blood,-(that blood which never circulates freely but when taking or pillaging,)-by risking the most splendid fortunes on a single cast of the die. Brummell was neither more nor less a gamester than the others who moved in this charming pandemonium, and he lost immense sums with that indifference which, on such occasions, is to the dandy what grace in falling was to the dying gladiator of Rome. But his associates could better afford their losses; and he, though cool and clever, could do nothing against his luck. In 1814 the foreign potentates arrived in London: their appearance inflamed the gambling mania. This was a disastrous moment for Brummell. He grew savage with fate, and was beaten; he applied to the Jews, and was swamped. It is said, but not ascertained, that he compromised his character on this occasion; and he had, unfortunately, the dangerous power of dignifying a base action by the manner of doing it. At last, however, the hour in which a man is as nothing to any one else, the hour of misfortune, arrived. His ruin was consummated; he knew it: with dandy apathy he had calculated, watch in hand, the time that he ought to remain on the field of battle, the theatre of the most wonderful social success that a man of the world ever had, and he determined to show no humiliation at the close of his career. On the 6th of May, 1816, after dining on a fowl from Watier's, and drinking a bottle of bordeaux, Brummell wrote hastily and hopelessly the following note to his friend, Scrope Davies : "MY DEAR SCROPE, "Lend me 2001. The banks are shut, and all my money is in the 3 per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning. "Yours, "GEORGE Brummell." The reply was Spartan in brevity and friendship:— "It is very unfortunate, but all my money is in the 3 per cents. "Yours, "SCROPE DAVIES." Brummell was too much of a dandy to be hurt at this answer, and, as Captain Jesse sensibly remarks, he was not a man to moralize upon it. There was a cruel dryness in Scrope's answer; but it was not vulgar; between dandy and dandy their honour was safe. Brummell perused the note, and dressed stoically for the opera. He was as a phoenix is on the pile,-unlike in this, that he knew he should never rise from his ashes. To see him, who would have known him for a doomed man? That night he was at Dover, and the next in France. After his departure, the elegant furniture of a man of fashion gone to the continent was sold by public auction; the purchasers, his friends, were the most fashionable and distinguished of the English aristocracy, and they all paid like Englishmen for what they wanted. In his expatriation his old acquaintances came nobly forward to aid him, proving most forcibly the powerful impression he made upon all who knew him. He was pensioned by the men he had pleased, as the writer or orator of a party often is; and this, in English society, carries no idea of degradation with it. But, stranger still than this rare gratitude, his ascendancy was not destroyed at a stroke by his departure. Brummell was as much thought of in the drawing-rooms of Great Britain in exile as when there "in presence;" public attention crossed the sea, and reached him on the opposite shore. Fashionables made frequent pilgrimages to Calais; and Brummell, as proud as ever, preserved all the external habits of his previous life. Lord Westmoreland invited him to dine at three: he declined to eat at that hour. Though he did not affect misanthropic or aristocratic haughtiness, his manner was so grand, that it attracted but few of those with whom chance brought him in contact; nevertheless, in spite of his reserve, he was not so adverse to advances when made in the form of a good dinner. But this sensuality, common enough amongst wits, rendered his vanity more intractable; but his incomparable self-possession covered and excused everything. "Who is that bowing to you, Sefton?" said he to his friend on the public walk. It was one of his honest provincial countrymen, with whom he was to dine that very day, and who was bowing to him. He lived many years at Calais; and, in spite of his vanity, doubtless suffered many a secret trouble under it, and one of the chief must have been the want of conversation. On parle plusieurs langues, mais on ne cause que dans une seule. In this dearth of excitement, and perhaps not knowing how to exercise his dormant faculties, he painted a screen for the Duchess of York. This Princess, after fortune betrayed him, extended to him a friendship which threw a shade of tenderness over his arid existence. He never forgot her; and it seems, but for a promise to her not to reveal the secrets of the Regent's life, he would have written his memoirs, and repaired his fortunes, for the London booksellers offered him immense sums as the price of his indiscretion. This considerate forbearance penetrated not the stubborn and impervious selfishness of George the Fourth; and when he passed Brummell in the streets of Calais, he felt not even that species of emotion at meeting the companion of his youth, which is an impulse common even to vulgar minds. But Brummell's indifference was equal to the King's; had it been otherwise, he would not have been Brummell. He