mysterious regions, redolent of muttonfat and salmagundi, which still continue to be as they were in the days of Dr. Morgan :—that he should form a distinct resolution to understand his business, in which case he will always have more than enough of reading to occupy the hours he is not on duty: and thirdly, which is the captain's own golden rule, that he should consider it as a point of real obligation, 'very stuff o' the conscience,' to carry with him, wherever he goes, a predisposition to see things on the fair side. Captain Hall frankly confesses, that this last rule is easier of observance when one has been successful at the outset and gives us to understand that he attributes the better part of his own philosophy in manhood to a single happy accident that befel him, the first year he was afloat; but he is nevertheless of opinion, that contentment is a virtue, which ought to be, and may be cultivated, under all circumstances; and delivers it, as the result of thirty years experience among naval men, that he who, being in quest of Dame Fortune's favour, wears a frown on his brow, has a sorry chance. The answer that will be given to the philosophical post-captain from many quarters is obvious enough. L'homme riche, quand il à bien diné, voit tout le monde heureux. It is all very natural in Captain Hall to speak thus-it would be wonderful if he spoke otherwise. He was the son of a wealthy baronet, M.P., P.R.Š.E., &c., &c., and the nephew of a peer who filled a large space in the eye of the country-he entered the navy under the best possible auspices, and succeeded accordingly-that is to say, better than ninety-nine men out of one hundred, endowed with equal talents and industry, could ever have had much chance of doing. This sounds well-but look to facts. Of the names that have actually won high distinction, either personal or official, in these days, in the British navy, how many belong, after all, to what you call the aristocracy? Who was Nelson, or Duncan, or Jervis ?-who was Collingwood-who was Hardy-who were Parry, Franklin, Beechey? But Captain Hall takes the bull by the horns in a L 2 style style so characteristically open and uncompromising, that we must let him speak for himself. It is perhaps no paradox to assert, that the more an officer depends upon pure favour for his early advancement, if he be a right-minded person, the more strongly will he feel the necessity of shewing, by his future exertions, that such patronage has not been ill bestowed. Generally speaking, I think it is observable in the service, that officers who are the most certain of getting on, are also among the most earnest in their endeavours to justify, as far as depends upon themselves, those acts of distinction by which they have been, and are still to be put before older men, perhaps no less worthy of promotion. 9dThe opinion will hardly be contraverted, that persons who are the most gentlemanlike in their habits of thought, in sentiment; and in manners-supposing their talents and opportunities alike-generally speaking, make the best officers; and it is this, amongst many other reasons, which renders it of so much consequence to the well-being of the navy, and to the maintenance of its high tone both of feeling and of action-that we should encourage men of family to enter the navy. Quite as good blood, for the ordinary purposes of daily business, might be found in profusion in the other walks of society. But what is indispensably required in the naval profession, above all others, if its present lofty station is to be preserved,-is not alone great mental powers, or zeal, or industry, or experience, or even all these combined to any conceivable amount, but the essential spirit, if I may so term it, of a gentleman. This quality must, by some means or other, be made to predominate. Many of the most important duties of a naval officer are, and ever must be, performed without witnesses, and often beyond the reach of scrutiny. Besides, the power necessarily placed in an officer's hands-particularly in the higher walks-— is of such a nature, that unless it be regulated by the principles which form the distinguishing features in the character of a gentleman, it is apt to degenerate into tyranny. It would be easy to point out innumerable occasions upon which, unless officers were controlled by this curious and almost magical influence, this innate sense of honour, which is equally true to every climate, and to every possible variety of incident that can arise, in the endless complications and embarrassments of a naval life,this service, now so elevated in its rank in the world, would inevitably decline. The country would discover the evils of this fatal deterioration in its moments of need, but, probably, not till it was too late for reparation. I have often heard it scornfully asked, when these views have been advanced, Are no gentlemen to be found beyond the pale of the higher classes? and if they are, why push men of rank forward in the service, as we see done every day, with such manifest injustice to older officers, and equally good men?" I think the answer most easy. There are, no doubt, to be found many gentlemen as sound and true out of the aristocracy, as if their blood were derived from that of tall the Howards;" but it becomes a question, bearing directly upon the purpose 9 pre purpose in hand, to determine in what proportion, and for how long a time, the true gentlemanlike spirit above alluded to, actually existing in the country in those ranks of society which are not of the aristocracy, would continue to exist in its genuine and practically useful purity, if the aristocratical classes of the community were, destroyed, or their means of influencing the rest of the nation essentially diminished? It is they, and they alone, who can give a right tone to manners, by setting the fashion in everything which is true in principle, or practically wise in morals and in politics, and by encouraging science, letters, and the fine arts, or otherwise contributing to soften the asperities of vulgar life. This is the true intent and purpose of al powerful aristocracy; and if its obligations be duly fulfilled, its members execute a task not only of the highest possible utility to the country, but one which, for many reasons, no other class has the means even of attempting to perform; and I am persuaded, that cisely what the aristocracy, does, on the great scale, for the community at large, in maintaining at a high level the pure standard of national manners, the introduction of a proportionate number of persons of good family into the Navy does for that service in particular. -“ But," I have heard it said, "why not put matters in this respect on a fair and equitable footing? If this sprinkling of the aristocracy do good, as you say it does, to the spirit of the navy, why not let men of family enter the field on equal terms with the rest, and so take their chance along with men of humbler birth?" The simplest answer to this appears to be, that as there is no method by which such persons >can be impressed into the service, we must of necessity enter into some tacit kind of compromise, and agree to take them upon the best terms for which we can enlist them as volunteers. It seems clear that unless they were certain, or next to certain, of getting on, shortly after becoming eligible to the different ranks, such persons would. speedily cease to exist in the navy at all. + 6.66 uf Those who object to this system are very much mistaken, however, if they suppose that, because the young men in question are promoted sooner than their companions, they are, at any stage of the profession, exempted, even in the slightest degree, from all its pains and penalties in the event of error, or that they are permitted to do their duty one whit more negligently than their less fortunate companions.There is no such thing as a privileged class in the navy; all ranks and orders are alike in respect to the discipline. It certainly is true, and most important to remark, that, in practice, these gentlemen get into fewer scrapes than others. This, however, I have always considered to arise from the extreme pain which a well-bred man feels on receiving just censure, and also from that habitual delicacy of mind, which it is one of the chief points of good manners to teach. ཟླ་༣[ས༎ Vass It may be said that men of family enter the navy, like others, at so young an age, that they cannot have acquired those manners and habits of thought which give to their class on shore the useful ascendency it has acquired in such matters. That this is a mistake, I think all who |