JAMES'S NAVAL HISTORY.*

ENGLAND being by nature a dear little island, exceedingly near to the coast of France, and by no means out of the reach of other formidable countries, we are as naturally and instinctively led to launch ships and kidnap sailors, as other animals are to show their tusks, or butt with their horns. Nature, as the philosophical Anacreon remarks, has given appropriate arms to all her children. The horse has his heel; the hare has her speed; the bird flies, and the fish swims; woman, armed more terribly than all, is clothed in beauty. He might have added, but we believe in his time we were only remarkable for our tin, that the Briton hoists his sails, and ploughs the salt sea. Relying as we do so largely on naval armaments for security, and so celebrated as we have long been for the skill, courage, and success of our scamen, it is not a little remarkable that no complete history of our navy has hitherto appeared. To this praise not any of the works we have seen can pretend, though in other respects some of them are entitled to no small share of applause. Captain Brenton has loaded his work with extraneous matter from parliamentary debates, private and public letters, Annual Registers, &c., and has widely departed from the calm and discriminating impartiality which ought to distinguish the historian, in all that relates to the late Earl of St. Vincent. The work of Mr. James is not improperly entitled a Naval History, being neither more nor less than an accurate and strictly impartial account of sea engagements, which, though not itself a history, by the faithfulness with which facts are recorded, by the industry with which they are collected, and by the judiciousness with which the true is separated from the doubtful, and the insignificant from the important, presents the best of all possible materials for a history. The early naval histories are full of the grossest misrepresentations, and abound in the prejudices of national vanity and national animosity. Many of their statements were indeed wilfully exaggerated, under the plea that they were written during an active and vigorous war, when it was necessary to animate the sailors with an unlimited confidence in their own prowess, and to open the hearts and purses of the people, who could not refuse to part with their last shilling to men who were performing such prodigies of valour in their defence. We need not waste words in appreciating the value of such histories. Another species of deception arose out of the rating system, by which ships were classed according to a nominal force considerably below the number of guns actually employed, a practice utterly unworthy of a power pretending to a love of probity and fair-play. The historians, however, jealous of the national honour, and too proud of the wooden walls of Old England, to do justice to an enemy, or to tell the story fairly, invariably forgot to take this circumstance into account. Nor is Captain Brenton quite free from the charge of unfairness in this respect. Mr. James, however, has

The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in February, 1793, to the Accession of George IV. in January, 1820. By William James. A new edition, with considerable additions and improvements, including Diagrams of all the principal Actions. In Six Volumes. London. 1826. 8vo.

drawn the veil aside, and by assigning, with remarkable precision and industry, the real armament to each ship, has conferred a lasting obligation upon the lover of truth. As might have been expected, he has given offence; and he, it appears, knows so little of the world as to be surprized at it. Mr. James has by this time learned that all people think the truth a very disagreeable thing, and the truth-teller a man so completely out of the pale of good-breeding, as to be utterly unworthy of any other chastisement than that of the cudgel. We know nothing that would shock the world much more than to tell them the whole truth. It is a very dangerous and revolutionary practice, a kind of moral Agrarian law, which takes from the rich to give to the poor. Truth-tellers, in all ages, have been the despised of their age. Their contemporaries visit them with the scourge or the stake, and posterity calls them great men, and prints fine editions of their works. The history of our own times which offended no one, would be nothing else than one huge lie.

The absurdity of making a mystery of the true number of guns, or the real weight of shot, is increased by the fact that, though much may depend on it, all does not, nor yet nearly so. Our seamen can afford the truth in this instance, and the writer pays them but a sorry compliment who represents them as having mere cowards to contend with. Victory often depends on the desperate rush of a mere handful of men in boarding, when the characteristic trait of an English sailor, which is vulgarly called bottom, renders him almost invincible. Repulsed at one port-hole, he springs in at another, and, surrounded by a host of assailants, he flourishes his cutlass, and threatens all hands with instant destruction unless they instantly surrender. If compelled to retreat, he swears his return on board is more from a "liking to his own ship," than from a fear of the enemy, and rushes back to the charge, to prove the veracity of his assertion. Again, in the most important of points, that of manoeuvring, the British had attained a great superiority, and they alone know the value of this art who have seen a few general engagements. The captain whose nautical judgment enables him to gain the "point of impunity," generally renders the best account of his adversary. It is what the sailors term "hard hammering," (that is, fighting close alongside, when nearly every gun is brought to bear,) that weight of metal then becomes a serious consideration; when the difference of the size of the shot-holes of the heavier and the lighter vessel is equal to the difference between a man's head and a man's fist.

