up to the captors of the settlement; but private possessions and civil rights were left inviolate.

The success of our admiral did not end here. The new Gallo-Batavian government resolved on making an attempt to regain possession of the settlement, and for that purpose a squadron of eight ships of war and a store-ship arrived off Saldanha bay early in August, 1796. Admiral Elphinstone was soon apprized of their approach, and prepared for battle; but, after anchoring within cannon-shot, with the humanity so natural to British officers, he sent a letter by a flag of truce to Admiral Lucas, the Dutch commander, requesting, that, to spare the effusion of human blood, he would surrender his squadron, which could have no chance of success in a contest with a British force superior to his own. The Dutch admiral yielded, and on the 17th of August surrendered his squadron, consisting of two ships of 66 guns, one 54, one 44, one 40, one 28, one 26, one 18, and a store-ship.

On account of these eminent services his majesty was pleased, on the 7th of March, 1797, to confer on Admiral Elphinstone the dignity of a baron of the kingdom of Ireland. In the month of May of the same year Lord Keith was sent to Sheerness to superintend the naval preparations against the mutineers, who at that time unhappily had the actual possession and command of several of his majesty's ships at the Nore. Subordination having been restored, his lordship had for a short time a command in the Channel fleet.

In the winter of 1798 Lord Keith hoisted his flag on board the Foudroyant of 80 guns, employed off Cadiz and in the Mediterranean, under the orders of the earl of St Vincent. On the 14th of February, 1799, he was promoted from vice-admiral of the Blue to be vice-admiral of the Red. On the 23d of June Lord St Vincent being about to return to England for the amendment of his health, resigned to Lord Keith the command of the Mediterranean fleet. Nothing very material occurred till the 17th of March, 1800, when his lordship had the misfortune to lose his noble flag-ship, the Queen Charlotte, by fire, in Leghorn roads. Of the crew, eleven were on shore with the admiral, one hundred and fifty were saved by boats; but the remainder, amounting to nearly seven hundred, unfortunately perished.

Lord Keith now hoisted his flag on board the Audacious, but afterwards shifted it to the Minotaur. He then proceeded with a part of his fleet to Genoa, which was in the possession of the French under Massena, and was besieged by the Austrian general, Melas. So closely did he blockade the port, that, at the end of about three months, the French, to avoid actual famine, capitulated. Malta shortly after surrendered to a detachment of his fleet; and, about October, in conjunction with Sir Ralph Abercromby, he made preparations for an attack on Cadiz, which, however, was abandoned, on account of the pitiable state of the inhabitants and garrison, among whom an epidemic disease, which very much resembled the plague, was, it appeared, making dreadful ravages.

On the 1st of January, 1801, Lord Keith was promoted to be admiral of the Blue; and he this year commanded, in the Foudroyant, the naval force employed against the French on the coast of Egypt. On the surrender of the enemy's army there his lordship was created, December 5th, 1801, a peer of Great Britain, by the title of Baron Keith

of Stonehaven-Marischal in Kincardineshire, and received the thanks of both houses of parliament. His services in Egypt were thus noticed in General Hutchinson's despatches: "During the course of the long service in which we have been engaged, Lord Keith has, at all times, given me the most able assistance and counsel. The labour and fatigue of the navy have been continued and excessive; it has not been of one day or of one week, but for months together. In the bay of Aboukir, on the New Inundation, and on the Nile, for 160 miles, they have been employed without intermission, and have submitted to many privations with a cheerfulness and patience highly creditable to them, and advantageous to the public service." In a subsequent despatch the general recurs to the " many obligations" that he was under to Lord Keith.

When hostilities recommenced with France, in 1803, Lord Keith was appointed to the chief naval command at Plymouth. In the beginning of October of that year his lordship made an experiment on a small scale, with a new mode of attack on the gun-vessels in Boulogne harbour, which to a certain degree succeeded, and without any loss being sustained on our part.

On the 9th of November, 1805, his lordship was raised to the rank of admiral of the White, and in 1812 he succeeded to the chief command of the Channel fleet. On the 14th of May, 1814, he was elevated to the dignity of a viscount of the United Kingdom; and about a year before his death, which took place in March, 1823, he obtained leave to accept a grand cross of the royal Sardinian order of St Maurice and St Lazare, for his services at Genoa, in 1809. In addition to his other distinctions, he was, at the time of his decease, admiral of the Red; marischal of Ireland; secretary, chamberlain, and keeper of the signet to the great steward of Scotland; treasurer and comptroller of the household of the duke of Clarence, and a fellow of the Royal society. Prior to his elevation to the British peerage, he had successively represented Dumbarton and Stirlingshire. He was twice married, and left two daughters; the eldest of whom succeeded to the barony, and became the wife of Count Flahault, one of Napoleon's aides-de-camp.

