reckoned on being required to prove them by evidence before a Courtmartial. He declined, therefore, having any thing to do with the inquiry, as one which he neither desired nor had instigated. This seemed to mean, that he was entitled to make, behind a man's back, private charges, ruinous to his professional reputation and hopes, but that he was in no respect bound to prove them to be true. The Admiralty of course could see neither the fairness nor the expediency of such a course. By ordering the Court-martial themselves, they had saved sir Edward from the ungracious situation of being formally the prosecutor; but as the charges had come from him, in an official letter to the Board, they justly held him bound to substantiate these charges, by his own evidence, or that of others who might be able to support them, the more especially as captain Dickinson denied every one of the imputations. After a great deal of backwardness on the part of sir Edward, in which he still maintained, that though he had made these injurious statements to the Board, he could not be called on to take any farther part in the transaction, the Board requested him to state distinctly, whether he was willing that the trial should proceed, on the understanding that he was bound to prove his allegations; and if he was not willing that it should so proceed, they informed him that they would hold themselves left at liberty to consider captain Dickinson's conduct as free from all imputation, and would treat him accordingly. Sir Edward consented to proceed.

Captain Dickinson was accordingly arraigned before a Courtmartial, held on board the Victory,

at Portsmouth, on charges bearing that, from not making proper use of the springs, ordered by the admiral, on the day of the battle of Navarino, to be placed on the anchors, the broadside of the Genoa was not directed to her regular opponent in the Ottoman line; and that, in such a position, she could not fire any of her guns, except those of the stern and quarters, without endangering the Asia and others of the allied squadrons on her larboard side, and the Albion and others on her starboard side ;— that shot, which injured the Asia, and which came in that direction, were apparently fired by the Genoa; and that the Genoa did positively fire into the Albion, although the Albion had an English ensign at her mast-head to prevent mistakes;-that, captain Dickinson having been reproved by the admiral for not using the Genoa's springs, and having accounted for it by his inability to get the men from their guns for that purpose, it was nevertheless asserted in the ship's log-book that the springs were used;-that the account of the battle given in the Genoa's log-book erroneously implied, that she had three Ottoman ships of the line opposed to her on her starboard side, three sixty-gun frigates on her larboard side and ahead, and a doublebanked frigate astern ;-that captain Dickinson returned captain Bathurst as killed, and procured the surgeon's signature to that return, knowing that he did not die till many hours after the battle was over, and that he retained his faculties to give orders during the whole time of the battle ;-and that, by this mis-statement, he gained an honorary distinction, which might not otherwise have been conferred

on him that the refittal of the Genoa for leaving Navarino, and engaging the batteries if requisite, was unjustifiably tardy, and that the same slackness prevailed on her way to Malta;-that the Genoa's mizen-mast was suffered to go by the board on the 21st, the day after the battle, for want of being properly secured;-that the Genoa continued firing after the battle was over, at the risk and to the probable injury of the allied ships, until hailed from the Asia to cease -that Captain Dickinson himself presented to the admiral a letter, in the nature of what is called a round-robin, purporting to come from the crew of the Genoa, and desiring the admiral to appoint him, in preference to any other officer, to succeed captain Bathurst as captain of the Genoa.

From the meeting of the Court till its final judgment, twenty days elapsed. A detail of the evidence will be found in another part of the volume. Captain Dickinson was honourably acquitted of all the charges, some of which were declared to be frivolous. The sending to the admiral the round-robin mentioned in the charges, was the only act at all questionable. Captain Dickinson, it was clearly shown, was not privy to its concoction; yet even to transmit it was wrong. But it was shown that he had very soon seen and acknowledged his error, -that the admiral had expressed himself satisfied, and, as a proof of it, had given up the document itself; and certainly it ought not now to have been revived, at the distance of nearly two years. The evidence furnished some excellent examples, in the person of sir Ed

ward himself, of the little confidence that can be placed in a man's recollection of what he hears or sees, not merely during the hurry and confusion of actual battle, but even after it has ceased. One charge was, that captain Dickinson had returned his predecessor, captain Bathurst, as having been killed in action, whereas he had lived till next morning. Sir Edward stated positively that he had gone on board the Genoa in the evening, to see captain Bathurst; that captain Dickinson had conducted him down to the cockpit, and had been present at his conversation with captain Bathurst; and sir Edward stated it as a great gravamen of the charge, that captain Dickinson, having done this after the action, should nevertheless have returned captain Bathurst as killed during the action. It was clearly proved that sir Edward's memory was playing him false in all this. He had gone on board the Genoa, and visited captain Bathurst in the cockpit; but it was not captain Dickinson who received him; it was not captain Dickinson who conducted him down; captain Dickinson was not in the cockpit, nor present at the conversation. It was the firstlieutenant of the Genoa whom sir Edward had mistaken for the captain. As to the charge itself, considering that captain Bathurst was mortally wounded, most men found a sufficient answer in the fact, that the London Gazette of the battle of Trafalgar had announced lord Nelson as being killed in action, though he lived to order the fleet to anchor, after the victory had been achieved.

