his grave. This historical fact sufficiently
disposes of James's unsupported romance of lime
barrels, and the rest. Indeed, Lawrance himself
was incapable of a dastardly or dishonourable
action. He was a brave and gallant gentleman,
and deserved honour of the enemy and renown
and gratitude of his country. And he got both.

Captain Broke, too, was a noble-hearted
man and gallant officer. All through the
American war he distinguished himself by the
discipline and high moral tone of his ship.
He fought, not for prize-money and personal
gain, he used to say, but for glory and his
country. Therefore, considering that it
demoralised his men as well as weakened his crew
to send them home in his prizes, he generally
took what was portable and valuable out of the
ships to share among his crew, and sunk the
rest; preferring to pay the value of what he
lost out of his own pocket, that his men should
not be discontented and think themselves hardly
used, than see them demoralised by the love of
gain and self. So at least said Mr. John Wilson
Croker in the House, and the Times of the 9th
of July, 1813, echoes him. Of course there
was considerable roaring of the British lion
here in England when the despatches came.
But on the 11th of September there was a fatal
crow on Lake Erie, given by Commodore Perry
over Captain Barclay, which had to remain un-
answered and unavenged—until to-day.

There was one tragic disaster during the
fight of the Shannon and the Chesapeake,
worth recording because of its piteous fatality.
Lieutenant Wall, of the Shannon, one of the
boarding party, was told to haul down the
American flags, and hoist instead the brave old bit
of blue. By mistake he pulled the wrong
halliards, and hoisted the American colours first,
upon which the men left on board his own ship
thought that the Chesapeake had rallied again,
and fired in a broadside, which laid the poor
lieutenant low for ever. Another curious
circumstance was the explosion of an open cask of
musket cartridges left standing on the Chesapeake's
cabin. They caught fire and blew up,
but did no injury to man or spar. Even the
spanker-boom, directly in the way of the
explosion, was barely singed; which unusual direction
of natural forces was taken as a matter of
special Providence in those days, and the Boston
divines made the most of it. The names of the
Chesapeake's guns, too, are curious. On the
main-deck were Brother Jonathan, True Blue,
Yankee Protection, Putnam, Raging Eagle,
Viper, General Warren, Mad Anthony,
America, Washington, Liberty for Ever, Dreadnought,
Defiance, Liberty or Death; on the
forecastle were the United Tars, Jumping Billy,
Rattler: on the quarter-deck Bulldog, Spitfire,
Nancy Dawson, Redcap, Bunker's Hill, Pocohontas,
Towser, and Wilful Murder, each name
engraved on a square plate of copper, and
fastened on the gun-carriages. It would have been
well for the Chesapeake if her guns had
answered better to their names, and carried their
metal a little more steadily and truly.

As everything connected with America is
of interest at the present moment, when it
seems as if our cousins want to force us into
a hand-to-hand fight if we are to preserve our
status among nations or our dignity as men, it
perhaps will be pleasant to read of a fight when
English courage and English pluck carried it
over distinct odds, and to believe that the race
has not quite died out yet, but has left a handful
of representatives behind it. The other
day, when the first intimation of an American
captain's desire to speak with an English mail-
steamer was by firing a round shot across her
bows, and sending a shell to within a hundred
yards of her, we have nothing of the gallant
spirit which sent courteously-worded challenges,
and gave a dead enemy burial with all the
honours of war. Fancy the modern rowdies
of the North giving any honour at all to
the best spirits of the South! In the old
war with us the Americans were rude and
bragging enough, but they were sucking-doves
compared with what they are now, when success
in trade and invention has inflated the whole
nation like a gigantic balloon, and every one
is preparing for the shock of its collapse.

The fact is, the Americans are like a party
of overbearing schoolboys, who want a sound
thrashing and to be turned down to the lower
forms before they can be said to be rebuked.
Apparently they are exceedingly ambitious that
we should hold the rod, when they may be sure
we shall not spare the stripes. Meanwhile we
cannot do better than call to mind the Shannon
and the Chesapeake—how we fought at odds and
beat, simply by superior discipline and pluck.
"The mirror of the prophet hangs behind him,"
and round its border is the legend, "What has
been may be again." It is not unlikely that the
affair of the Trent and San Jacinto may have
other and sterner outgrowths than what have
appeared as yet above the earth—outgrowths
which will bear the mark of England's shaping
hand and the impress of her conquering foot; the
thin gay flags, torn and soiled with blood, hauled
down, and the Union Jack floating from the top.

                           NEW WORK
       BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
                           NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed next March)
                    A STRANGE STORY,
                              BY THE
  AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. &c.

              Now Ready, price Fourpence,
               TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.
                        FORMING THE
               EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
                     FOR CHRISTMAS.