THE MANNING THE FRENCH NAVIES. THE MANNING THE FRENCH NAVIES, ERIES QUESTION. To the Editor of The Constitutional Press Magazine. SIR: The country is in no slight degree indebted to the Press for the information which has been afforded of the history of the re-organization of the French army. It is only by the Press that any light has been thrown on the secret causes of the extraordinary development of that military system, which has, in the past year, taken Europe by surprise, and astonished the intelligence of English statesmen not less than that of Austrian generals. Permit me to communicate some facts, derived from personal knowledge, respecting the similar re-organization of the French navy, and the French system of manning their fleet. We shall find in the naval as well as the military department much to admire in the system of our ingenious allies, and perhaps also much to learn. In seagirt, seafaring England, the manning of the navy has become one of the difficult problems of the day. Whereas in France, from a small nucleus, a great and admirably organized marine has been formed, and the training and disciplining sailors for her navy has become an institution. The French government of late years, feeling their deficiency in seamen and also in the maritime nursery of sailors, has looked around, with prescient common sense, for some practical basis within their reach, on which to found a system of marine. Though few their natural advantages were in this respect, they have found what they sought in their distant fisheries, if these be well utilized and developed; and with admirable skill have they turned to account what would have appeared to an English statesman of the red-tape school but scattered and insufficient elements. France has now in the fisheries of Newfoundland alone more than twenty thousand sailors employed. These men are all subject to naval discipline, they go out in the spring, and return to France in the autumn; they are at all times liable to be called out to serve in the navy; they are kept together, and in every way prepared for the one object in view, viz., the possession of a ready-made material always within reach for manning the fleets. These men and boys are taught seamanship in a rugged school; they are inured to hardships, seasoned to cold, to storms, and the roughest work of the seaman. A fleet, manned from the French North American fishing boats and vessels, would have presented to an admiral, crews somewhat more prepared for service than those which left Portsmouth for the Baltic in 1854. THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 530 In 1841, when war with England was apprehended, M. Thiers recalled the fishermen, absent in Newfoundland, to enter the navy. In a debate on the navy in the French Chambers, M. Rodet affirmed that, "without the resources which were found in the sailors engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries, the expedition to Algiers could not have taken place." This result for France has been obtained by two methods; each wise in design, and well carried out. The first was to drive the English fishermen out of the market, and to place France in the shoes of England, both as to commerce and sailors. As it was not easy to do this by fair commercial competition, recourse was had to a system of granting bounties on all codfish taken by the French fishermen on the Newfoundland banks and coast, which bounty-caught fish, coming into competition with the English in foreign markets, enabled the French to undersell the English; and, consequently, forced the British shipper to sell his cargo at a sacrifice, and deterred him from any desire to repeat such shipment. Lord Dundonald, in writing on this sub"I wish to convey, in as ject in 1852, says, few words as possible, the real cause of the progressive decay, and now total abandonment, of that once important nursery for seaman, with which the duties of my late naval command required that I should make myself intimately acquainted. The result of authentic information, derived from official documents, proved that the British Bank, or Deep-Sea Fishery, formerly employed four hundred sail of square-rigged vessels and twelve thousand seamen; and that now not one of these pursue their vocation, in consequence of the ruinous effect of bounties awarded by the French and North American governments. The former pay their fishermen ten francs for every quintal of fish disembarked in the ports of France, and five francs additional on their importation in French vessels into foreign states, once exclusively supplied by England-a transfer which cannot be viewed simply as a mercantile transaction, seeing that the substitution of a greater number of foreign transatlantic fishing vessels, having more numerous crews, constitutes a statistical difference amounting to twenty-six thousand sailors against England, without including the United Statesa fact that ought not, and, being known, cannot be looked on with indifference." Such have been the means adopted in a commercial