clined likewise to insist that the ministers should remain in office only to further the views, and adopt the policy, of the party who had made them. On the other hand, the royalist party was still too strong, and the favour of the monarch towards their principles and their persons was much too manifest, to give the ministry any security against a sudden dissolution, if they blindly followed in the train of the popular leaders. Thus no party trusted them; what was worse, no party obeyed or was controlled by them. Instead of being a powerful government, compelling respect from all other parties by its own substantive weight, its intrinsic weakness reduced it to the necessity of occa sionally seeking succour from both. It had to inquire, not what policy would be most pleasing to itself, but what was the policy that would be demanded by those on whom it was dependent. The popular party was now triumphant in the Chamber of Deputies, and the measures of the new ministry had hitherto partaken of a popular character. But the people be lieved that the new ministry had been friendly to the popular cause, only in so far as they could not safely venture to do otherwise; and that to insure the maintenance and progress of the popular cause, it was necessary that the popular party should continue to act, almost as if ministers were their opponents, and to force upon them such mea sures as the popular spirit might require.

The difficulties, with which the peculiar position of the administration surrounded it, were increased, in the beginning of the present year, by the retirement from office of the Count de Ferronay, the

Minister for Foreign Affairs, one of its most popular and respected members. Indisposition compelled him to withdraw from public life. His character and high connexions, the sacrifices which he had formerly made for the royal cause, and the zeal which he had recently evinced in support of the charter, his conciliatory temper, and the confidence which the moderation of his principles inspired into the court as well as into the people, had rendered him of infinite importance to the existing cabinet, because they gave him great influence with the parties whom it was necessary to manage. The jealousy of these parties made it a work of much embarrassment to find a successor. To name a candidate who was thought to lean to the court-party, immediately called forth a thousand denunciations against the ministry, as betraying the cause of the people; and to seek a minister among the liberals, was to rouse the wrath of the court and of the priests. About the time of Count de Ferronay's retirement, Prince Polignac, the French Ambassador at London, made an unexpected visit to Paris. It was immediately said, that the king had sent for him to fill the vacant office, and change the spirit of the too liberal cabinet. Count Portalis was charged with having sent the invitation unknown to his colleagues. The proposal, or the supposition, was received in Paris with loud dissatisfaction. It was objected to the prince, that he was a confirmed enemy of all popular rights; that he had been a partisan of Villèle, and would set up anew that minister's system of internal oppression and degradation; that he was a declared champion of the Congregation, and would lend all his influence to that faction of

bigots and Jesuits, which every good and wise man in France was labouring to keep down; that he was a creature of the English cabinet, and would conduct the foreign affairs of France only in accordance with the views and interests of the British government; nay, that the very scheme of making him a minister was nothing else than an intrigue of the duke of Wellington. The public voice being decided, decided the cabinet. The greater number of the ministers threatened to resign, if the royal nomination were insisted on; and Prince Polignac returned to London, but not until he had defended himself, in a speech delivered in the Chamber of Peers, against the accusations of the Press. His failure did not remove the difficulties of filling up the vacant office. It was given provisionally to the count de Portalis, who was keeper of the seals. In the month of May, he resigned the Seals, and became Minister for Foreign Affairs; a department for which it was doubtful whether he would be well qualified by those acquirements and talents which rendered him, in public estimation, an excellent Minister of Justice. He was succeeded in the latter capacity by M. de Bourdeau, undersecretary in the department of Justice. The nomination was not calculated in itself to displease the public mind; for M. de Bourdeau was a deputy of the left side, and had resigned his place as ProcureurGeneral at the Royal Court of Rennes, rather than ally himself with Villèle's ministry; but the arrangement was not one which brought any accession of strength to the ministry, and only shewed how little they felt themselves at liberty to manifest a decided inclination towards either party. M, de Por

talis belonged to the cabinet already in two capacities, and M. de Bourdeau in one. The former merely made a surrender of one of his portfolios to the latter, who was already performing, in the character of under-secretary, the same duties which he would now have to discharge as head of the department. The opposition insisted that the vacancy should have been filled by taking some man of character and influence from the popular party. If the ministry could not venture to seek even an accession of strength, or rather the mere reparation of a loss, by taking such a step, it proved that they wanted inclination to identify themselves with the liberals, or were willing to surrender their inclinations to their dread of losing office; and, in either case, they became equally objects of suspicion.

Before this arrangement, however, had taken place, the Chambers had been assembled on the 27th of January. His majesty opened the Session in person, and delivered from the throne the following speech.

"Gentlemen,-I am happy in seeing you every year assembled round my throne, to promote, in concert with me, the great interests of my people.

"This satisfaction is the more lively on the present occasion, as I have pleasing communications to make to you, and important labours to intrust to you.

"My relations with foreign powers continue to be friendly. The assurances I receive from my allies offer me a pledge, that, notwithstanding the events which have desolated the East, peace will not be disturbed in the rest of Europe. To hasten the pacification of Greece, I have, in concert