off the Penmarks, he mutilated his ships to such a degree, in order to fire right aft, that a heavy refit was incurred.

Bowline.-Heavy refit! Who but Joe Hume, or those narrowminded calculators who measure the value of everything by the commercial scale, would think of the damage in a case where five liners and a couple of frigates baffled the repeated attacks of thirteen sail of the line, fourteen frigates, and three smaller vessels, during a whole day?

Gasket. It is not the expense I meant so much, as whether round sterns would not have been better for such an exigence. Nobody estimates more highly than I do the gallantry and talent which rendered "Cornwallis's Retreat" equal to any of our naval actions.

Bowline.-It was indeed. But old Billy Blue was a practised stager at retreating, and proved to conviction that the square stern was capable of making a proper defence. Recollect his affair off St. Domingo, in 1780, when he, with a 64, a 50, and an old 44, was engaged by M. La Motte Piquet for nearly a couple of days, although the French force consisted of four large and heavy line-of-battle ships and a frigate. Billy, however, was a tough morsel to chew, and Crapaud, finding his attempts like those of a dog to bite a hedgehog, hauled his wind.

Gasket. There is no proof that the old tar would not have managed even better, had the curvilinear stern then prevailed.

Bowline.-It did-but not in men-of-war. Though you call it a new invention, forsooth, it is notorious that in those days large Eastcountry traders of several hundred tons burthen were seen knocking about among the West India islands, and elsewhere, with hulky-bulky sterns, as bluff as a burgomaster's when enveloped in what are ludicrously termed his small-clothes.

Gasket. You don't speak to the point; for you are prejudiced against the improvement.

Bowline.-Believe me, Gasket, you are out of your reckoning there. Locke says, that "False or doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable, keep those from truth who build on them; and to be indifferent which of two opinions is true, is the right temper of mind that preserves it from being imposed upon." Now, in examining professional objects, this "direct and safe way to the truth" is imperiously necessary; and I trust to my being so little biassed, as to be entirely divested of that prejudice by which individuals, as well as parties, are

so liable to be misled.

Gasket. But if you will allow of neither strength nor means of defence being usefully increased, what can you object to the doing away with those heavy incumbrances, the quarter-galleries? You will admit that they were both unsightly and unnecessary

?

Bowline. Indeed I can't admit either. They were not only in perfect symmetry with the ship, but constituted a very necessary comfort to the officers; besides which, they were contrived for flanking the whole broadside, and have often proved awkward points to boarders. Gasket.-You forget that a ship will sail all the better close-hauled, when such projections are removed.

Bowline. All the better close-hauled! What next? As to the galleries holding wind, you well know it must be in an immaterial degree when the magnitude of the moving body is considered. How is it possible that a ship turning to windward-which lays at 67 degrees from the blowing point-with a gallery presenting less than

six feet of resistance, can be impeded by the wind then blowing on it at an angle of about 20 degrees? It can be physically provedGasket.-Oh! if you give physic for it

Bowline.-Well, in other words. Both hydraulic and pneumatic principles show that it cannot affect the rate of any ship th part. Why, a youngster heaving the log holds as much wind, and affects the sailing of the vessel equally as much.

Gasket. Still, there was always crashing work if another ship shaved the quarter a little too lovingly.

Bowline.-But are not the false dicker-work, the ornamental gingerbread, and the berthing of the new constructions, much-of-a-muchness with the old galleries?

Gasket. They certainly have altered the simplicity of the rounders latterly. But just recollect what a precious number of ships were weak in the stern-frame, as set forth in the official reports on which circular sterns were resolved upon. You must assume those as premises; and having so done, the conclusion will hardly be denied.

Bowline.-Fiddle-de-dee! The loose stern-frames were like the Duke of Bolton's, when he wanted to run into port to set up his bobstays, a mere pretext to accomplish an end.

Gasket.-What! do you disbelieve the documents?

Bowline.- No. I think what is there stated is true enough-but the whole truth is not given. The reports of the Navy were ransacked for evidence, and such extracts made as suited the occasion. Had the same scrutators hunted for defects in the bows, or the decks, or any where else, the same returns could have furnished them.

Gasket. There is, however, quite documentary proof enough to make out a good case; and the providing the service with efficient men-of-war is the first, and perhaps the ruling, consideration for the Admiralty.

