from which they must fall, sinks them into an abyss of infamy that no tenacity of human existence can ever support.

We have amply shown in this very paper, that we are not unambitious of professional rewards and distinctions, but we should consider as degrading insults the most brilliant offers tending to sever the links that inseparably bind our fame and honour to the laws and liberties of our native land. By the very embodying of the army, the constitution of the country is, to a certain extent, placed under our safeguard: that trust, the noblest ever placed in the hands of men, can be withdrawn only by those who conferred it; we ourselves have no power to decline or shrink from it, and until we are solemnly released from our sacred engagement, it is our duty to die in defence of the last stone of the British Constitution.

ON THE LOYALTY OF MILITARY MEN.

In every free country, and in England especially, there are certain portions of the community whose duty it is to think and act for the rest; men whose vigorous intellects and matured observation enable them to grasp any subject at once, and to deal with it promptly, manfully, and usefully, for the service of the public at large. These persons being trained from their youth in habits of business, and in the exercise of independent judgment, cheerfully incur any extent of responsibility, under the consciousness that their motives are sound, and likewise under the conviction that they will be duly supported by the public so long as they are in the right. It is the province of these master-spirits, as they may be called, to deliberate carefully on every public measure, and above all, to preserve inviolate the liberties of their country, or, in other words, to maintain the rights and privileges of each individual and of each class as they have been handed down to them by their ancestors, or as they may have been created for them in their own day. But in order to prevent the powers of these leaders from becoming dangerous to the liberties of the country, it is altogether essential that they should be, in the strictest sense, responsible for all and each of their acts; and it will be at once admitted, that unless they be invested with authority, not only to concert and arrange public measures, but also with full powers to carry them into operation, it is mere mockery and injustice to talk of them as responsible. Responsibility implies the full power of action, under the certainty of ultimate scrutiny. Viewed in any way, it certainly involves in its essence the capacity not only of originating but of carrying into execution those measures for which its movers are held responsible; in any other sense the word responsibility is evidently destitute of all practical meaning. But in order to invest a public man, or a set of menfor example, the commander of an army or of a fleet, or the ministers of a country-with the proper degree of power to constitute them responsible servants of the public, we must agree to place in their hands instruments with which they can perform the public work properly. It is likewise obvious that these instruments must differ materially from their employers in the most essential feature of their character,

that is to say, in their sharing none of the responsibility of those who wield them. The more responsibility is divided, the weaker it becomes, and its value evaporates entirely when the tools with which it has to work cannot be depended upon. A sentinel could not be held responsible for the approach of the enemy if the musket with which he was to give the alarm were deprived of its flint; still less could his officer be held responsible to his general if he were not authorised to prevent treacherous hands from damping the powder of his detatchment. This brings us to the point. No officer and no minister can properly be said to be responsible to his country if he be not allowed the entire use of the ordinary machinery with which armies or governments have managed efficiently in all times past.

If the word constitutional means anything, it means that consistent and established course of public action which fixes the responsibility on certain men in office, while, at the same time, it invests the public with adequate means of bringing these men to account, and of removing and punishing them should they not have given satisfaction. But this power on the part of the public instantaneously ceases to carry any force or any justice with it when the usual means of carrying into effect the measures which they originate are taken away from the men in office.

All history shows, that the only constitutional or, indeed, useful way of checking the evils of despotism consists in the power which the representative, or deliberative part of the nation, possess of calling the executive to account; or, in other words, of making public men feel that they are really and truly responsible. But if it shall so happen, that in any country the situation of affairs is such, that the deliberative branch of the community cannot manage to exercise this salutary authority without first undermining the legitimate official power of the executive, the inference certainly is, that the cause of genuine freedom in that country is in a very hopeless way indeed.

The very life and soul, as it may be called, of a soldier's character is implicit obedience; and all discipline, consistency of conduct, patience under suffering, even courage, will disappear, or be turned to the dishonour of his country, if each individual in the line is to think for himself-and what is a thousand times worse, it will inevitably prove fatal to the cause of true freedom, by destroying at once all that wholesome responsibility in the executive, which we consider as the only solid security we possess for our liberties. If we allow soldiers to think for themselves and to judge of public measures, we cannot surely, in fairness, deny them the power of acting under these independent thoughts -and then, what becomes of the main spring of our liberties, salutary responsibility of their employers?

