METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER, KEPT AT THE OBSERVATORY OF CAPT. W. H. SMYTH, AT BEDFORD. N. by W. fr. breezes, cloudy. TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. If our Correspondent" N'Oubliez" were appointed to the command of a Periodical, he would soon come to understand why it is prudent to exclude such warm communications as his. If he will also remember the two first words of our Title, he will see that the grand purpose for which this task is undertaken, would be entirely defeated by giving currency to such hard interpretations of expressions, capable of gentler meanings. If for the word Order our Correspondent will read "Official Requisition," he will admit that there is nothing wrong in the Count's Letter. Again, is it not clear that no order ever penned could have been more imperative than Sir John Moore's letter to Sir Samuel Hood, requiring the transports to proceed to Corunna. Indeed, if officers on real service were to squabble at this rate about mere words, the machinery of public duty would soon stop. When the Two Services are really united, they have other things to think of than such child's play. We are authorized by Capt. Burton to state, in reference to the letter of L. T. (page 112 of our Number for September,) that he never called the solution a geometrical solution. He termed it simply what it is a Trisection by means of a peculiar curve. Another demonstration upon Angular Trisection, by that officer, will appear in our next. The communications of "Americus" (Demerara) we hope will be continued. We wait only for that scarce commodity-space, to locate him. "Medicus" (Naval) has probably found out his mistake in supposing we had not noticed the subject in question. We shall speak anon of the experimental squadron. We are sorry that the length to which “ An Old Light Bob" has carried his amusing strictures has forced us to omit him this month. We shall try him next month, if possible. We are in a similar dilemma with respect to Baron de B. Will "A Circumnavigator" continue his judicious remarks? Many letters on the Coronation Brevet have been omitted as no longer applicable. "Iron-sides," "An Old Captain,” “ An Old Peninsular Dragoon," "An Officer serving in Jamaica," A Field-Officer of Yeomanry," "Blue Jacket," "W. G.-Exeter," &c. &c. are unavoidably deferred. ON THE MARITIME POPULATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. IN approaching some stormy coast, or headland, where gusts and gales may hourly be expected, the experienced mariner rarely suffers himself to be thrown off his guard by present appearances, or lulled into security by the transient enjoyment of a fair wind and a smooth sea. He is practically aware of the difficulties and the dangers with which he is surrounded, and he sets himself calmly to examine his resources, and prepare his ship, at any moment,, to meet the expected storm. The bark of this mighty empire has for many years glided onwards under tolerably favourable circumstances of wind and weather, but we are now in the latitude of squalls, and a variety of events concur in bidding us examine our resources, and prepare to encounter many formidable difficulties, and strive against many an angry blast. It behoves us, therefore, as we would be useful to our friends, or formidable to our enemies, most anxiously to inquire into the condition and efficiency of the various "spars and tackling" of the state, that the "proud old bark" may ever be in readiness, fearlessly to brave the roughest weather "That time and spite dare bring to frown upon her." The inseparable connexion which exists between our national welfare and our maritime supremacy, induces us, at the present eventful crisis, to offer a few brief remarks on the past and present condition of our seamen, as it ever must be by the spirit, the patriotism, and the moral worth, of our people, more than by the extent and populousness of our country, that the ascendancy we have acquired in the civilised world is to be preserved. It is our present intention, however, to confine our remarks more especially to that portion of our maritime population employed in the commercial marine; for although we may fearlessly assert, that so far as regards the Royal Navy, in the discipline and good order of its ships, in the high spirit and hard-fighting qualities of its men, or in the loyalty and attachment to their country which exist in all ranks and conditions of the service,-no former period of our history could boast a more efficient force (for its size), or one more truly to be relied upon; still, we regret to say, that the discipline and good government of the commercial navy,-that nursery of our best seamen and cradle of our maritime superiority-has not received sufficient legislative consideration since the peace; nor has the moral character of this truly interesting portion of our fellow subjects, met with that degree of public attention and regard to which their services so justly entitle them. Before entering into a discussion on the present government and guidance of our merchant ships, let us call to the recollection of our readers some of the chief causes, moral and political, which in modern times have produced an almost universal change (certainly for the worse) in the maritime population of the country, so far, at least, as the commercial navy is concerned; a subject which, from its vast importance, demands the