both sides having been examined in the course of the same day, the court broke up, and on assembling again next morning, pronounced sentence, in substance as follows:-"That the admiral was acquitted of the first two charges, and that the third not being proved, he was acquitted of that also." This event deprived his country of the services of an excellent officer during a period of nearly five years; for, thinking himself ill-used upon the occasion, he immediately struck his flag, and, notwithstanding he was included in the promotion that took place in 1799, and in consequence of which he obtained the rank of admiral of the Blue, yet he declined the acceptance of any command so long as a certain nobleman presided at the head of the admiralty board.

No sooner, however, had Earl St Vincent, who had so nobly led the fleets of his country, been appointed to superintend their exertions, than Cornwallis was selected to the high and important station of commander-in-chief of the channel fleet, and accordingly hoisted his flag on board the Ville de Paris, in February, 1801. Brest being the principal naval arsenal of France adjoining Great Britain, and in most respects superior to Toulon, which is chiefly calculated for operations in the Mediterranean, it has always been the policy of this country to watch the motions of the fleets there. To render the blockade more effectual, it is usual to divide the fleet in the following manner :-First, What is termed an in-shore squadron, consisting of frigates, occupies such a station as to be able to watch all the motions of the enemy, peep occasionally into the inner harbour, and give the appointed signal in case of alarm. The out-shore squadron consists of the main body of the fleet, ready, upon the least intimation of danger, to afford succour to the vessels on the look-out, and give the enemy battle, should they dare to venture from Brest water. It is also usual to station the detachments off Rochefort, Belleisle, and L'Orient, on purpose to keep those ports in check; but such precautions are adopted that they can be recalled at a short notice, so that the whole collected fleet may be enabled to encounter any great and sudden danger.

In 1806 Admiral Cornwallis retired from the service on account of bad health. For a number of years he represented the borough of Eye in Suffolk, and at one period was member for Portsmouth. Three years before his death, which took place in 1819, he was created a knight-commander of the Bath.

Cornwallis was a talented and courageous officer. It is related of him, that when in the Canada, his crew having declared, by a round robin, that they would not fire a gun until their wages-payment of which had by some accident been delayed-were discharged, he restored complete subordination by calmly addressing them in the following terms:-"My lads, the money cannot be paid until we return to port; and as to your threat, I have only to say, that I shall put you alongside the first enemy's ship I fall in with, and I'm sure the devil himself will not then keep you from fighting her."

Sir Home Riggs Popham.

BORN A. D. 1762.-Died A. D. 1820.

THIS officer is said to have been the twenty-first child by the same mother, of a British consul at Tetuan in Morocco, whose family, by different wives, amounted to forty-four! He was born at Tetuan on the 12th of October, 1762. At the age of thirteen he was removed from Westminster school to the university of Cambridge; he then entered the navy under the protection of Commodore Thompson. At the defeat of Langara's squadron, on the 30th of June, 1778, he was present in the Hyæna frigate, in which he continued until 1782, when he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and went out in the Grampus as a maritime surveyor to the African station. He returned to England in 1787, but soon after proceeded to India with a view to acquire professional experience. Upon his arrival in Bengal, he was appointed by Lord Cornwallis one of the committee sent in 1788 to survey New Harbour in the river Hoogly, which service he executed to the satisfaction of government. He returned in the same year to Europe, and concluded this voyage without interruption. After a short interval, being unable to obtain employment in the navy, he was induced to proceed in the Etrusco on a second voyage to India, where, in the year 1791, he effected the important survey of a southern passage or outlet from Prince of Wales' island, and caused a chart to be engraved and published; for this service, so beneficial to the intercourse with China, he received a letter of thanks from the government, and a piece of plate with suitable inscriptions was at the same time presented to him in the name of the general in council. Several masters of ships in the East India trade also signified their wishes on this occasion to present him with a piece of plate in their own names and those of others sailing from Bombay, "being," as they expressed it, "highly sensible of the advantage they may derive from the southern channel leading from Prince of Wales, which you have now fully established." The war with France broke out while the Etrusco was on her homewardbound voyage, which occasioned that ship to put into Crook-haven, from whence she proceeded to Cork to obtain a British convoy, and afterwards came to Spithead under protection of the Diadem. ing the Irish and English channels under convoy of different British men-of-war, the ship and cargo were eventually seized by the Brilliant frigate, off Ostend, and afterwards condemned to the crown on the ground of having traded beyond the Cape of Good Hope, contrary to the laws respecting the trade to India. The king's proctor, after consulting his majesty's advocate-general on this point, reported by his advice, that the capture was made without any particular exertion of skill or enterprise, and in consequence submitted that the consequences were very peculiar, and the question whether any part of the property condemned should be given to the captors, was a matter entirely for the decision of his majesty's government, as no precedent sufficiently applicable to the case warranted a suggestion of any rule proper to be ub

served.