Another prolific source of error to the historian is a too scrupulous adherence to the official accounts of naval battles, which are seldom to be implicitly relied on. These reports, especially of general actions, are written immediately after the hostilities have ceased, and before any accurate statement can by possibility be drawn up.

On their arrival they are very properly registered in the Gazette, exactly as they stand, and are never corrected. Mr. James has directed his attention particularly to this evil; and his indefatigable industry has succeeded in correcting a multitude of errors in these despatches, in remedying their defects, and in supplying new and authentic matter. Mr. James being a landsman, though something of a sailor, can be but little indebted to personal observation. He has

consequently had recourse to documents, and has derived his information from the purest sources.

Mr. Mill, in his preface to his admirable history of British India, maintains a proposition which appears at first sight paradoxical. It is, that a man is in a better condition to write the history of India from never having been resident in it. It would seem that to be a seaman by profession incapacitates a writer from compiling a good history of seafaring matters; or that, at any rate, he is more likely to perform his duty well if he is not himself a member of the service which is the subject of his pen.

A ship in her quarter-bill always has one officer appointed (generally the purser or clerk) to minute all the occurrences which take place during an action, and these are afterwards copied into the log-book. The log-book has always been considered the most faithful record of the events which happen on ship-board. It is kept by or under the superintendance of the master, and daily submitted to the inspection of the captain; and as each officer commanding a watch is required to subscribe his name to the remarks he makes, no very gross error can possibly be admitted; so that whether in action, or cruizing in chace, the ships' log-book is evidence of the highest authority. Copies of these log-books used to be, and at present the original log-books themselves are transmitted to the Navy Board, to enable the officers to pass their accounts, and are laid up in the log-repository at Somerset House. This log-repository has been Mr. James's studyand his library. It is from this room that he has drawn the most valuable parts of his work. However, he has not only been indebted to the logs of Somerset House. Many naval officers, much to their credit, have, it seems, permitted to him the use of their private journals; and Mr. James has also led the way to a source of information which none but a naval historian would ever neglect-a critical examination of the published statements of the adverse nations.

Mr. James's work is divided into three principal heads: British, French, or other Foreign fleets; light squadrons and single ships; and colonial expeditions; and the whole is arranged in chronological order, and separated into annual divisions. Besides the statement of the effective naval force of the nation, there is an additional table of abstracts, which displays at one view the increase and improvement of our fleets, compiled with considerable skill, and with Mr. James's usual industry. The professional man will find this table invaluable. There are other tables, such as the number of ships. captured or destroyed on either side-the number of commissioned officers, (including masters, who hold their rank by warrant)—and the supplies and expenditure for the sea-service for each year. Under the head of encounters of fleets, there is not only a general view of the share of the commanders and the principal ships, but a minute and detailed account of the operations of every ship engaged with the enemy. The second and last comprise boat enterprizes, land attacks, and miscellaneous occurrences, both on the home and foreign stations and perhaps to the general reader this is the most interesting part of the work, and the best entitled to the name of history.

The publication of Mr. James's book excited, as might have been expected, a very considerable uproar among the profession. There is JAN. 1827.