Bowline.-I deny that, again. Moral power is as necessary as physical strength; there should therefore always be humane as well as mechanical considerations in these affairs. The privations of sea-life are such, that innovators should always study the comfort of those who follow it. Yet here they are circumscribed by caprice. Compare the advantages offered by the galleries of the square sterns with the crimped accommodations of the curvilinear ones; add thereto the poisonous effluvia of coal-tar and fish-oil injections, and you'll sigh with the poet-"Like cats in air-pumps, to subsist we strive

On joys too thin to keep the soul alive."

Gasket. The builders have lately done all they can for accommodation; and I repeat, the duty of the Admiralty was, to consider the battery. Instead of the open over-hanging lump of weakness, formerly called a stern, you have now a fine platform, with quarters as good as at the broadside.

Bowline.-Take care of your toes though, while the guns are running in; for there is less room to recoil than under the old system.

Gasket.-Clap on plenty of breeching, and check them.

Bowline.-Oh! then you do acknowledge one pretty considerable defect of your circulars? You will next allow that your favourite' stern guns cannot be pointed so acute without wooding barkies.

Gasket.-How can that be asserted? The amplitu

the rounder's guns may be trained so as to cross at an angle which would afford no point of impunity, except within a quarter of a cable's length.

Bowline.-Point of impunity! What a preposterous phrase for a practical man to use! Draw your lines, make your diagrams, hatch your theories, and after all to come to a point of impunity,"—where the minute divergence of the lines of fire, and the closeness of the object would make it barely a handspike's breadth. This would avail nothing, if the contending bodies were as fixed as the rock of Gibraltar ; but with all the batteries in motion, and the divergence and distance altering every instant, makes it really absurd.

Gasket. You haven't always the power of mobility. Suppose an enemy lashed to you

Bowline.-" I guess " he would find no point of impunity. That's the time when a British ship is most alive :

"Then glow the mariners with generous ire,

And send their hearts with every ball they fire."

Gasket.-Had you been teazed in the Baltic, as the poor old Africa, in 1808, and others were, by the Danish gun-boats, you'd have given your ears for the power of offence afforded by the round sterns.

Bowline.-I allow the treatment those ships received when caught in a calm to have been irritating enough. But such attacks will not be prevented so much by any alteration of the build of the stern, as by the nature of the metal with which the ports shall be animated. In the case of the Africa, her guns were not only of a smaller calibre, but she lay without a breath of wind, exposed to the fire of 25 large gun and mortar-boats, mounting 80 long guns, and manned with upwards of

1600 men.

Gasket.-Poor Barrett behaved nobly, but his loss amounted to 62 in killed and wounded, which was exactly the number hurt in the same ship at Trafalgar! It was time to introduce the curvilinear system.

Bowline.-Recollect we have steamers now, and in such a case one of them would be worth a dozen rounders. After all, had the Africa's metal been capable of throwing the shot a sufficient distance, she would have been less mauled. When the Danes did approach pretty near, thinking, because the colours were shot away, she had struck, they were quickly undeceived; and the old 64's ordnance played as prettily as they could have done from any other construction of vessel.

Gasket. That's impossible. I have myself seen how difficult it is to obtain a cross-fire on near objects, and that the advantage of so doing is more limited and confined in the square than the round sterns.

Bowline. I can hear very well, without your laying down the law so loudly. And I hold the contrary opinion, also from experience. So, you see, doctors may differ.

Here the disputants exalted their tone-words fell as pointed as marline-spikes the discussion, or to follow Aristotle, the predicament became too brisk for record-the cachinnation was vehement, and the tartness of their faces might, as Shakspeare says, have "soured ripe grapes." However, after mutual broadsides, and the usual explanations, the parties separated for their several dormitories; and we departed in deep cogitation on the merits of the case.

THE OLD MILITARY WRITERS.

No. III.

MAURICE DE SAXE.

THE "REVERIES" of Marshal de Saxe claim that double title to illustration which is conferred upon a work, in itself of great originality, by the still greater celebrity of its author. Apart, indeed, from his fame as a commander, it is doubtful what rank in professional estimation might have been assigned to one of the most singular and whimsical books which has ever been indited on military science. As the production of some unknown and undistinguished dreamer, his Reveries might have been read with a smile or dismissed with a sneer. In his scheme for the new organization of armies, nothing would have been seen but the extravagance of innovation: in his reflections on the higher principles of the science, nothing discerned but the presumption of inexperience. But when all this wild theory of the author is identified with the sober practice of the most successful general of his agewhen these speculations of the closet are associated with a splendid course of achievement in the field-it is not easy to treat the most eccentric opinions of the victorious leader with the same unceremonious disdain; and the world become sufficiently ready to recognise every capricious sally of his fancy for the true inspiration of genius.