Heretofore these things were held to be mere common-place maxims, but, unfortunately, the day has arrived, when some persons amongst us, who are not altogether destitute of intelligence, and who are not wanting in public spirit, are found to insinuate, that under certain circumstances, the military might with propriety think and act upon their own judgment, although in opposition to the orders of the King their

master.

It would hardly be a greater fallacy in morals to say that, under certain circumstances, a gentleman might with propriety tell falsehoods, or

be guilty of dishonourable actions-for Loyalty, that is to say, true unreflecting loyalty, on the part of a soldier, under all circumstances and at all times, is quite as much a part of his duty, as truth is of the obligations of a gentleman. It is not in human nature, indeed, that an officer of education, and one who truly loves his country and its liberties, should be insensible to the possible consequences of the measures of ministers, whom the King his master may choose from time to time to employ. But that soldier is a thorough traitor and poltroon who shall refuse to act when called upon by his King, or, which is exactly the same, by the responsible ministers whom his King has appointed to carry his will into effect. No military or naval person can ever be justified in balancing, even for one moment, between loyalty and disloyalty. The instant he does so, he puts the whole system into imminent hazard; for the responsibility of the executive may be called the key-stone of the constitution; and if this be removed, by taking away from ministers the power of the army, the whole fabric must, as a matter of course, be loosened.

If ministers shall at any time be guilty of unconstitutional acts, or what are thought such by the country, some other remedy must certainly be found to check them, rather than the introduction of this fatal principle into the body politic, which cuts at the very root of all genuine freedom. Indeed, it may safely be said, that to sap the fidelity of the military in any country towards their king, is also the surest method of sapping the liberties of that country, inasmuch as the fountain-head, the only pure spring of genuine freedom, lies in the responsibility of the executive; and this cannot exist long after the allegiance of the military is withdrawn. Every loyal and true-hearted soldier must feel that there can arise no case in which he would hesitate to act implicitly, devotedly, and, if need be, blindly, according to the orders of his King. In so acting, even if he were convinced that the measures to which he was called upon to give effect were diametrically opposed to what he conscientiously believed to be constitutional, still he would consider, that the evil caused by his obedience could not possibly be so great as those which must soon follow the slightest, or most transient exercise of independent thought, which should be strong enough to make him hesitate one instant which way he should act.

How stands the case of mutiny on board ship? Will any degree of tyranny on the part of the Captain justify an officer in refusing to act when called upon to suppress insurrection? Will any thing excuse or even palliate mutiny, in any person, or on any occasion? And if not, why is it so? Surely because experience shows us that the most certain method of correcting tyranny, and the shortest and straightest road to redress, is found to lie in fixing the responsibility exclusively on the executive afloat as well as ashore, and never countenancing, even in the most extreme cases, the smallest participation in this responsibility, which, after all, may be truly considered the vital air or life-blood of good order; for without this hold upon public men, true freedom cannot exist in any country, and liberty either becomes an empty sound, or it runs into the tyranny and licentiousness of a vulgar democracy.

We purposely avoid all allusion to the recent dreadful convulsions in France, because we think the application will be better made by

every reflecting mind for itself, and we have no hopes of essentially leading the thoughts of those which are not reflecting. We prepared an article, long ago, on the conduct of the Royal and Loyal French Guards who alone remained faithful amongst the faithless of Charles the Tenth's army; but we feel so much repugnance to entering the arena of party politics at this moment, that we shall defer publishing it till a calmer period. We think, however, we could clearly show that much, if not all the present evils of France, (and many of those, which we fear, that are to come,) may be traced to the unconstitutional and most disgraceful absence, of what we consider true loyalty in the French army, whose treasonable alliance with the mob of Paris was so vehemently applauded in this country at the time, and which, we lament bitterly to observe, is not without its defenders still.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A SEA LIFE.*

BY A MIDSHIPMAN OF THE LAST CENTURY.