K

not another class of individuals in society less qualified for the endurance of criticism than the British naval captain. He is accustomed to implicit obedience; observations on his orders is insolence, and murmurs mutiny. He is generally ignorant of letters, and has consequently a horror of them. His notions of what he calls honour, are quick and sensitive, and public opinion highly estimable in his eyes, as he has always been taught to look at home for glory and renown as the rewards of his dangerous services. Moreover, a British sailor is a paragon of perfection. His nautical skill is perfect, his courage marvellous; this is his own belief and that of all his countrymen. When a man so educated and constituted, hears that a big book has been published by a landsman, in which his logs are overhauled, the details of his conduct minutely recorded, and severely criticised, we may conceive his agitation and indignation; and if he has really been sailing under false colours, if he is no lion-heart, but is conscious of having winced in the battle, and of having flinched from contest, or recollects instances of error or ignorance, perhaps of which he thought himself the sole depository, and fancied that the fatal consequences had been observed by himself alone, it is natural to suppose that a cowardly fear will take possession of his breast, and induce him to adopt some plan of attack which should either silence his enemy, or persuade the public that he is injured. Two notable controversies have arisen out of this history. Lord William Fitzroy first levelled a full-charged lawyer at his adversary; when he found his shot had not taken effect, he snatched a pen and boarded him in a cock-boat of a pamphlet. It may be said that the historian not only successfully repulsed his antagonist; but that the latter retired from the contest altogether in a very shattered condition. Then a valorous knight, hight Sir John Phillimore, took the field, armed with his first lieutenant and a club-stick. His brutal violence injured no one but himself. It is our impartial opinion, that Mr. James is fully borne out in the statements which inflamed the indignation of this eminent cudgelist, and betrayed him into conduct unworthy of a man and a gentleman. Poor Sir George Collier, it is said, showed his sense of Mr. James's narrative in a most melancholy manner. We are inclined, however, to believe in the report which attributes that catastrophe to a more domestic cause: although we are far from thinking that a public statement and examination of failure and error on the part of a commander might not prove amply sufficient to second a constitutional malady, and become the proximate cause of the event to which we allude.

It was through difficulties such as these, and many others, that Mr. ̧ James's work had to make its way. The first edition has been sold; and we congratulate the public, civil as well as military, on the appearance of a second, which has not only been enlarged by Mr. James's unceasing industry, but much improved in arrangement, and corrected in many points of unavoidable inaccuracy. We have good reason for believing that it is now making its way very fast, even among the officers of the navy. The truly brave and the truly able have nothing to fear, but, on the contrary, every thing to hope, from the publication. of the truth. Education, moreover, and a taste for literature, is making rapid advances among our naval officers, who will be more

competent to judge of the merit and value of such a work. Every man from the admiral to the master, and even in some instances to the very men, may be stimulated to the performance of their arduous duties by a history so minute and so precise as Mr. James's. In the true spirit of justice and impartiality, he makes a point of mentioning the names, at full length, of every person who he can ascertain contributed in any way to the success of any important achievement. His index is the record of our naval honour-his history is the true prizebook of the service. It will be in every ward-room mess before long; and many a brave fellow, in his retirement, will appeal to it as the record and monument of his skill or his courage, in the hour of danger and difficulty.

We exceedingly regret that the exigencies of space compel us to omit numerous instances either of interest in themselves or of merit in Mr. James's narrative, which we had selected for extract and comment. We are almost tempted to promise to resume the subject, contrary to our custom, in another number.

ALDERMAN WAITHMAN v. JOINT STOCK COMPANIES.

WE have often regretted that so sturdy a citizen as Alderman Waithman should be so little enlightened on several important topics. It seems singular that a trader, and the representative of an army of traders, should so imperfectly understand the first principles of the thing he lives by. Every one who has read Mr. Waithman's speeches in the newspapers must remember, that the object of his peculiar abhorrence is political economy. It is into such hands that it has fallen to examine the proceedings under the late Bubble mania. His speech, made in the House in the course of this month, on occasion of the charges against Mr. Brogden, was consequently amply loaded with cant and nonsense about monopoly and delusion, such as we have all been in the habit of hearing for many months past.

The worthy Alderman wants to guard the people from " delusion!" Sweet innocents! Why, surely he must know-for every child knows that the only " delusion," in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, was this;-that the people who bought shares intending to sell them at a profit to their neighbours, and thus throw the risk, and probably the loss, upon them, were " deluded" in this their pious expectation, and had to keep the risk or the loss to themselves. Not one in a thousand, we will venture to assert, took any pains to go into the evidence, as to the solidity of the enterprize; not one in ten thousand took the same measures to guard against fraud and delusion that he would have done if he had gone into Mr. Waithman's shop-examine the worth and probable wear of the article. Why? Because he had no sort of intention of trying either worth or wear he saw that shares were rising, and bought them as fools will buy wool or cotton, or any thing that is rising rapidly; and so, Mr. Alderman Waithman thinks he can legislate for this malady! He is a modest man; but he must not stop in his career. If he would be indeed the guardian saint of gulls, and dupes, and miscalculators, he