Thomas, Lord Erskine.

BORN A. D. 1750.-DIED A. D. 1823.

THOMAS ERSKINE was the third and youngest son of Henry, tenth earl of Buchan. Like his other gifted brother, a notice of whom has been presented to the reader within these few pages, he at first attempted to push his fortune in military life, but about the age of twenty-six his better genius directed his attention to the law. He had received an excellent education in early life, along with his brothers, at St Andrews and Edinburgh; but he now entered himself of Trinity college, where he took the honorary degree of M. A. in 1778. He was called to the bar in Trinity term of that year.

Almost immediately after his appearance at the bar an opportunity of distinguishing himself was afforded in the defence of Captain Baillie for a libel on the earl of Sandwich. In the course of his speech, the young advocate hesitated not to attack the noble earl in very indignant

terms: "The defendant," he said, "is not a disappointed malicious informer, prying into official abuses because without office himself, but himself a man in office;—not troublesomely inquisitive into other men's departments, but conscientiously correcting his own;-doing it pursuant to the rules of law, and, what heightens the character, doing it at the risk of his office, from which the effrontery of power has already suspended him without proof of his guilt;-a conduct not only unjust and illiberal, but highly disrespectful to this court, whose judges sit in the double capacity of ministers of the law, and governors of this sacred and abused institution. Indeed, Lord Sandwich has, in my mind, acted such a part . . ." Here Lord Mansfield, observing the counsel heated with his subject, and growing personal on the first lord of the admiralty, told him that Lord Sandwich was not before the court. "I know that he is not formally before the court," resumed Erskine, "but for that very reason I will bring him before the court. He has placed these men in the front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their shelter; but I will not join in battle with them: their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will drag him to light who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the earl of Sandwich has but one road to escape out of this business without pollution and disgrace; and that is, by publicly disavowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his own personal interest to prevail over his public duty, in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on the contrary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience that crowd this court; if he keeps this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension into a removal, I shall then not scruple to declare him an accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust." Such was the impression made by him on this his first appearance at the bar, that before he left the court nearly thirty briefs were presented to him by different attorneys; and from this date, for a period of five-and-twenty years, he was retained in almost every important cause. His defence of Lord George Gordon, in which he completely overthrew the doctrine of Constructive treason, placed him immeasurably above all the law-orators of the day. Its effect on the audience who heard it, and the tribunal to which it was addressed, was overwhelming. The following is the close of this splendid oration:

"What, then, has produced this trial for high treason; or given it, when produced, the seriousness and solemnity it wears? What, but the inversion of all justice, by judging from consequences, instead of from causes and designs?-what, but the artful manner in which the crown has endeavoured to blend the petitioning in a body, and the zeal with which an animated disposition conducted it, with the melancholy crimes that followed?-crimes, which the shameful indolence of our magistrates, which the total extinction of all police and government suffered to be committed in broad day, and in the delirium of drunkenness, by an unarmed banditti-without a head-without plan or object -and without a refuge from the instant gripe of justice;-a banditti, with whom the associated Protestants and their president had no man

