I am always willing and ready to open my mind without reserve.

It behoves us not to hold the Americans too cheap in our estimation. We must either excel them or they will excel us; for they have humility enough to confess they are not equal to us yet, in naval skill and ability; but they appear to me to have the emulation to become so.

And so far are they advanced in professional science and practical seamanship, as well as in the essential qualifications of officers, that I am inclined to consider these Americans the only naval people, in the present day, over whom a successful action, on equal terms, can justly confer any credit on a British opponent.'

In allusion to the report which had reached him of the multitudes of his countrymen who flocked to Plymouth, from curiosity, to see the fallen Emperor Napoleon, then on board an English vessel awaiting his destiny, thus paying him an honour gratifying to his vanity, he says, Why the public is a sort of nondescript, an anomaly in nature. It cannot discriminate between good and evil-between the career of honour towards the goal of fame and real glory, or infamy.'

6

We may infer, perhaps, from this, that the opinion Captain Heywood had formed thus early of the character of Napoleon, was similar to that developed by Dr. Channing, in his Remarks on the Life and Character of Napoleon Buonaparte,' and in his

Thoughts on True Greatness,' productions, published many years afterwards, with which Captain H. entirely coincided in sentiment.

Captain Heywood and his crew were soon released from the station which appears to have become so irksome to them. In the same month in which his letter was dated, he accompanied Lord Exmouth in that gratifying mission along the Barbary shores, which produced the release of nearly two thousand Christian slaves. The following characteristic anecdote is given of him by the author of the Notice in the United States Journal: 'At Tripoli, another instance of his watchfulness occurred; a heavy N. W. wind coming on while the Admiral and most of his captains were on shore, the whole squadron began to drive, and some of them heeled over prodigiously. We ran to the top of the Consul's house, which overlooks the roads, where Lord Exmouth and Sir J. Brisbane soon made their

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appearance also. "My Lord," we said, "the Montagu is under sail." "Oh! as for Heywood," he replied, "no fear of him; (*he is sure to be in his place); what are the others doing?"

'On our return from the Mediterranean,' continues Captain Heywood, the Montagu was paid off at Chatham, on the 16th of July, 1816; and I came ashore, after having been actively employed at sea twenty-seven years, six months, one week, and

* As added by a friend.

five days, out of a servitude in the navy of twentynine years, seven months, and one day.'

The following lines, written by one of the Montagu's crew, were sent to Captain Heywood, by desire of the whole ship's company. They express the sentiments of affectionate respect, which were universally entertained towards him by his men, and by his contemporaries in the service, and they cannot, in justice to the subject, be excluded from this volume. Sent to him at a moment when his ship's company were about to be freed from the restraints of naval discipline, they cannot indicate a design to seek his favour by undue adulation. He was perfectly adored,' was the emphatic expression of one of his shipmates respecting him to the writer of this memoir. In the Naval Biography they are thus introduced: We have had occasion to notice the presentation of numerous swords, snuff-boxes, rings, &c., but we have never yet met with an instance of a naval commander receiving a tribute of respect and esteem from his crew, better calculated to gratify a benevolent and humane mind, than "The Seaman's Farewell to H. M. S. Montagu," when put out of commission at Chatham, on the 16th of July, 1816.'

Farewell to thee, MONTAGU! yet ere we quit thee
We'll give thee the blessing, so justly thy due;
For many a seaman will fondly regret thee,

And wish to rejoin thee, thou Gem of True Blue.'

For stout were thy timbers, and stoutly commanded,
In the record of glory untarnished thy name;
Still ready for battle when glory demanded,
And ready to conquer or die in thy fame.

Farewell to thee, Heywood! a truer one never
Exercised rule o'er the sons of the wave;

The seamen who served thee, would serve thee for ever,
Who sway'd, but ne'er fetter'd, the hearts of the brave.

Haste home to thy rest, and may comforts enshrine it,
Such comforts as shadow the peace of the bless'd;
And the wreath thou deserv'st, may gratitude twine it,
The band of true seamen thou ne'er hast oppress'd.

Farewell to ye, Shipmates, now home is our haven,
May our hardships all fade as a dream that is past;
And be this true toast to old Montagu giv'n,

She was our best ship, and she was the last.

The wish, not inelegantly expressed in the fourth of these verses, and certainly appropriate to his character and tastes, was not breathed in vain. He had now fulfilled the resolution so solemnly declared to Captain Montagu, when the King's pardon was extended to him, that he would devote his life to the service of his Sovereign; and as his country no longer required the active exertions of the profession, he retired from public life. His mind was from the first evidently formed to gather the choicest fruits of domestic privacy and leisure, and to cultivate, in comparative seclusion and peace, intellectual and literary tastes. Hitherto he had allowed nothing to interfere with that high sense of duty to his country, which was always present to his mind ;

and, perhaps, from the feeling that his profession was incompatible with that attention to the obligations of domestic ties which alone could satisfy him in their enjoyment, he deferred until this time his union with a lady, to whom he had long been attached.