et les familles décorées de toutes les dignités de l'état, de l'église, ou de l'armée, ne renonçoient point pour cela au commerce. Phillippe Strozzi, le beau-frère de Léon X., le père du Marechal Strozzi et du grand-prieur de Capoue, l'ami de plusieurs souverains, et le premier citoyen de l'Italie, étoit, jusqu'à la fin de sa vie, demeuré chef d'une maison de banque. Il eut sept fils; mais malgré son immense fortune, il n'en avoit destiné aucun à l'oisiveté."

Mr. Marryatt published several anonymous tracts of merit; and with his name, "Speech in the House of Commons, on Mr. Manning's Motion respecting Marine Insurances," 8vo. 1810."Observations on the Report of the Committee on Marine Insurance," 8vo. 1810." Thoughts on the Expediency of establishing a new chartered Bank," 8vo. 1811.

No. X.

MAJOR CARTWRIGHT.

THE HE right of free political discussion is one of the essential features of the British constitution. It is by the collision of opinions that this country has obtained its present enviable condition of rational liberty. The arguments urged by the advocates of the various modes of government which enter into the composition of our own, heard in turn, have gradually enabled us to reject many of the evils, and to combine most of the advantages which exist in the respective forms of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, singly considered. Our history affords few examples of men who have, through life, so warmly and perseveringly maintained the popular side of such questions, as the late Major Cartwright. Of the soundness of his doctrines, carried to the extent to which he proposed to carry them, there may justly be grounds for more than doubt; but, we believe, no one could ever deny that he was a most consistent politician, and a most benevolent and honourable man. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we subjoin a biographical sketch, with which we have been favored by one of his near connections; and which is as creditable to the feelings of the amiable writer, as it is to the character of the venerable subject.

John Cartwright, Esq., was better known to the public as Major Cartwright. Having quitted the militia in the year 1792, he never afterwards assumed the title of major on his cards, or was designated by it in his own family; but the public having once bestowed it upon him, it became familiar to all his political acquaintance, and will probably continue to be affixed to his name until all regard for the principles he advocated shall have become extinct in this country.

In stating that his family was of great antiquity, and highly connected, it must not be supposed that Mr. Cartwright considered this, or that it is considered by his friends as a matter of any consequence in itself; it is only noticed here to enhance the singular merit of one, who, disregarding all personal considerations of interest or ambition, for fifty years stood forward, almost alone, as " the friend of the people."

Mr. Cartwright was born on the 28th of September, 1740, and was the third son of William Cartwright, Esq., of Marnham, in the county of Nottingham, His elder brother George, author of "A Journal of Transactions during a Residence of Sixteen Years in Labrador," was a man of remarkable strength of intellect as well as of personal courage and bodily activity; his next brother, Edmund, of mechanical and poetical celebrity, is also well known to the public; and the fact of three brothers living to upwards of eighty years of age, and preserving to the last moment not only their vigour of mind, but all their accustomed energy of character, is a circumstance which we may safely assert has been seldom paralleled in the history of any family.

From the gentleness of his disposition, John Cartwright was a particular favourite in his family, and his father earnestly desiring to retain him at home, wished to turn his attention to agricultural pursuits; but the ardour of his mind made such a destination disgusting to him, and in a moment of boyish enthusiasm, excited by the military fame of Frederick the Great of Prussia, he left his father's house with the intention of becoming a volunteer in the army of that prince. He had not gone many miles before he was overtaken by the steward, who represented the distress his departure had occasioned, and easily prevailed on him to return. He was afterwards allowed to enter the naval service of his own country; a service to which he was ever after passionately attached; and even in advanced age, his kindling eye bespoke the delight and interest he took in any subject connected with that profession.

The circumstances of his saving the life of a brother officer

of his being present at the capture of Cherbourg, and the seafight between Sir Edward Hawke and Conflans, together with many proofs of his zeal and ability, have been so often and so accurately related, that it is not necessary to dwell on them at present; we will, therefore, pass rapidly to the time when he sacrificed to a noble feeling for American rights, all the advantages which family connections, and the friendship of Lord Howe, offered to his ambition.

In 1774, he began to publish his opinions on the dispute between the mother country and her American colonies, and great were the apprehensions of his family that in so doing, he might endanger his own safety; but he was, through life, a stranger to every fear, save that of acting against the dictates of his conscience.

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In 1775, he published his " American Independence, the Glory and Interest of Great Britain," and in the same year became major of the militia of his native county. After seventeen years of meritorious service, for which he was unanimously thanked by the deputy-lieutenants, he was in the year 1792, superseded in his rank.

In 1780, he effected, with the assistance of Dr. Jebb and Granville Sharpe, the formation of the "Society for Constitutional Information," which boasted among its members some of the most distinguished men of that day, with whom he was in the habits of intimacy and constant correspondence. In the same year, he married the eldest daughter of Samuel Dashwood, Esq., of Well Vale, in the county of Lincoln, who was for forty-four years, as he himself emphatically termed her," his dearest and best friend, to whom he was indebted for the chief happiness of his life." Soon after this marriage, his father died, and Captain George Cartwright, (already mentioned) succeeded by will to the family estate. Being also named executor, this gentleman found himself involved in difficult and perplexing business, to which his own losses in Labrador materially contributed; he, therefore, a year after, gladly accepted his brother John's offer of purchasing the property, which was accomplished by

borrowing a large sum of money, and by the sale of an estate which he possessed as a qualification for the majority. It may not be improper here to mention, that though these two brothers were diametrically opposite in their political opinions, and though the elder was a man of warm character, and occasionally indulged in intemperate expressions, yet their attachment to each other continued through life. In fact, no man ever possessed a more placable disposition than Major Cartwright. His brother's vehemence only occasioned a benevolent smile; and the good old tory himself was known to declare, that though, as a loyal subject, it was his duty to hate his principles, yet as a brother he was bound by every tie of gratitude to love and respect him.

During the last illness of Captain Cartwright, the subject of this memoir, then in his eightieth year, travelled into Nottinghamshire, and remained for a considerable time by his sick bed, administering his medicines, and watching him with all the assiduity of a nurse. It would be unnecessary to mention these particulars, had it not been for an anecdote, industriously circulated by means of the public press, a few days after Mr. Cartwright had breathed his last, tending to show that these two brothers were not on good terms with each other.

In the year 1788, Mr. Cartwright sold the estate at Marnham, and made a very fortunate speculation in the purchase of Brotherlop, near Boston, in Lincolnshire. By his judicious improvements and skill in agriculture, this estate became so profitable to him, that it enabled him to stand against many severe losses occasioned by the failure of a large concern into which he entered with several other gentlemen, as well as those still more severe, which he incurred by assisting his favourite brother, Dr. Cartwright, in bringing to perfection his many ingenious inventions.

To detail all Mr. Cartwright's exertions, both public and private, during the remainder of his long laborious life, his incessant toil in the service of his country, his zeal to perpetuate her fame in the erection of a temple of naval cele