After pass

Pursuant to a report of this tenor, and as Lieutenant Popham's

siderable practice as a junior counsel; and in 1797 he began to be known as a leader. The late marquess of Lansdowne was one of the first to discover the sterling talents of the rising barrister; and it was in that nobleman's house that Romilly became first acquainted with the lady whom he afterwards married, and whose existence became so closely identified with his own. In 1800 he was created king's counsel; and in 1806, when Fox came into office, he was made solicitor-general, knighted, and returned to parliament for Queenborough.

Soon after having taken his seat, Sir Samuel was appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of Lord Melville, and acquitted himself with extraordinary ability in the arduous task. He took his share in the discussion relative to the abolition of the slave-trade; and, on the accomplishment of that great object, turned his attention to the state of the penal code. His first efforts to mitigate the criminal jurisprudence of his country were directed at the repeal of the statute of 8° Eliz. c. 4. by which the punishment of death was inflicted for the offence of privately stealing from the person. He succeeded in his object this time; but was repeatedly baffled in the progress of his labours for the mitigation of the penal code. Several of the measures, however, which he advocated so strenuously, though unsuccessfully, have since his death been carried into effect by the British parliament. The local jurisprudence of England likewise engaged his most earnest thoughts; he attempted to correct a strange anomaly, productive of the most serious injustice in the law of debtor and creditor, by rendering freehold estates subject to the payment of simple contract debts; and he strenuously supported that improvement in our law which, by making property answerable for civil debts, took away from the merciless creditor the right of incarcerating his debtor.

On the dissolution of parliament in June, 1818, Sir Samuel Romilly was put in nomination as one of the candidates for Westminster, on the requisition of a large and respectable body of electors. The contest was one of the keenest on record, but it ended in his being placed at the head of the poll: the numbers being for Sir Samuel 5339, for Sir Francis Burdett 5238; and for Sir Murray Maxwell 4808. It was not, however, permitted by an inscrutable Providence that he should live to occupy the proud station in the senate of his country thus provided for him. The declining health of Lady Romilly had been, for several months, a source of great uneasiness and anxiety to her affectionate husband. His mental anguish increased day by day as the symptoms of his lady's disease assumed a more fatal aspect, and his friends at last began to entertain fears of mental derangement. Every thing that skill and solicitude could suggest was had recourse to, but in vain; Lady Romilly expired on the 29th of October, 1818, and in four days after her husband, in the violence of frenzy, terminated his own existence.

"In person," says his biographer, Mr Peter, "Sir Samuel Romilly was tall and justly proportioned, with a countenance regular and pleasing; but tinged with deep shades of thought, and susceptible of the greatest or tenderest emotions. His manners were distinguished by singular modesty, unaffected simplicity, and the kindest attention and regard to the wishes and feelings of others. His habits were temperate studious, and domestic. No man ever indulged less in those pursuits,