point of view. The French government has, with good reason, congratulated itself on its success, as well as taken The report of the credit for its ability. committee of the national assembly of France upon their Newfoundland fisheries, presented and adopted on 3 May, 1851, states, in recommending a continuance of the large bounties theretofore granted, "It is not, therefore, a commercial law we have the honor to propose to the assembly, but a maritime law a law conceived for the advancement of the naval powers of this country. It is in her fisheries that at this day repose all the serious hopes of our maritime establishments. No other school can compare with this, in preparing them so well, and in numbers so important, for the service of the navy." Notwithstanding this heavy blow and discouragement to British interests, the British fishermen and merchants have struggled for some years to hold their own, with that tenacity and perseverance which only our countrymen can show, when overmatched by opponents and not fairly dealt with by those at home. But the superior intelligence of the French government has met this contingency. There was an opening for raising a dispute as to the interpretation of some treaties respecting the fishing boundaries. What, if the French government should advance a claim, excluding the British from the best fishingground, and should prevail on the British government to sanction it! It was an old story, and an often refuted claim, that of the exclusive right of the French to the best fisheries on a British coast, but it was worth trying, and so this modest claim was advanced in 1838 by Count Sebastian to Lord Palmerston. The English minister, in his reply of July 16, 1838, wrote as follows: "Exclusive rights are privileges which, from the very nature of things, are likely to be injurious to parties, who are thereby debarred from some exercise of industry in which they would otherwise engage. Such rights are therefore certain to be at some time or other disputed, if there is any maintainable ground for contesting them; and, for these reasons, when negotiations have intended to grant exclusive rights, it has been the invariable practice to convey such rights in direct, unqualified, and comprehensive terms, so as to prevent the possibility of future dispute or doubt. In the present case, however, such forms of expression are entirely wanting; and the claim put forward on the part of France is founded simply on inference, and on an assumed interpretation of words. After this answer, the claim disappeared for some years. But since the accession of the present emperor of the French, a new activity has been infused into the whole question, a new perception has arisen of the necessity of a further development of this nursery for the French fleet, and consequently of the withdrawal, removal, or rejectment (friendly, and by treaty interpretation, of course) of the British from their own fisheries. The French government succeeded during the Duke of Newcastle's occupancy of the Colonial Office in 1856, in obtaining a recognition of the pretensions which had been advanced, with a different result, to Lord Palmerston in 1838. The consummation, however, of the wholesale sacrifice was prevented by the determined resistance of the colonists, who, taking their stand on treaty rights, and on the clear exposition of them by the English foreign minister in 1838, exercised the veto which the Constitution gave them. The French government met this by a measure very nearly approaching to an act of force. They issued orders to their commandant on the Newfoundland station, to use his naval force, if necessary, to compel the Newfoundland British to resign their own fisheries and their own land. In this somewhat menacing state of things, Sir E. B. Lytton succeeded to the Colonial Office. The injury done to British interests in a commercial point of view by the French bounties was a fait accompli. The final blow of granting to the French the exclusive right to the best fisheries, and to British soil, had happily been so far averted. The question to be dealt with was twofold: first, as to facts, viz., unjustifiable intrusion; secondly, as to interpretation of treaties, from that of Utrecht downward. On both points, the colonial minister, after having diligently and minutely examined the evidence, came to the conclusion at which no impartial or intelligent person could help arriving; viz., that the French claims were wholly untenable, and their conduct in the highest degree usurping and unjust. Lord Cowley was instructed to re-open the matter with the French government, and to propose the sending out of a joint commission to inquire, on the spot, into the facts. The French government consented, but with the reservation by Count Walewski, that "the difficulties raised by the Newfoundland question appear to the emperor's government to proceed solely from a difference in the interpretation of treaties, and it cannot, therefore, share in the confidence which her Britannic majesty's