serious attention of every member of the community. In pursuing our investigation, let us briefly advert to the two great sources from whence flowed the moral evils with which our maritime population has been so deeply tainted-the political necessity U. S. JOURN. No. 36. Nov, 1831. U L of impressment on the one hand, and the positive iniquity of sending convicts into His Majesty's ships on the other. Impressment is one of those few vestiges of the feudal system which now remain amongst us, the political necessity of which must presently be brought under consideration, and we cheerfully leave it to the decision of those who are placed in authority over us; nor are we inclined to impute all the evil consequences which we are about to detail, so much to the measure itself, as to the total want of modification throughout the whole system, and the consequent unrelenting rigour with which, like the celebrated Milan and Berlin decrees, it almost defeated the object for which it was designed. We are not such visionaries as to suppose, that in the event of a war, a sufficient number of seamen could be procured for the defence of the state, without the adoption of some species of compulsory service, the modification of which we leave (as we have already said) to the wisdom of our rulers, and go on calmly and honestly to offer a few remarks on the moral consequences which were produced by the uncompromising rigour with which the system of impressment was conducted during the late war. The first and most obvious of its ill effects was, that it destroyed in our seamen those feelings of attachment and fidelity which all men owe to their native country, and sent them (with that facility with which sailors can at any time change their place of location) to seek shelter in the United States of America; the ease with which they obtained protections, added not a little to their determination thitherward. We shall find that during the progress of the French revolutionary war, while the regular navy was achieving some of its proudest triumphs, the commercial marine gradually deteriorated in moral, nay, in physical excellence, till at the close of that protracted struggle (if we except those ships employed in the transport service, whose crews were protected from impressment,) the whole merchant service had almost ceased to be British. Foreigners, chiefly from Por tugal and the Baltic, were, in many cases, the standing part of a ship's company, which was made up by invalids from His Majesty's ships; or by men, who, having received some bodily injury, were deemed unfit for the King's service: the usual number of apprentice boys completed the complement, who, if they did not escape to America, were almost invariably picked up by the men-of-war so soon as the period of their apprenticeship had expired. How far limiting the period of compulsory service in the event of a war, and granting greater encouragement to volunteers, will tend to secure the attachment and fidelity of our seamen, and prevent them from expatriating themselves, is a subject well worthy of our most serious consideration. Another of the injurious effects resulting from the universal and unrestricted system of impressment, still fatally visible in the merchant service, was that check given to moral improvement by the bar which it presented to young men of respectable connexions and good education, who would otherwise have embarked in the merchant service of the country, and who, no doubt, would have exercised an energetic and beneficial influence on the minds of the common sailors. As no regu lation existed for the encouragement of such a class of men, by granting a certificate of exemption from impress on payment of a certain sum of money, or otherwise, intelligence was virtually excluded from the commercial marine; and at the close of the war, while we find the merchant ship manned by any thing but able, far less by British seamen, we also find them commanded by men, in many instances, brought from before the mast, and they not always seamen. Carpenters, from the necessity of the times, not unfrequently attained the situation of ship-master. Such persons, however excellent they might have been as seamen, or as carpenters, were but ill calculated to sustain moral habits in their ships, or to give an impulse to the intellectual improve ment of those over whom they were called upon to preside: that it is not so easy to govern wisely and well as many seem to suppose, is proved from the fact, that few who are elevated to a station in which they were not born ever acquire that faculty. In the mean time, the discipline of the commercial fleet was carried on, though not according to law, yet in the most simple and summary manner possible: the fist or the rope's end was resorted to upon all occasions, which kept the foreign part of the ship's company in awe; the same means, joined to the constant dread of the King's ships, kept the British portion (such as it was) in pretty tolerable subordination; and if the terrors of the civil authority ever visited the conscience of the ship-master, when he stood self-accused of having starved, oppressed, or otherwise maltreated any of his men, particularly those who were liable to impressment, he had at all times a ready means of quashing proceedings, sim ply by sending all whom he might suspect of any intention of appealing to the law of the land, into the very first man-of-war he fell