prince, asking permission to come to the castle to arrange a capitulation; and before sunrise, the city and fortress of Breda had surrendered to the authority of the States-General and of his Excellency.

MOTLEY.

JOHN LATHROP MOTLEY, the distinguished historian, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1814, and was graduated at Harvard college in 1831. Soon after, he spent several years in Germany, studying in its universities. In 1841, he was appointed Secretary of Legation to Russia, which post he resigned in less than two years, having written in the meantime for the N. A. Review a leading article on Peter the Great. He has written numerous papers for leading periodicals, and two anonymous novels, "Morton's Hope," and " Merrymount." "The Rise of the Republic " appeared in 1856; "The History of the United Netherlands," in 1867; and he is now at work on the history of the Thirty Years' War.

ON

IV.

68. HERVÉ RIEL.

1.

N the sea and at the Hogue,' sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French-woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet in view.

"Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase, First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville; Close on him fled, great and small, twenty-two good ships in all; And they signaled to the place, "Help the winners of a race! Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still, Here's the English can and will!". 3.

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass ?"

laughed they:

"Rocks to starboard,' rocks to port, all the passage scarred and

scored,

1 Cape La Hogue, 10 miles N. E. of Valognes, France, off which the united English and Dutch fleets defeated the French naval force, as referred to above, May 19-22, 1692.

2 Star' board, the right-hand side of a ship or boat, to a person looking forward.

3 Pōrt, now used instead of lar board, or opposed to starboard.

Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns
Think to make the river-mouth by the single nǎrrow way,
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside? now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring? Rather say, while rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was called a council straight; brief and bitter the debate:
"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,
For a prize to Plymouth Sound? better run the ships aground!"
(Ended Damfreville his speech.)

"Not a minute more to wait! let the captains all and each
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!
France must undergo her fate."

5.

"Give the word!"-But no such word was ever spoke or heard;
For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these-
A captain? A lieutenant? A mate-first, second, third?
No such man of mark, and meet with his betters to compete!
But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for +1 feet--
A poor coasting pilot, ervé Riel the Croisickese.

6.

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Hervé Riel;
"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or
rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell
On my fingers ĕvèry bank, every shallow, every swell

"Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues?
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?
Morn and eve, night and day, have I piloted your bay,
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.

7.

That were worse than fifty

"Burn the fleet, and ruin France?

Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!

Only let me lead the line,

Have the biggest ship to steer, get this Formidable clear,

Make the others follow mine,

And I lead them most and least by a passage I know well,
Right to Solidor, past Grève, and there lay them safe and sound;
And if one ship misbehave-keel so much as grate the ground-
Why, I've nothing but my life: here's my head!" cries Hervé Riel.

8.

Not a minute mōre to wait, "Steer us in, then, small and great!
Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief.
Captains, give the sailor place! he is admiral, in brief.

Still the North wind, by God's grace! see the noble fellow's face
As the big ship, with a bound, clears the entry like a hound,
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!
See, safe through shoal and rock, how they follow in a flock.
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,
Not a spar that comes to grief!

The peril, see, is past, all are harbored to the last,

And just as Hervé Riel hollos "Anchor! -sure as fate,
Up the English come, too late.

9.

So the storm subsides to calm:

They see the green trees wave on the hights o'erlooking Grève: Hearts that bled are stanched with balm.

"Just our rapture to enhance, let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance, as they cannonade ǎway! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Outburst all with one accord,-"This is Paradise for Hell! Let France, let France's king

Thank the man that did the thing!"

What a shout, and all one word, "Hervé Riel,"

As he stepped in front once more,

Not a symptom of surprise in the frank blue Breton eyes,
Just the same man as before.

10.

Then said Damfreville, “My friend, I must speak out at the end,

Though I find the speaking hard:

Praise is deeper than the lips; you have saved the king his ships, You must name your own reward.

'Faith, our sun was near eclipse!

Demand whate'er you will, France remains your debtor still. Ask to heart's content, and have! or my name's not Damfreville."

11.

Then a beam of fun outbroke on the bearded mouth that spoke, As the honest heart laughed through those frank eyes of Breton blue:

"Since I needs must say my say, since on board the duty's done,
And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run ?—
Since 'tis ask and have, I may—since the others go ashōre―
Come! A good whole holiday!

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurōre!"
That he asked, and that he got—nothing more.

12.

Name and deed alike are lost: not a pillar nor a post
In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;

Not a head in white and black on a single fishing-smack,
In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack
All that France saved from the fight whence England bōre the bell.
Go to Paris; rank on rank

Search the heroes flung pell-mell

On the Louvre, face and flank;

You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel. So, for better and for worse, Hervé Riel, accept my verse!

In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more

Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!

V.

ROBERT BROWNING.

69. RECAPTURE OF THE PHILADELPHIA. [During the first term of the Presidency of THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1803 to 1805, the insolence of the piratical states on the Barbary coast was humbled by the bombardment of Tripoli and the invasion of that state by a land force. The frigate PHILADELPHIA, while chasing one of the enemy's vessels, struck on a reef, in the harbor of Tripoli, and in consequence was captured, and her crew sold into slavery. She was soon after recaptured and destroyed, as described below.]

TH

'HE Philadelphiä lay not quite a mile within the entrance, riding to the wind, and abreast of the town. Her foremast, which had been cut away while she was on the reef, had

not yet been replaced, her main and mizzen' top-masts were housed, and her lower yards were on the gunwales. Her lower standing rigging, however, was in its place, and, as was shortly afterward ascertained, her guns were loaded and shotted. Just within her, lay two cor'sairs, with a few gun-boats and a galley.

2. It was a mild evening for the season, and the sea and bay were smooth as in summer; as unlike as possible to the same place a few days previously, when the two vessels had been driven from the enterprise by a tempest. Perceiving that he was likely to get in too soon, when about five miles from the rocks, Mr. Decatur ordered buckets and other drags to be towed astern, in order to lessen the way of the kětch' without shortening sail, as the latter expedient would have been seen from the port, and must have awakened suspicion. In the meantime the wind gradually fell, until it became so light as to leave the ketch but about two knots' way on her, when the drags were removed.

5

3. About ten o'clock the Intrepid reached the eastern entrance of the bay, or the passage between the rocks and the shoal. The wind was nearly east, and, as she steered directly for the frigate, it was well abaft the beam. There was a young moon, and as these bold adventurers were slowly advancing into a hostile pōrt, all around them was tranquil and apparently without distrust. For near an hour they were stealing slowly along, the air gradually failing, until their motion became scarcely perceptible.

4. Most of the officers and men of the ketch had been ordered to lie on the deck, where they were concealed by low bulwarks, or weather-boards, and by the different objects that belong to a vessel. As it is the practice of those seas to carry a number of men even in the smallèst craft, the appearance of ten or twelve

1 Mizzen (miz' zn), hindmost; nearest the stern.

2 Gunwale (gun' nel), the uppermost wall, or upper edge of a ship's side.

Stephen Decatur, jr., a commodore in the U. S. navy, son of the first commodore of the name, was born at Sinnepuxent, Md., Jan. 5, 1779, and was killed in a duel, March 22, 1820. He was one of the bravest

and most highly esteemed of all our naval officers.

4 Kětch, a vessel with two masts, usually from 100 to 250 tons burden.

'Abaft (a båft'), toward the stern; back of; abaft the beam, in an arc of the horizon, between a line that crosses a ship in the direction of her beams, and that point of the compass toward which her stern is directed.