government feels in the result of the proposal. (5th January, 1859.)" The commission, however, went out to prosecute its inquiries, and its report will shortly be laid before Parliament. It is of the highest consequence, sir, that public attention should be directed to this matter, and correct information afforded. In the debate on Lord Bury's motion last The only escape from the consequences of year, a lamentable ignorance was exhibited the weak and ignorant concessions made in by some leading members of Parliament, the interim will be, to take stand on the both as to the facts of the case, the treaty principles laid down by Lord Palmerston in rights involved, and the deep importance of 1838, departure from which by subsequent the question to Great Britain as bearing on minutes has been the cause of the greater her naval interests. One thing may be con- part of this mischief and danger. fidently affirmed, that the more the matter is sifted, the stronger will be found the case of Great Britain, both as to the facts of intrusion and usurpation alleged, and as to the just interpretation of the treaties involved. I had intended making some remarks on the treaties bearing on this subject from that of Utrecht; but this letter has already extended itself to too great a length. I am, sir, your obedient servant, A COLONIST. A PASSAGE in A Tour Through the whole Island of Great Britain, attributed to Daniel De Foe, satisfactorily answers, I think, the Query put by Mr. Hotten in your last number : committed; but Nicks, proving by the lord mayor that he was as far off as Yorkshire on that day, the jury acquitted him on a bare supposition that it was impossible the man could be at two places so remote on one and the same day." W. H. W. "ROCK OF AGES."-Before attempting to decide whether the priority is due to Toplady's hymn, or to its Latin counterpart forwarded by your Rev. correspondent, one would wish to know whether the latter has ever appeared in print, and, if so, when and where. It is worthy of observation, however, that the first stanza of the hymn, as will be evident on comparison, very closely corresponds with a passage in Daniel Brevint's learned and pious tractate entitled The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice : "We see nothing remarkable here but Gad'sHill, a noted place for robbing of seamen, after they have received their pay at Chatham. Here "Just on the declivity of the hill on the west it was that a famous robbery was committed in side" must be not many yards from Gad's Hill or about the year 1676, which deserves to be Place, the property of Charles Dickens. mentioned. It was about four o'clock in the-Notes and Queries. morning, when a gentleman was robbed by one Nicks on a bay mare, just on the declivity of the hill, on the west side. Nicks came away to Gravesend, and, as he said, was stopped by the difficulty of getting the boat near an hour, which was a great discouragement to him; but he made the best use of it, as a kind of 'bate to his horse; from thence he rode cross the country of Essex to Chelmsford. Here he stopped about half an hour to refresh his horse, and gave him some balls; from thence to Braintree, Bocking, Wethersfield; then over the Downs to Cambridge; and from thence, keeping still the cross roads, he went by Fenny Stanton, to Godmanchester and Huntingdon, where he and his mare 'bated about an hour; and as he said himself, he slept about half an hour; then holding on the North Road and not keeping at full gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon; put off his boots and riding-cloths, and went dressed, as if he had been an inhabitant of the place, to the Bowling Green, where among other gentlemen was the lord mayor of the city. He singled out his lordship, studied to do something particular, that the mayor might "O Rock of Israel, Rock of Salvation, Rock remember him by; and then takes occasion to struck and cleft for me, let those two streams of ask his lordship what o'clock it was, who, pull-blood and water, which once gushed out of thy ing out his watch, told him the hour, which was a quarter before or a quarter after eight at night. "Upon a prosecution for this robbery, the whole merit of the case turned upon this single point; the person robbed swore to the man, to the place, and to the time in which the fact was-Notes and Queries. "Rock of ages, cleft for me, Cleanse me from its guilt and pow'r!" Surely, when Toplady wrote these well-known lines, he must have had before him Brevint's devout and solemn aspiration : side. . . bring down with them salvation and From The Athenæum. Life of Edmond Malone, Editor of Shak- CAW me, caw thee! Stick to your order. A book about every man of letters. Write it, yea or nay, needful or needless, says Sir James Prior: 'It forms a debt of honor, if not of gratitude, which literary men are bound to bestow upon each other." We hope Sir James is not in earnest. Why should every antiquary, every commentator, have a big book laid upon his ashes? We forget kings. We forget