Without, however, exaggerating the merits either of Marshal de Saxe or his book, the author of the "Reveries" may justly be ranked among the few commanders who have successfully illustrated both the theory and practice of their science. The real value of his authority as a writer is to be estimated in a great degree by the quality of his experience and the amount of his exploits; and a brief reference to the principal events in his brilliant career may aptly precede any analysis of his work. The same character, moreover, which belongs to his writings was conspicuous in his life; and he derived from his very birth not merely his peculiar position in society, but the irregularity of his genius, of his disposition, and of his sentiments.

Maurice, Comte de Saxe and, in the sequel, titular Duke of Courland and Semigallia, and Marshal-General of the French armies, was the natural son of Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, by the celebrated Countess of Konigsmarck-that fair negociator, to a personal encounter with whose dangerous fascination of mind and form the modern Scipio, Charles XII. of Sweden, according to the wellknown story, refused to trust his virtue, or at least to sacrifice his ambition. Maurice inherited some of the qualities of both parents-the prodigious personal strength* and valour, the amiable temper and amorous susceptibility of his father; and the lively and intellectual spirit of his mother, who is said herself to have superintended his early educa tion, and to have instilled into him the first aspirations of ambition and

* Among other feats of his personal strength, it is recorded of him that he could break in two a horse-shoe in his hand, and twist a spikenail with his fingers into a corkscrew. Being once insulted in the streets of London by a scavenger, he seized the fellow by the nape of the neck, and tossed him into the air, so as to fall into his own cart full of mud.

glory. He was born in the year 1696, and made so good a use of his mother's precepts that, at the early age of twelve years, in 1708, he secretly left her, and proceeded on foot to join the army of the Allies, under the Duke of Marlborough, then engaged in the siege of Lisle, at which his royal parent was present as a volunteer. Augustus allowed the youthful Maurice to serve with the Saxon contingent in the Allied Army, with which he remained until nearly the close of the Succession War, witnessing the capture of Lisle and other fortresses, and the sanguinary battle of Malplaquet. Thus the future marshal-general of the French armies made his first campaign against the troops of that nation; and the earliest professional lessons of the conqueror of Fontenoy-the only commander of modern times by whom an English army has been worsted in a ranged battle-were gained in the same ranks with English soldiers and under the auspices of an English general.

The disastrous defeat of his great enemy, "Swedish Charles," at Pultowa, having re-opened a theatre of action for King Augustus in the north, he permitted his young son, in 1711, to join the Saxon troops in Pomerania; and authorized him to raise for the same service a regiment of cavalry, at the head of which he made several campaigns with increasing distinction, until the termination of hostilities with Sweden. While the army was in winter quarters in 1713, he married at Dresden, by his mother's desire, the Countess of Loben. He had himself, as his French biographer coolly informs us, no penchant for matrimony, but was decided in favour of the match by the name which his wife bore of VICTOIRE. But as we learn that the lady was also rich, we may suspect this consideration had its weight in inducing him to form a mariage de convenance, which seems to have produced little happiness to either party.

Tired of the repose produced by the cessation of hostilities with Sweden, the Comte de Saxe obtained his father's permission to serve as a volunteer in the Imperial Army under Prince Eugene, then engaged in the war against the Turks. He arrived in July, 1717, at the camp of the Imperialists before Belgrade; was present throughout the arduous siege of that place, and the total defeat of the Turkish army which attempted its relief; and returned at the close of a brilliant campaign

to Dresden.

Two years of inaction followed, during which he led so uneasy a life through the jealous reproaches of his countess, for which he appears to have given sufficient cause, that at length, in 1720, to escape the conjugal tempest, he determined upon visiting France; and after his arrival in Paris, was readily induced to embrace an offer of the Regent Duke of Orleans to enter the French service, with the rank of Maréchal-deCamp. For this proposal, which decided the destiny of his subsequent life, he was honourably indebted to the impression of his professional merits which had been made upon the Regent by the French princes of the blood, who had been his co-volunteers in the Turkish campaign. From King Augustus he without difficulty obtained the necessary permission for this change of service, and the yet more agreeable licence

Histoire de Maurice, Comte de Saxe, &c. par M. le Baron d'Espagnac, Gouver neur de l'Hôtel Royal des Invalides. Paris, 1773. The biographer had served seven campaigus on the staff of his hero, and boasts of having enjoyed his personal confidence.