preserved that discreet silence which is the good taste of pride. But debt and misery came on together, and he commenced the descent from exile to poverty spoken of by Dante, at the foot of which he found a prison, alms, and a mad-house wherein to die. The office of consul at Caen was but a momentary check to his progress on this course, for it was very soon abolished. His residence in this town was one of the longest phases of his life; and the French noblesse, by their reception and considerate attentions, must have softened, though they could not save him, the anguish which tortured the last days of his existence. VOL. XVII. P P DISCOVERY OF THE OREGON BY DRAKE AND VARIOUS and profound have been the philological researches of learned men at Washington in the investigation of the origin of the name of OREGON, applied by the people of the far West to that portion of the north-west of North America occupied by the British, but claimed on the grounds of " priority of discovery, examination, and occupation," by the inhabitants of the United States. This great controversy is yet undecided;-perhaps it will for ever remain uncertain whether the word is of Indian extraction, or whether, under the name of Oregon, we have not disguised the Hibernian patronymic of O'Regon or O'Regan! The proper designation of the territory is NEW ALBION. Sir Francis Drake formally took possession of the country (as we mean to prove) on behalf of her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth, of happy memory, giving it the name of New Albion. It is so styled by our old voyagers and geographers and we see no reason why New Albion it should not still be called. The Americans have very dexterously given the land a new name;—at one dash of the pen they would obliterate the British title! The territory now the subject of such grave discussion between Great Britain and the United States lies on the shore of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It is bounded on the north by Russian America, at 54° 40′ N. lat. On the east, the Rocky Mountains, the lofty summits of which are covered with perpetual snows, form its natural limit. The Pacific is its western boundary. The possessions claimed by Mexico, which extend to 42° N. lat. skirt the southern bounds of New Albion or the Oregon. A distinguished American authority, whose work has been printed by the Government of the United States, gives the following outline of the natural and political divisions of the country:— The North-west Coast is the expression usually employed in the United States at the present time to distinguish the vast portion of the American continent which extends north of the 40th parallel of latitude from the Pacific to the great directing ridge of the Rocky Mountains, together with the contiguous islands in that ocean. The southern part of this territory, which is drained almost entirely by the Columbia River, is commonly called the OREGON. The territory bordering upon the Pacific southward from the 40th parallel to the extremity of the peninsula which stretches in that direction as far as the Tropic of Cancer, is called California,-a name of uncertain derivation, formerly applied by the Spaniards to the whole western section of North America. By the Florida treaty concluded in 1819, between the United States and Spain, a line drawn along the 42nd parallel of latitude, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific was fixed as the northern limit of the Spanish territory, and the southern limit of that of the United States in Western America. By subsequent treaty between the latter power and Mexico, the same line was admitted to separate the possessions of the two republics-Mexico taking the place of Spain. The Mexicans, accordingly, claim the country as far north as the 42nd pa rallel; but the Russians effectually bar the exercise of any Mexican authority beyond the Bay of San Francisco, near the 38th degree, by means of their colonies and garrisons in that quarter, established in 1812, and ever since maintained in defiance alike of Spain and her republican successors. By the Convention of 1824, between the United States and Russia, it was agreed that the Russians should make no settlements on the coast of North America or the adjacent islands south of the latitude of 54° 40′, and the United States should establish none north of that parallel. By the convention of 1825, between Russia and Great Britain, it was in like manner stipulated that the British should occupy no place on the coasts or islands north of 54° 40′, and that the Russians should make no settlement south of the same latitude. Thus Two lines of boundary appear on the map of North-west America, running completely across it. One northward, from the latitude of 54° 40', to the Arctic Sea, as settled between Great Britain and Russia; and the other, southward, following the course of the 42nd parallel, from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains, as agreed upon between the United States and Mexico. Of the intermediate region no part has been as yet definitely assigned by convention to any one nation. The Americans claim that portion north from the 42nd parallel; and the British claim that south from the other boundary line-each party to an undefined extent, but so far as to secure for itself the large and valuable country drained by the Columbia River."