generals, admirals, secretaries of state; we forget fox-hunters, six-bottle men, champions of the prize-ring; why should we not be allowed, without imputations on our honor or on our gratitude, to give up to the eternal silences contentious editors of Shakspeare and undistinguished fellows of the Society of Antiquaries? dogma. Where would the paper come from? Think of the demand for rags! Every gentleman now writes. If every mummy is to be swathed in paper, new Manchesters must arise to produce the tissues. If any thing could atone for the enunciation of this dangerous dogma, it would be the manner in which Sir James has achieved his own peculiar task of gratitude. He has contrived to make what might appear a superfluous work, a pleasant and indeed an amusing book. The life of Edmond Malone appears at first thought scarcely worth the cost of 470 pages of type. Edmond Malone, editor of Shakspeare,-born 1741, died 1812,-his biography might be thrown into the head-line of a tombstone. But besides editing Shakspeare and buying old plays and poems, Malone, with the industry of a scribe and the information of a man of letters, made notes of stories and conversations heard by him during many years. These notes of stories and Our life is but a dream and a forgetting. conversations have a higher value than the What constitutes the debt of honor? Who personal facts of Malone's life. For about is bound to repay it? Is it to be simply a ten years, he jotted down the good things case of caw me, caw thee? Does the biog-which flowed round good men's feasts somerapher of Goldsmith write a life of Malone in what constantly; afterwards, less regularly, order to create in the next generation the necessity for a biographer of Prior? Think of the consequences to the public, should the dogma ever be received in practice, that a book ought to be written upon every man who has written, or who has even edited, a From this heap of gossip on men and book! Conceive the pleasant amplitude of books we shall borrow somewhat largely. volumes, also conceive the jovial anecdotes, Many of the facts set down by Malone as the sparkling wit, the kindly humor, the the news of his day-the sly, secret history inconceivable generosity and tenderness to of his times-are now the common property be stored away in type for future use, in a of the world. Much that is told of Pope, of series of two or three hundred Lives of Burke, of Johnson, has been gathered in from Shakspeare's editors and commentators, from other quarters by the tribe of biographers. Hemmings down to Mr. Collier and Mr. Yet a good deal remains with a certain freshDyce! How much we may lose by not col-ness and character upon it. Even those paslecting and preserving the retort courteous sages, of which the substance is already to -the quip modest-the blast and counter-be found in Mr. Croker's "Boswell," or in blast of all these worthies-our own columns Mr. Carruthers' "Pope," have often an inand the columns of our contemporaries are in this month of March bearing only too abundant witness! though still occasionally; and the mass of gossip thus gathered up by him is now given for the first time in a full and continuous stream as he set it down. It forms a very large appendix to Sir James' Life. terest of their own, either as proving the general soundness of Malone's information, or for some slight incidental touch of manner, which adds, if not a fact, a sort of perfume, to the tale. Sir James Prior's principle would beat even the famous Society for Mutual Worship. The club in which every man calls his neigh- As the subjects of Malone's table-talk bor a wit, a poet, an artist, a general, a man have often little or no connection with cach of the world, on the very easy and pleasant other, we shall not trouble the reader much condition of being allowed his choice of the about the order in which the paragraphs apepithet to be applied by others to himself,-pear. His convenience may be best conis a private affair, only distressing, or amusing, as the humor goes, to the accidental friend and guest of the club. But Sir James Prior's principle of bestowing a book on every dead antiquary who may have written himself down an ass, has a far wider and more menacing scope. We think Sir James has not considered the consequences of his sulted by our throwing the chit-chat and anecdotes into a few simple groups, just as they seem to illustrate the particular person on the scene. We begin with a few words about Lord Mansfield : "Lord Mansfield told Mr. W. Gerrard Hamilton this winter (1782), that what he most re LIFE OF EDMOND MALONE. once every year to the first form of Westminster Again : "Pope had an original picture of Bishop Atterbury painted by Kneller. Of this picture he used to make Worsdale the painter make copies for three or four guineas; and whenever he wished to pay a particular compliment to one of his friends, he gave him an original picture of Atterbury. Of these originals, Worsdale had painted five or six.