in with even the foreigners, if by any mischance they had lost their national protection, were not exempted from this process: we have! served with many of them during the war in His Majesty's ships. On those occasions, if the state of his complement admitted of such a proceeding, it was usual for the captain of the frigate to embrace so favourable an opportunity of sending in exchange an equal number of profligate vagabonds, whom he, in all probability, had acquired from the civil power. Such was the state of affairs when the return of peace created an instant and universal change in the maritime world, not only as regarded British merchants and seamen, but also in the prospects and circumstances of merchants and seamen at large, and those states whose fleets had long been swept from the ocean, once more resumed their station in the commercial world, and enjoyed those grand desiderata of Napoleon's ambition-ships, colonies, and commerce; and many a fair possession won by British valour in the field was lost by her simplicity in the cabinet. America no longer enjoyed the almost exclusive carrying trade of the old world, which she had found so beneficial during the greater part of the war-and of course no longer required the services of her adopted children, who had assisted in navigating her ships; they of course returned to the mother country, lost, no doubt, to that firm and faithful adherence, that loyal attachment to its government and institutions, which form so noble a part in the moral character of those into whose keeping the best interests of their native land must ever be confided in the hour of danger. This arose partly from the causes which induced them, in the first instance, to seek shelter in the United States, and partly from most of them having served in the privateers, and many of them in the regular navy of America. Unlike the French army of 1783, however, they imported no republican views -in maritime affairs there seems to be an unalterable law as to government and discipline, as we find that ships, whether belonging to the wildest republic or the most despotic monarchy, are invariably ruled upon sound monarchical principles. Another important change was occasioned by the great reduction that took place in the Royal Navy at the peace, which brought back to the bosom of civil life multitudes of seamen seeking employment, who, from various causes, were found much less tractable than the foreigners and others whom they supplanted in the merchant service : those men had been impressed at a time when merchant wages were extravagantly high; and compelled, reluctantly, to follow the fortunes of the "meteor flag," deprived, moreover, of the remuneration which they could have received elsewhere for their labour, and associated with convicts and felons, they had long been in the habit of contrasting" the fair dreams of their early hours" with the trials and privations of their manhood, till, with feelings inseparable from human nature, they had clothed their former service with the light of elysium and invested their present with the attributes of hell. In returning to their fancied Utopia such men were but ill prepared for the low wages, hard labour, irregular hours, and neglect in sickness which custom and the general stagnation of trade occasioned in the merchant service, and to add to their bitter disappointment, they not unfrequently found themselves placed under the command of those who had started with them in the race of life under far less favourable circumstances of connexion or of education, men who had got ahead in the merchant service while they were ranging the world in King's ships. Is it to be wondered at, that men so circumstanced, escaped from the high-pressure discipline of a man-of-war into a service which could no longer be conducted on the harsh principles which had been resorted to during the war, and when no attempt was made to introduce a better system, should be found ready to commit acts of riot and insubordination? the frequency of which were most certainly not lessened by an erroneous idea which prevailed amongst the ship-owners at this time, that navy officers were not capable of conducting merchant ships, a prejudice which happily no longer exists." But there were other circumstances connected with our maritime policy, during the war, which exercised a most baneful influence on the moral character of our seamen, worse than expatriation, want of intelligence, or even the stern necessity of impressment, and which have entailed a curse upon the whole maritime population of the empirewe allude to the odious system of converting His Majesty's ships into political engines of punishment-of sending profligate convicts into the fleet--there to introduce all those vices connected with and inseparable from moral degradation. The necessity of the state may at any time force us to have recourse to impressment, to demand or force the services of our best seamen, but what apology can there possibly be found for exposing the moral and religious interests of this most useful portion of our fellow-subjects to a system of uniform and constant demoralization, alike injurious to themselves and pregnant with mischief to the state? This convict system was the grand error in our * In one of His Majesty's ships in the Hoogly, a few years ago, we observed, that of twenty free traders then in the river, fifteen were commanded by navy officers. |