* It is stoutly denied by American writers that Sir Francis Drake, in his renowned voyage round the world, A. D. 1577-1580, visited or discovered the disputed country, or sailed further north than the 43rd latitude. We join issue with our Transatlantic opponents, and contend, that if the question is to be decided with reference to "priority of discovery, examination, and occupation," (as they allege,) it must inevitably be decided in favour of Great Britain. It is admitted on all hands that the country of New Albion was discovered by the English Captain Drake, acting under the lawful commission and authority of the Crown. The question is, what were the precise limits of New Albion? Our first authority is that of an unprejudiced foreigner-Humboldt, who places New Albion on the map between 43° and 48° N. lat. Humboldt visited North America about 1798. That the said New Albion comprised the Oregon territory, is tacitly admitted in a standard work of considerable value, published at Philadelphia in the year 1829-"The Encyclopædia Americana:"-" New Albion: This is the name given to an extensive tract of land on the North-west Coast of America. It was originally applied by Sir Francis Drake, in 1578, to the whole of California, but is now, by recent geographers, e. g. Humboldt, confined to that part of the coast which extends between 43° and 48° N. lat. Cook discovered it in March 1778. In 1792, Vancouver visited this coast, made a very diligent inspection of all its parts, and gave a most interesting account of them. Vancouver's chart of this region is still the best. The most authentic account of a part of New Albion is to be found in "Lewes's and Clarke's Expedition to the Sources of the Missouri, 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1814.” These travellers visited the Columbia River. * Greenhow. Our next argument is drawn from some maps which can be consulted in the British Museum. In the American Atlas by Thomas Jeffereys, geographer to the king, printed A. D. 1775, and necessarily drawn some years previously, the land designated New Albion is marked and coloured nearly as high as 46° N. lat.; showing the mouth of the "River of the West," which corresponds with the Columbia River.* Captain Cook left Nootka Sound on the 26th of April, 1778, the first time he visited this part of the North-west Coast. Before Cook's time, therefore, Englishmen looked upon the North-west of America, as far as 46° N. lat., as part of New Albion, discovered by Drake, and a British possession. What answer can the Americans make to this fact? Will they venture after this to bring forward the discovery of Gray, in 1792, as a title to the country? Passion, rapacity, and ambition, may render them reckless; our appeal is to matter-of-fact and the unchanging principles of justice! În a map by H. Moll, geographer, 1742, New Albion is marked to the north of California Proper, (which shows that New Albion was not considered identical with California, as American writers state,) and the land is traced indistinctly to the north west. Let us now refer to another authority before the Boundary Question was agitated, the " Model Republic" was in existence, or Cook and Vancouver had sailed into the Pacific. The "Biographia Britannia," A.D. 1747, speaking of the gallant Sir Francis Drake, says,— "Thence he continued his voyage along the coasts of Chili and Peru, taking all opportunities of seizing Spanish ships, or of landing and attacking them on shore, till his crew were sated with plunder; and then coasting North America, to the height of 48°, he endeavoured to find a passage back into our seas on that side; which is the strongest proof of his consummate skill and invincible courage; for if ever such passage be found, this, in all probability, will be the method: and we can scarcely conceive a clearer testimony of an undaunted spirit than attempting discoveries after so long and so fatiguing a voyage. Here, being disappointed of what he sought, he landed, and called the country New Albion, taking possession in the name and for the use of Queen Elizabeth." Well might our enthusiastic poet, Thomson, sing,— A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep, Burney, a companion of Captain Cook, states in his voyages, that "The part of the American coast discovered by Drake is to be reckoned as immediately bearing north of Cape Mendicino, and extending to 48° N. lat. ;" consequently, including the Oregon territory. We now come to the consideration of the important and much controverted narrative of the Rev. Francis Fletcher, chaplain on board Drake's ship during his voyage to the North-west Coast of America. We have here the best possible evidence that the nature of the case admits of the testimony of an eye-witness of the events related, who reduced his observations to writing. His manuscript, curiously il *In a clever pamphlet by Mr. Thos. Falconer, of Lincoln's Inn, it is stated, that in old French and Spanish maps all the land north of 38° N. lat. is described as New Albion. |