feet, and it was long before she could be induced to rise and make known her wrongs. But when she opened the flood-gates of her feelings, when she poured forth the eloquence of her agonized heart, and told of the exceeding love that she, a widow, bore to her only gallant child, the Queen, who had then a noble son embarked in the same profession, wept with her. Then followed the impassioned details of the boy's persecutions, of his proud spirit taking refuge from the ignominy of the lash in the dismal and soul-endangering abyss of suicide. When the now almost frantic mother described the plunge, and dash, and the closing of the dark waters over the head of her child, the good Queen shuddered, and said, "Can such things be?" and when the mother was about to proceed, she gently said to her, "Forbear-the King must hear this also," and retired.

In a short space, Lady Astell was sent for into the King's private closet, and there repeated to his Majesty, the Queen being present, her

sad story, and wound up the whole by showing and reading to them the last letter of Augustus. When the soul is filled with the sublimest emotions, that is but a mean writer who would stoop to lessen the effect of their expression by describing peculiarities of speech or action.

His Majesty sat by the side of the widow, so recently and so dreadfully made childless, took her hand with all the affection of an old friend, and tried with an honourable warmth every topic of consolation on one who would not be comforted. He told Lady Astell that he heartily wished that the service was rid of the barbarity of flogging altogether, and more especially of flogging the young gentlemen-that she must remember that it always had been the practice of the navy, and that the dishonour and the disgrace was not on the flogged, but on him who wrongfully ordered the humiliating chastisement. He told her he pitied her from his soul, and asked her, in conclusion, what he could do for her?

"O good, gracious, and most benevolent king!" was her answer, "is this wild, angry, bad man a fitting person to have command over your best and bravest subjects-to torture and to drown them ?"

This was touching a delicate point. A better sailor and a more able naval commander the country did not possess. The King knew this, and also remembered his long services, and thought of the old Commodore's mutilated person and scarred body. Moreover, in the state of discipline of the navy, and in the opinion of the time, it was only harsh and determined characters like that of Sir Octavius that could curb and rule the boisterous spirits of the day. His Majesty also reflected that, had Augustus been a grovelling and common character, he would have taken his flogging as thousands had done before him; and after a due portion of abuse, gone again to his duty, and in his turn have hereafter flogged others. After all, the Commodore had only used an

un

doubted and generally practised privilege.— There was no quarrel between him and the service, indeed, as men then reasoned and spoke, no offence; though there might be a most deadly one between the brother and the sister.

My dear Lady Astell," said his Majesty, most tenderly, "you cannot, for a moment, believe that Sir Octavius wished to make his nephew commit suicide ?"

"May it please your Majesty, the blood of Augustus, through both his father and his mother, is of the noblest of the land; he would not have been Sir Octavius' nephew, nor Lord Astell's son, if he had not sooner suffered death than dishonour."

As just then neither the service nor the King could spare the Commodore, his Majesty was loth to promise that he should be dismissed from his command, which was the first act of retribution that Lady Astell contemplated. Honours were offered her; the title that would have been her son's for life-even a court of

inquiry upon her brother's conduct. All these she rejected; the last especially. She would not, implacable as was now her hate to her brother, have the family dishonoured.

Everything was done to allay her irritation, and soothe her harrowed feelings, but the only one thing she sought was the Commodore's dismissal. At sea, she knew that her victim would be out of her reach, and that the hurry and excitement of naval warfare would give no leisure for remorse to work upon his bosom. She wanted him on shore, a prey to lassitude, with nothing to do but to think she could not rest until she had fulfilled her son's dying injunctions.

She took her leave of their Majesties, fully impressed with the excellence of their hearts, but with her own but little relieved. Indeed, a sort of half-promise was implied, that her brother's command should be given to another,

if

any other could be found who could so well supply his place; or if, upon inquiry, anything