which the world calls pleasure. He rose regularly at six o'clock, and was occupied during the greater part of the day, and frequently to a late hour at night, either in study or laborious attendance on his professional and parliamentary duties. What little intervals of leisure could be snatched from his toils he anxiously devoted to domestic intercourse and enjoyments. Moderate in his own expenses, he was generous without ostentation to the wants of others; and the exquisite sensibility of his nature was never more strikingly displayed than in the fervent zeal with which his professional knowledge was always ready to be exerted for the destitute and oppressed,-for those who might seem, in their poverty, to have been left without a friend. Even to the last, when sinking under the weight of domestic affliction, when anticipating as its probable result a wretched life of mental malady and darkness, he was still intent on the welfare and happiness of those around him. The religion of Sir Samuel Romilly was, like his life, pure, fervent, and enlightened. Unclouded by superstition or intolerance, it shone forth in pious gratitude to God, and in charity to all mankind." "How noble and pure," says Mr Roscoe, was the ambition of Sir Samuel Romilly, we may learn from the following beautiful passages, where he has explained the principles on which he proposed his reforms in the criminal law. 'It is not,' said he, on addressing the house of commons, from light motives, it is from no fanciful notions of benevolence,-that I have ventured to suggest any alteration in the criminal law of England. It has originated in many years' reflection, and in the long-established belief that a mitigation of the severe penalties of our law will be one of the most effectual modes to preserve and advance the humanity and justice for which this country is so eminently distinguished.' And he thus concludes the same speech: Actuated by these motives, it is not to be imagined that I shall be easily discouraged by any of the various obstacles so commonly, and perhaps with propriety, opposed to every attempt to alter an established law: upon such a resistance I calculated, but am not to be deterred. I knew that my motives must occasionally be misunderstood by many, and might possibly be misrepresented by others. I was not blind to the road where prudence pointed to preferment; but I am not to be misled from comforts which no external honours can bestow. I have long thought that it was the duty of every man, unmoved either by bad report or by good report, to use all the means which he possessed for the purpose of advancing the well-being of his fellow-creatures: and I know not any mode by which I can so effectually advance that well-being, as by endeavouring to improve the criminal laws of my country. It has been insinuated, that indebted as I am to the law, commendation rather than censure ought to be expected from me; and it has been asserted, that under the pretext of proposing apparently immaterial alterations, my real object is to sap and undermine the whole criminal law of England. Such insinuations and assertions have not, I am well aware, been made by any of my honourable and learned friends by whom I am now surrounded, and who have witnessed my whole professional life; but they have been made, and I must, of course, suppose, have been really believed.""

siderable practice as a junior counsel; and in 1797 he began to be known as a leader. The late marquess of Lansdowne was one of the first to discover the sterling talents of the rising barrister; and it was in that nobleman's house that Romilly became first acquainted with the lady whom he afterwards married, and whose existence became so closely identified with his own. In 1800 he was created king's counsel; and in 1806, when Fox came into office, he was made solicitor-general, knighted, and returned to parliament for Queenborough.

Soon after having taken his seat, Sir Samuel was appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of Lord Melville, and acquitted himself with extraordinary ability in the arduous task. He took his share

in the discussion relative to the abolition of the slave-trade; and, on the accomplishment of that great object, turned his attention to the state of the penal code. His first efforts to mitigate the criminal jurisprudence of his country were directed at the repeal of the statute of 8° Eliz. c. 4. by which the punishment of death was inflicted for the offence of privately stealing from the person. He succeeded in his object this time; but was repeatedly baffled in the progress of his labours for the mitigation of the penal code. Several of the measures, however, which he advocated so strenuously, though unsuccessfully, have since his death been carried into effect by the British parliament. The local jurisprudence of England likewise engaged his most earnest thoughts; he attempted to correct a strange anomaly, productive of the most serious injustice in the law of debtor and creditor, by rendering freehold estates subject to the payment of simple contract debts; and he strenuously supported that improvement in our law which, by making property answerable for civil debts, took away from the merciless creditor the right of incarcerating his debtor.

On the dissolution of parliament in June, 1818, Sir Samuel Romilly was put in nomination as one of the candidates for Westminster, on the requisition of a large and respectable body of electors. The contest was one of the keenest on record, but it ended in his being placed at the head of the poll: the numbers being for Sir Samuel 5339, for Sir Francis Burdett 5238; and for Sir Murray Maxwell 4808. It was not, however, permitted by an inscrutable Providence that he should live to occupy the proud station in the senate of his country thus provided for him. The declining health of Lady Romilly had been, for several months, a source of great uneasiness and anxiety to her affectionate husband. His mental anguish increased day by day as the symptoms of his lady's disease assumed a more fatal aspect, and his friends at last began to entertain fears of mental derangement. Every thing that skill and solicitude could suggest was had recourse to, but in vain; Lady Romilly expired on the 29th of October, 1818, and in four days after her husband, in the violence of frenzy, terminated his own existence.

"In person," says his biographer, Mr Peter, "Sir Samuel Romilly was tall and justly proportioned, with a countenance regular and pleasing; but tinged with deep shades of thought, and susceptible of the greatest or tenderest emotions. His manners were distinguished by singular modesty, unaffected simplicity, and the kindest attention and regard to the wishes and feelings of others. His habits were temperate studious, and domestic. No man ever indulged less in those pursuits,