ADMIRAL LORD RODNEY.

IN the letter which follows there is an evident and interesting allusion to the well-known pecuniary difficulties of the celebrated Lord Rodney, occasioned principally by his losses at the gamingtable, which, some time previously, had compelled him to seek refuge in France. During the period of his residence in the French capital, he is known to have been occasionally in want even of the smallest sums to supply the necessities of his family; and, indeed, it is a singular fact, that he was indebted to the generosity of a French nobleman for the funds which had enabled him to revisit his native country in 1778, and consequently to achieve his great victory over the French fleet under De Grasse in 1782.

George Brydges, Lord Rodney, was the son of Henry Rodney, Esq., of Walton-upon-Thames. He was born in 1718; obtained the rank of captain in 1742, and from this period to his advancement to be a rear-admiral, in 1758, distinguished himself in various engagements with the enemy. In the autumn of the year 1761 he was selected by the great Lord Chatham to command a squadron intended to reduce the French West India island of Martinique. This service he not only accomplished in a manner highly creditable to him, but the islands of Granada, St. Lucia, and

St. Vincent also surrendered to him, which compelled the enemy to submit to humiliating terms of peace. For these services he was advanced, on his return to England, to the rank of vice-admiral, and had also the dignity of a baronet conferred on him. At the general election, in 1768, he was returned to Parliament, after a violent contest, for the town of Northampton, but in consequence of the expense of the election, and the fatal effects of his addiction to the gaming-table, he was compelled shortly afterward, in order to avoid the importunities of his creditors, to seek refuge in France. The French government appears to have formed a high opinion of his professional talents, and from the conviction, apparently, that the pecuniary difficulties with which he had to contend rendered him peculiarly open to temptation, went so far as to offer him, through the Duc de Biron, a post of high rank in the French navy. His reply was such as might have been expected from our knowledge of his character: "Monsieur le duc," he replied, "it is true that my distresses have driven me from my country, but no temptation can estrange me from her service; had this offer been voluntary on your part, I should have considered it an insult; but I am glad that it proceeds from a source that can do no wrong." About the same period, when the Duc de Chartres informed him that he was likely to be appointed to the command of the French fleet which was to

be opposed to the squadron under Admiral Keppel, and inquired of Rodney his opinion as to the probable result of an engagement between the two fleets, "My opinion," he said, "is that Keppel will carry your Highness home with him to teach you English."

In January, 1778, Rodney was advanced to the rank of admiral, and the same year, through the generous kindness of the Duc de Biron, was enabled to return to his native country. He immediately applied for active employment, and in 1779 was appointed to the command of the Leeward Islands station, shortly after which he proceeded with a convoy to Gibraltar. Within a few days after sailing from Spithead, he had the good fortune to capture, off Cape Finisterre, a valuable fleet of Spanish merchantmen, and six days afterward obtained a decisive victory over the Spanish fleet under Don Juan de Langara, off St. Vincent.

For these services he was rewarded by the thanks of the House of Commons, and other grateful testimonials from his countrymen, and also obtained his return to Parliament for the city of Westminster. From Gibraltar he proceeded to the West Indies, where he performed the important service of capturing the Dutch island of St. Eustace, and on the 12th of April, 1782, obtained his great and decisive victory over De Grasse, for which he obtained the thanks of Parliament, was voted a pension of £2,000 a year, and

was created, on the 19th of June, 1782, a peer of Great Britain, by the title of Baron Rodney, of Rodney Stoke, in the county of Somerset.

Wraxall, who appears to have been intimately associated with Rodney in private life, draws the following interesting portrait of his illustrious friend: "His person was more elegant than seemed to become his rough profession. There was even something that approached to delicacy and effeminacy in his figure; but no man manifested a more temperate and steady courage in action. I had the honour to live in great personal intimacy with him, and have often heard him declare that superiority to fear was not in him the physical effect of constitution; on the contrary, no man being more sensible by nature to that passion than himself; but that he surmounted it from the considerations of honour and public duty. Like the famous Marshal Villars, he justly incurred the reputation of being 'glorieux et bavard;' making himself frequently the theme of his own disHe talked much and freely upon every subject; concealed nothing in the course of conversation, regardless who were present; and dealt his censures, as well as his praises, with imprudent liberality, — qualities which necessarily procured him many enemies, particularly in his own profession. Throughout his whole life, two passions, both highly injurious to his repose, women and play, carried him into many excesses. It was

course.

universally believed that he had been distinguished in his youth by the personal attachment of the Princess Amelia, daughter of George the Second, who displayed the same partiality for Rodney which her cousin, the Princess Amelia of Prussia, manifested for Trenck. A living evidence of the former connection existed, unless fame had recourse to fiction for support. But detraction, in every age, from Elizabeth down to the present times, has not spared the most illustrious females. The love of play had proved more ruinous in its effects to Rodney, and that indulgence compelled him, after quitting England, to take refuge at Paris. So great was his pecuniary distress while he resided in the French capital, as to induce him to send over his second wife to London, early in 1777, with the view of procuring a subscription to be opened among the members of the club at White's for his relief. Lady Rodney, finding it, however, impracticable to raise any supplies from that source, after much ineffectual solicitation among Sir George's former friends, finally renounced the attempt. The old Marshal de Biron, having soon afterward, by an act of liberality, enabled Rodney to revisit his country, he made the strongest applications to the admiralty for employment. His private circumstances, indeed, imperiously demanded every exertion, when he was named, toward the autumn of 1779, to command the expedition then fitting out at Ports