ner of connection, and whose cause they overturned, dishonoured, and ruined. How unchristian then is it to attempt, without evidence, to infect the imaginations of men who are sworn dispassionately and disinterestedly to try the trivial offence, of assembling a multitude with a petition to repeal a law (which has happened so often in all our memories), by blending it with the fatal catastrophe, on which every man's mind may be supposed to retain some degree of irritation ?-O fie! O fie! Is the intellectual seat of justice to be thus impiously shaken? Are your benevolent propensities to be thus disappointed and abused? Do they wish you, while you are listening to the evidence, to connect it with unforeseen consequences, in spite of reason and truth? Is it their object to hang the millstone of prejudice around his innocent neck to sink him?—If there be such men, may Heaven forgive them for the attempt, and inspire you with fortitude and wisdom to discharge your duty with calm, steady, and reflecting minds. Gentlemen, I have no manner of doubt that you will.-I am sure you cannot but see, notwithstanding my great inability, increased by a perturbation of mind, (arising, thank God! from no dishonest cause,) that there has been not only no evidence on the part of the crown, to fix the guilt of the late commotions upon the prisoner, but that, on the contrary, we have been able to resist the probability-I might almost say, the possibility-of the charge, not only by living witnesses, whom we only ceased to call because the trial would never have ended, but by the evidence of all the blood that has paid the forfeit of that guilt already;-an evidence that, I will take upon me to say, is the strongest, and most unanswerable, which the combination of natural events ever brought together since the beginning of the world for the deliverance of the oppressed; -since, in the late numerous trials for acts of violence and depredation, though conducted by the ablest servants of the crown, with a laudable eye to the investigation of the subject which now engages us, no one fact appeared which showed any plan, any object, any leader;—since, out of forty-four thousand persons who signed the petition of the Protestants, not one was to be found among those who were convicted, tried, or even apprehended on suspicion;—and since, out of all the felons who were let loose from prisons, and who assisted in the destruction of our property, not a single wretch was to be found, who could even attempt to save his own life by the plausible promise of giving evidence to-day. What can overturn such a proof as this! Surely a good man might, without superstition, believe, that such an union of events was something more than natural, and that the Divine Providence was watchful for the protection of innocence and truth. I may now, therefore, relieve you from the pain of hearing me any longer, and be myself relieved from speaking on a subject which agitates and distresses me. Since Lord George Gordon stands clear of every hostile act or purpose against the legislature of his country, or the properties of his fellow-subjects, since the whole tenor of his conduct repels the belief of the traitorous intention charged by the indictment,-my task is finished. I shall make no address to your passions;-I will not remind you of the long and rigorous imprisonment he has suffered ;-I will not speak to you of his great youth, of his illustrious birth, and of his uniformly animated and generous zeal in parliament for the constitution of his country. Such topics might be useful in the balance of a doubtful

case; yet, even then, I should have trusted to the honest hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without excitation. At present, the plain and rigid rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle me to your verdict." A singular passage to be found in this speech, says the reviewer of Erskine's speeches in the 16th volume of the Edinburgh Review,' "affords a great contrast to the calm and even mild tone of its peroration. It is indeed, as far as we know, the only instance of the kind in the history of modern eloquence; and we might justly have doubted, if even Mr Erskine's skill, and well-known discretion as a public speaker, had not forsaken him, and allowed his heat and fancy to hurry him somewhat too far, had we not, in the traditional account of the perfect success which attended this passage, the most unequivocal evidence in his favour. After reciting a variety of circumstances in Lord George's conduct, and quoting the language which he used, the orator suddenly, abruptly, and violently breaks out with this exclamation-I say, by God, that man is a ruffian, who shall, after this, presume to build upon such honest, artless conduct, as an evidence of guilt!' The sensation produced by these words, and by the magic of the voice, the eye, the face, the figure, and all we call the manner, with which they were uttered, is related, by those present on this great occasion, to have been quite electrical, and to baffle all power of description. The feeling of the moment alone,—that sort of sympathy which subsists between an observant speaker and his audience,-which communicates to him, as he goes on, their feelings under what he is saying, -deciphers the language of their looks,—and even teaches him, without regarding what he sees, to adapt his words to the state of their minds, by merely attending to his own. This intuitive and momentary impulse could alone have prompted a flight, which it alone could sustain; and, as its failure would indeed have been fatal, so its eminent success must be allowed to rank it among the most famous feats of oratory."

In 1783 Mr Erskine received a silk gown, although he had not been at the bar quite five years. In the same year he was elected member for Portsmouth, for which borough he was unanimously re-chosen on every succeeding election until he obtained a seat in the house of lords. In 1784 he made a most able defence of the dean of St Asaph in a charge of libel, and afterwards in moving for a new trial. But his most celebrated argument on the law of libel was that delivered in Percival Stockdale's case in 1789. Mr Stockdale, a bookseller in London, had published a pamphlet written by Mr Logan, a clergyman of the church of Scotland, in defence of Warren Hastings, in the course of which he had ventured to animadvert very unguardedly on the conduct of the managers of the impeachment then carrying on against the ex-governor of India. The managers complained of this, and the publisher was tried on an information filed by the attorney-general. The fact of publication was admitted, and Mr Erskine then delivered what his Edinburgh critic has pronounced to be "the finest of all his orations,— whether we regard the wonderful skill with which the argument is conducted, the soundness of the principles laid down, and their happy application to the case,-or the exquisite fancy with which they are embellished and illustrated,-and the powerful and touching language. in which they are conveyed. It is justly regarded, by all English law