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DEATH OF LORD HOWE.

to future ages a memorable example of the instability of all power founded on injustice, usurpation, and impiety; and shall prove the impossibility of ultimately dissolving the connection between public prosperity and public virtue."

This was an obvious allusion to the perturbed state of France, where, not long after, Buonaparte, like Cromwell, at the head of his soldiery, abolished the Directory, and assumed the reins of power, as chief of the consular government; his two nominal coadjutors being the Abbe Sieyes and Roger Ducos.

On the 24th of September, this year, after an unusually short vacation, the British Parliament reassembled for the avowed purpose of making such military preparations as might be called for at that eventful crisis.

During this interval, the navy of Great Britain lost one of its oldest and brightest ornaments, in the death of Admiral Earl Howe, at the age of seventy-four.

The professional history of this great man forms too large a portion of the national annals to need a recital here. George the Second did him no more than justice, when, on his lordship's introduction at the levee, after the defeat of the French fleet under Conflans, in the bay of Quiberon, he said, "Your life. my lord, has been one continued series of services to your country."

In the unfortunate attack upon St. Cas, near St. Malo, in 1758, Commodore Howe displayed equal skill, courage, and humanity. Before the embarkation of the English troops could be completed, the French poured down in such numbers, that a dreadful carnage ensued. At this juncture, in the midst of a fire that staggered the bravest seamen, the commodore ordered his barge to be

rowed in shore, to encourage all that were engaged in the service, and to bring off as many men as the boat would carry. The rest of the fleet followed the example, and thus, by his exertions, at least seven hundred men were preserved from the fire of the enemy, and the fury of the waves.

Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of York, was then serving under Commodore Howe, as a midshipman; and when his Royal Highness, in 1762, hoisted his flag on board the Amelia, as second in command, under Sir Edward Hawke, Lord Howe became captain of that ship.

The advancement of the noble admiral was in proportion to his merits; and Lord Hawke, when some reflection was made in the House of Peers on the employment of his friend, paid him this compliment :"It was I that advised his Majesty to make the promotion. I have tried my Lord Howe on many important occasions; he never asked me how he was to execute any service, but always went and performed it."

The last public act of a life employed against the enemies of his country, was exerted to compose its internal dissensions. It was the lot of Earl Howe to restore the fleet, which he had conducted with glory on the sea, to order and loyalty in the harbour.

Of the calm intrepidity of the noble admiral in all circumstances of personal danger, the following is an instance. Being once obliged to come to an anchor in a very unfavourable situation, he retired to rest. In the middle of the night, he was roused from his sleep by the first lieutenant.

"What is the matter?" exclaimed the admiral. The lieutenant, with a wistful look, said, "My lord, the anchor's come home."

"Is that all?" replied his lordship, "I don't know what could keep any thing out in such a night as this."

It is not to be inferred from this, that the great commander was stoically indifferent to the difficulties that surrounded him. The principle on which he acted in such cases, was to keep up the spirits of his officers and people, as the surest means of preservation, by infusing general confidence among them.

When commander-in-chief on the North American station, during the revolutionary war, the noble admiral insisted upon the pursers, clerks, and even the chaplains, taking their respective turns in keeping watch. This decree proved very disagreeable to those gentlemen; who pleaded strenuously, but in vain, for an exemption, on the ground of prescriptive right and professional privilege. Lord Howe's secretary and chaplain, Mr. O'Beirne, afterwards bishop of Meath in Ireland, undertook to remonstrate with the commander on behalf of his reverend brethren. The admiral heard him with great patience, and then, in his usual dry manner, said, "What, cannot ye watch, as well as pray?"

On the 2d of April, 1800, Lord Auckland, after expatiating very forcibly and eloquently upon the enormous increase of the vice of adultery, and the perversion as well as abuse of many divorce bills which had passed the legislature of this country, moved to bring in a bill to prevent any person divorced for adultery from intermarrying with the other guilty party. The bill was accordingly brought in; and upon the order of the day for the second reading on the 4th of the same month, the DUKE OF CLARENCE rose, to give it his decided opposition. His Royal Highness admitted that adultery was an enormous crime; that it struck at the root of domestic happiness; and was destructive of the best interests of society. Happy should he be, therefore, in supporting any measure that had a tendency to check the increase of adultery; but highly as he thought of the talents of the noble lord who had introduced the measure, and much as he admired his motives in bringing it forward, he felt it his duty to oppose the bill, as being more likely to increase than to prevent the crime. When he considered the consequences that would follow the operation of such a bill, he could not but regard it as fatal to those, who from their amiableness were entitled to compassion and liberality. His main objection to the bill was that it made no provision for the unfortunate

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female. It on the contrary took away from her almost the only remedy that the practice of the legislature now allowed in respect to divorce-the hopes of salving her reputation, by marrying the man who had beguiled her. Let their lordships recollect, that as divorce bills were only attainable by persons of property and distinction, the wives of such men, when fallen, were in a manner expelled from society, and deprived of the means of living. They could neither work nor beg, and therefore must abandon themselves to prostitution. It was a painful fact, that among the divorce bills which had come before them within a few years, several had been petitioned for by persons of high rank in life. Let their lordships make the case their own, and consider whether they thought their ladies, if it should be their misfortune to be complainants, ought to be reduced from splendour to misery, as they might be by the operation of this bill. However deeply the prevalence of adultery was to be deplored, surely all commiseration for the unfortunate was not to be sacrificed to their lordships' zeal. It had been said, that many divorces originated in a contract between the offending parties to intermarry, in the event of a dissolution of their present union. He doubted the fact, and rather thought that the virtue of the woman had in most cases been undermined by the artifices of the seducer. There might possibly be a solitary instance of collusion between the parties; but of the frequency of the occurrence, there must be stronger evidence than bare assertion, before he could give it credit. He could easily believe that divorces by the legislature increased the number of adulteries. When a divorce was obtained by an act, as the practice now stood, it was open to the man, who had been the offender,