-(From Mr. Walpole.)" Again gretted to have lost by the burning of his house (at the time of the riots, set on foot about three years ago by that wicked canting hypocrite, Lord George Gordon) was a speech that he had made on the question how far the privilege of Parliament extended; that it contained all the eloquence and all the law he was master of; that it was fairly written out; and that he had no other copy. Mr. Daines Barrington informed me that the book here alluded to contained eight speeches made in the House of Lords; all fairly written for the press, and now irreparably lost. When Lord Mansfield (then Mr. Murray) was examined before the Privy Council, about the year 1747, for drinking the Pretender's health on his knees (which he certainly did), it was urged against "Soon after Pope's acquaintance with Warhim, among other things, to show how strong a burton commenced, and the latter had pubwell-wisher he was to the cause of the exiled family, that, when he was employed as solicitor-lished some of his heavy commentaries on that general against the rebels who were tried in 1746, poet, his friend Lord Marchmont told him that he had never used that term, but always called he was convinced he was one of the vainest men 'How so?' says Pope. Because, you living. to them unfortunate gentlemen. When he came his defence he said the fact was true; and he little rogue,' replied Lord Marchmont, it is manifest from your close connection with your should only say that 'he pitied that man's loyalty new commentator you want to show posterity who thought that epithets could add to the guilt what an excellent poet you are, and what a quantity of dulness you can carry down on your back without sinking under the load.'' of treason!'-an admirable instance of a dexterous and subtle evasion. "Lord Mansfield told Mr. Hamilton that what Dr. Johnson says of Pope, that he was a dull He was very lively companion,' is not true. and entertaining when at his case; and in a small company very communicative.' ་ Elsewhere we read (note the characteristic query of Malone) : "Mr. Hamilton once observed to Bishop Warburton that he thought Pope was a cold On this last assertion of the great jurist man, notwithstanding all his talk about friend Malone has a characteristic comment: "Lord Mansfield's account is different from He is not every other, and I believe not true. to be trusted on this head; for he must then have been greatly flattered by being in Pope's company. Besides, his own conversation was never very brilliant, and he was always very fond of bad jokes and dull stories, so that his taste and judgment on this subject may be suspected." ship and philosophy. No,' said the bishop, 'you are entirely mistaken; he had as tender a heart as any man that ever lived.' (Query.Is the bishop a fair and impartial witness on this point?)" From the description of Sir Joshua, we have a pencilling of Pope's personal appearance, more minute and curious than the passage in Northcote, on this very scene, would lead us to expect : "Sir Joshua Reynolds once saw Pope. It Further on, we have another story of was about the year 1740, at an auction of books Mansfield, served up with Malone-sauce :"When Sir. J. Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Mr. or pictures. He remembers that there was a Burke, and others went to Lord Mansfield's lane formed to let him pass freely through the house to bail Baretti, his lordship, without pay-assemblage, and he proceeded along bowing to ing much attention to the business, immediately and abruptly began with some very flimsy and boyish observations on the contested passage in This was by Othello, Put out the light,' etc. way of showing off to Garrick; whose opinion of him, however, was not much raised by this impotent and untimely endeavor to shine on a subject with which he was little acquainted. Sir J. Reynolds, who had never seen him before (who told me the story), was grievously disappointed in finding this great lawyer so little at the same time." Among sayings and stories connected with - "Pope, talking once to Lord Mansfield about posthumous fame, said that the surest method of securing it would be to leave a sum of money to be laid out in an entertainment to be given those who were on each side. He was, according to Sir Joshua's account, about four feet six high; very humpbacked and deformed; he wore a black coat; and according to the fashion of that time had on a little sword. Sir Joshua adds, that he had a large and very fine eye, and a long, handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which always are found in the mouths of crooked persons; and the muscles which run across the cheek were so strongly marked as to appear like small cords." About Chatham, we read :— "The late Lord Chatham (when Mr. Pitt) on some occasion made a very long and able speech in the Privy Council, relative to some naval matter. Every one present was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord Anson, who was no orator, being then at the head of the admiralty, and differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, |