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"Humano capiti cervicem pictor cquinam
Jungere si velit," &c.

who is to blame but himself? Be thou yet my inspirer, my Mecænas, my presidium, my dulce decus, during the wild course I am about to run: teach me, like you, to frolic and be wise alternately,

"Metaque fervidis,

"Evitare rotis,"

that I may arrive safely at my journey's end.

You tell us it is sweet to die for our country, " dulce est pro patria mori." This is a good political maxim, when we wish persons to play for us those pranks we I dare not act ourselves. We like to teach others those lessons we are not inclined to follow. And did you not, my friend, while writing that ode, which is fertilized by those words, assume the part of a deceiving nurse, who tells her patient child, while holding nauseous physic to its mouth, "here's something nice and good." The cup you offered to others, you avoided tasting yourself: you thought it sweeter to retreat. Horace! you were like myself: you could teach good ethics, but could not practise them. While others were following your advice, you ran from it, perhaps that you might live to give them more. You lived, and died: you had your entrance and your exit-yet, my friend, the parts we shall have played will be remembered. But can it be said

of us,

"Enough that virtue fill'd the space between,
Prov'd by the ends of being to have been."

You
say that you erected, during your life, a monu-
ment more lasting than brass. Do you now sleep
more comfortably under it than do Bavius or Mævius;

or any of your cotemporary friends, over whom their merits threw but a little dust? No: let us be wise or foolish, poets or mechanics, statesmen or warriors, "Omnes eodem cogimur,

Numa quo devenit, et Ancus,"

and our only hope is in hereafter.

"When we are born, we cry that we are come

"On this great stage of fools."

What I had done, before my existence in this world, to merit chastisement, some wiser noddle than my own must puzzle out. I was somehow or other tossed by nature, as a new football for the sport of mortals upon the rounding surface of this globe, one morning, called the eleventh of December, in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six of the Christian era. If I have proved an intruder, I have only the child's excuse: I could not help it-so it was. I was tossed into London-that too I could not help.

My father had not long returned to England from New-York, America, when he married a daughter of Dr. Brady, at that time a celebrated physician in England. Was I to blame for that? Was it my fault that I was not born in America? My father entered then, and continued during his life, in the Navy Pay-office, constant in the service of his government, at the different seaports, for more than sixty years. He had latterly been appointed chief of the treasury department of the Navy Pay-office in London; a place constituted, as he informed me, for the purpose of rewarding him for his services, and securing to him an easy employment, and a respectable income (about four hundred guineas per annum) during the remainder of his days.

D

I two years ago had the pain of receiving from him only a few lines, which he had dictated to my youngest sister, as part of a letter proposed for me, when nature chose for him a worthier correspondent, and called him to the bosom of his Saviour. There is rest!

We may yet meet again, revered, beloved, but too indulgent parent! And may your sufferings for the irregularities of a son, afford some claim to an addition to that happiness your virtues have secured, where moth and rust corrupt not, and where thieves do not break through and steal.

Pope says:

"Go, if your ancient but ignoble blood

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood;
Go, and pretend your family is young,

Nor own your fathers have been fools so long."

Of the antiquity, and the vices or virtues of my ancestors, I can say, because I know, but little. I presume that my father had a father, that father his, and so on for a few or more generations back. But as I never was informed of their supereminence in duelling, or wading through a field of slaughter, to preferment, I can only presume that

"Far from the mad'ning crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learnt to stray:

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

And as I also presume that the reader will join with me in judgment, of the inutility of referring to the family pedigree, I will confine this part of my history chiefly to what was, and what is, within the scope of my own know

ledge, lest I should be led to speak of things that were

4

not. For, as I am told many of my ancestors were Welchmen, I might only engage in a waste of paper, while acting the part of a second Cadwallader. As many were Scotchmen, or Scotchwomen, I might break my neck on the rocks of the Orkneys, in endeavouring to search them out; and as a few were Irish, I might be induced to trace my pedigree beyond the deluge, or, perhaps, beyond the creation itself.

My safest anchoring ground is in England; thence I'll weigh and put to sea; but, till I start, I'll pay out a sufficient length of cable to let my anchor hold.

I rank among my kinswomen, the wives of Hood, of Boyer, of Curtis, and of Linzie, admirals in the British navy. I once could boast of four brothers, younger than myself, fighting for their country-three paid jor honour with their lives.

John, the eldest of the four, was in lord Howe's engagement on the first of June. It was he who, when the halliards of the bloody flag were shot away, ordered the sailor to nail it to the mast; to which order the gallant tar replied, with an oath, "I'm doing it." Let the lieutenant and the sailor share the honour. My brother was promoted to the rank of master and commander, and soon after paid his debt to nature in the West Indies.

Thomas, the second, also having been promoted to the same rank, was proceeding with some officers in a small schooner, from one of the windward to one of the leeward islands, to assume the command of a frigate, when his schooner was taken by the French. My brother and his officers rose on the captors and retook the vessel. They again fell into the hands of the French.

My brother, colonel Wetherall, and Mr. Galvin, master's mate, were put in prison, and chained by the leg together, at Guadaloupe. My father wrote to me, who was then in Philadelphia, to send him all the aid I could. I endeavoured to serve him; but when the vessel arrived, the generous captain, whose heart seemed to beat like. my own, was almost sorry to find that my brother had been released. Thomas was sent home, and there, was put upon the sick list: but, understanding that the Tribune frigate was to be sent to Halifax to be laid up, wishing, as he informed me by letter, to come and live with me, he accepted the offer of a first lieutenancy, and embarked in her. The Tribune frigate was wrecked while beating into Halifax, and my brother, with all the rest of the crew, excepting eight (of whom the abovementioned Mr. Galvin was one) unfortunately perished.

The third, George, commanded the Nile frigate in the engagement which admiral Caulder directed, and bore, as I am informed, the despatches home; but was at last so disabled by wounds, and consequent sickness, that he was incapable of commanding his ship. He was, therefore, removed: but so great was his attachment to his ship, perhaps for her name's sake, that after he was taken from her, he never articulated a syllable. He died. Thus had an unhappy father to sustain, and by the help of Providence, support the loss of three brave sonsof each, when, after a long train of services, through every inferior grade, he had but lately been promoted to the rank of commander.

Methinks I hear some feeling female say: "But did the mother live?" No. She was dead; kind Heaven had closed her eyes," before her children fell!-She

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