Early next morning, we sailed with the melancholy details of the fate of our late convoy ; and with a rattling gale of wind from the westward, reached St. Helen's that night. New troops and transports were appointed to supply the place of those which had been lost, and we waited here until they joined us. Outward-bound merchant-ships were added to the convoy, until our fleet consisted of about the same number as had formerly sailed. Late in November, or early in December, for I do not recollect which, the wind once more came from the north-east, and again the fleet steered down Channel with a fair wind. It soon shifted, and again blew hard from the westward. By taking advantage of its changes between the north-west and south-west, however, we managed to get down Channel, and about as far to the westward as the 18th degree of longitude, and as far south as the 43rd or 44th degree of latitude. Here, however, all efforts failed to advance us further. On some days we had gained ten or twenty miles to the south or west, but we more frequently found ourselves twenty or thirty miles to the north-east of our place on the preceding day.

Under the severe sickness I suffered during most of this time, one of the liveliest recollections I have, is that of seeing our boatswain drink off half-a-pint of brandy, and envying the zest with which he did it. I was tired of the wet and cold of the deck, to say nothing of the mast-head, where I had been perched to count the convoy; and had been relieved from the deck at twelve o'clock, the end of my watch. I could not eat my dinner of salt pork; and had come out from the gunner's cabin, which was in a corner far from the hatchway, about six feet in length and breadth, and four feet three inches in height. I had come out from this place to get a little fresh air, and had fixed myself at the foot of the ladder at the after-hatchway. It was Christmas-day, and our Captain, not very wisely, chose to commemorate it by sending a half-pint of brandy to each of the three warrant officers, the boatswain, gunner, and carpenter, to put into their plum-puddings. For this good purpose it was rather late, even if the parties receiving it had been disposed so to apply it. Something

* Continued from page 42.

had called the boatswain on deck at this time, and when he arrived at the foot of the ladder, he met the Captain's steward with the brandy and message. "I'll tell the plum-pudding when I come down," says the boatswain; "Here's the Captain's good health." So saying, he gulped it down and jumped upon deck. I did envy him, and thought him the cleverest fellow alive.

It was not long after this that I got clear of my sea-sickness. It had stuck by me during more continued trials than any instance I remember to have seen; although I have heard of people being continually liable to it. I had finished another forenoon watch upon deck, and descending to the gunner's cabin, attacked the salt junk and doughboy with a keen appetite; but the closeness of the place and the heaving of the ship were too much for me. I had scarcely time to get on deck to make my offering to Neptune in the manner approved of in such cases. After five minutes more on deck, the hungry feeling returned. My indulgent messmate, the gunner, allowed me another dinner. I eat up a doughboy and a piece of salt beef, drank off a glass of grog of his making, went immediately upon deck, and I have never been seasick since.

Whenever the clearness of the weather permitted its being done, the men-of-war were dispatched in all directions to collect the straggling ships of the convoy. By such means, the convoy were, at times, collected into a pretty compact body; but then came a succession of gales of wind, with thick weather, which caused their dispersion, so that, when our view was again extended, the number of ships to be counted from the mast-head was much diminished. Some were more weatherly than the rest, and went out of sight a-head, or to windward. These pushed on, and a few of them, thus relieved from waiting on the motions of the dull-sailing and leewardly ships, arrived at the appointed rendezvous in the West Indies. Those which parted company to leeward, continued to drive more and more to the north-east, until, for want of water, they were obliged to bear up for the Cove of Cork, or into the Channel again. Some were compelled to do so from losing their masts by the violence of the wind; or by running foul of each other by night. And some, I fear, went down in this way. From all these circumstances, however, the number of the convoy was reduced from above three hundred to about seventy in five weeks.

Before the end of the sixth week, the convoy being thus reduced, and the transports falling short of water, and there being no appearance of a change of weather, it was thought right to return to port to collect the force and recruit the supplies of the expedition. The signal was once more made, to bear up for St. Helen's. We bore up with a strong gale from the west-south-west, and in three days arrived at St. Helen's: thus running back in three days all the distance we had made in six weeks. I believe that the vigilance and attention of H. M. S. P, as repeating ship, was noticed by the Admiral, and, in addition to this, our Captain was a man of good family interest, so that, although a very young man, he was appointed to command a better ship. He was pleased to take three midshipmen with him, of whom were the youngster who had accompanied me from the Gand myself. One circumstance which gave me great pleasure in this change was, that our excellent First Lieutenant, Mr. B

was to