scried them at a distance; and going towards them levelled a musket at the bloody banquet; killed one of the wretches with the horrid morsel in his mouth, and, with another shot, brought down his voracious accomplice in the act of flight. This bold example so awed the rest, that from that hour until the day he left the island (a space of fourteen years) not a prisoner ever met with this inhuman fate. From so great a change, and particularly in a custom superstitiously revered by the natives, and grateful to their savage appetites, I have no doubt that could we have visited the island during the sway of our young hero, we should have found a rude civilisation amongst the people rendering them far superiour to the neighbouring natives.

So reconciled were the shipwrecked pair (for the Englishman also married) to the spot they had now made their homes, that although many ships of different nations touched there, yet no inducements could prevail on them to quit their new country. My narrator told me he always showed every friendship in his power to the captains of vessels, seeing that the best produce of the island, particularly pork, should be given to them for the articles they brought to barter. He was also of essential service in pointing out to them the difficult navigation round the several islands.

The animation with which he recited these circumstances, strongly marked the fearless independence of his former life. He spoke with the decision of one whose commands had been unappealable, and all the chieftain commanded in his eyes. But when he talked of his domestick happiness, still true to the expression of unrestrained nature, his sighs penetrated the heart. He described his home in the most lively colours; the fondness of his wife; his own tenderness for her and for her children; the blissful days he past with her,

where, possessed of every wish, he enjoyed her love, and the society of his old sea companion. "I was then master of all !" said he, "I am now nothing: an outcast, without a home, without a friend!" His tears for a long time prevented his proceeding. And my friend will not wonder that my eyes for a moment bore him company.

About three years since, one of the Russian ships which had left this country on a voyage of discoveries, touched at the island, and was received with every mark of kindness by the king and his family. The young chief became the interpreter between the Europeans and the natives; and besides procuring the crew all they wanted, loaded the officers with useful presents. To this vessel, and his own humanity, may be dated the misery of himself and his family.

One night it blew a violent gale of wind; and the commander of the Russian frigate finding it would be impossible to keep his anchorage in a bay so full of unseen dangers, made several signals to the island, in hopes, that some experienced native would come off, and direct him how to steer. Every moment increased their jeopardy; the storm augmented in fury, and at every blast they expected to be torn from their cables and dashed to atoms on the rocks. Again the signals were repeated, and ere long they were answered from the shore by our friend, who had been prevailed on by his wife to attempt reaching the vessel. "The foreign chief,” said she, "will give you something for me, either a looking glass or a handkerchief."

But the whirlwind raged so tremendously that he refused, telling her, that he thought the tempest was more than he could combat; and that should he venture, perhaps the wish for so trifling a gift would cost her, her husband; he might be drowned, and then they would be

lost to each other for ever. She had been too long used to the rashness with which her people braved the sea in all weathers, to be persuaded by this argument; and (O woman! woman! or rather, slanderer of her sex) she still persisted too long for the handkerchief, and that he would go.

The ancient gallantry Française; and another signal of distress from the ship, got the better of his judgment; he dashed into the waves, and boldly stemming their fury, reached the vessel. The overjoyed crew, as they heard his voice calling to them, as he approached through the storm, cast out a rope to him, by which they hoisted him up the ship's side. The most grateful acknowledgements greeted him as soon as he jumped on the deck; they hailed him as a kind of god, their deliverer; and putting his hand to the helm, and giving the requisite directions, he soon steered them from the dangers of the bay, till they rode in safety on the main ocean.

He asked now to have a boat to carry him on shore; but the wind still blowing hurricanes, and if possible increasing, they would not venture any, but offered him a plank! He seized it to leap overboard; it was split-Barbarians! and death must inevitably have been his fate, had he plunged with it into the sea. He remonstrated, but before much altercation could ensue, the ship was driven too far to sea to allow of any hope of reaching the island in any smaller vessel than itself. Despair overwhelmed the generous young man. None understood his feelings; all gratitude seemed to have departed with their danger. The blackness of the night, and the rapidity with which the ship bore away, soon deprived him of all traces of land; and when morning dawned, not even on the line of the horizon could he perceive the smallest vestige of the spot which contained all his happiness.

His misery can better be con

ceived than described. To be thus recompensed for all his personal risks! It was a cruelty beyond his imagination. Surely the captain might have kept the sea till the storm had subsided, and then in justice he ought to have returned with his deliverer, and given him back to his country and family. He had endangered his life to save theirs. They had no claims on him, but the common ones of compassion; and yet for them he had plunged into the waves, had braved every peril, and hazarded every thing dear. He had every demand upon their gratitude, and they betrayed him! Such conduct was as unmanly as inhuman; it was base to the lowest pitch of detestation. Surely the loss of a few days to have effected their benefactor's return, could have made no great difference in a year's voyage. Besides, should the captain of these navigators, like ours, give an account of his discoveries to the world; so honourable a behaviour to the man who had saved his ship and crew, would have told more for the character of his heart, and perhaps have gained him more fame, than the discovery of half a dozen islands. Honour is a man's own act: a discovery is fortune's; and each, in the estimation of reflection, is valued according to its intrinsick worth.

The unhappy chief begged to be put on shore somewhere in European settlements, hoping there to hear of a ship going to the quarter of the globe that now contained his country. With this poor request, his ungrateful companions acquiesced, and landed him on the coast of Kamtschatka; whence he travelled, enduring the severest hardships, to Mosco.

He has been a few weeks only arrived, resting here, in his way to St. Petersburgh; meaning to lay his case before the emperour, whose benevolence, he trusts, will enable him to regain his family. He was forwarded from Kamtschatha hither, by a passport from governour to

governour. Tedious has been his voyage, and tedious his journeys, you will readily believe, when I add that he has already been three years an exile from his wife and children. During this long period, what may not have befallen them? Probably, his wife has sunk a victim to sorrow for her own folly, and her husband's loss: or war may have desolated the country, and the family of the European chief have been the first sacrificed to the sanguinary appetites of the victors!

These thoughts rack him day and night, and give him an air of such deep melancholy, that it is impossible to look on his countenance with out being sensible that a more than ordinary grief absorbs his soul. He must be about two and thirty, although he does not look five and twenty. His figure is fine, with a most commanding deportment. But when he talks of his wife, all is subdued. He throws himself along the ground, and either remains for a considerable time afterwards profoundly silent, or weeps with all the bitterness of hopeless sorrow. But when he names those who brought him away, indignation, reproaches, accusations, seem to inflame him to madness; and he walks from side to side with an energy of step, and vehemence of action perfectly savage, but wonderfully striking and grand. As he found me so ready to enter into his feelings, he spoke with the greater unreserve, and consulted me on his plans. I advised him, should he find, on application to the empe rour, that it would be long ere a vessel could be sent out to the South sea, to go directly from St. Peters burgh to England; where, I told him, I was sure he would meet not only with the most generous sympathy, but very probably an immediate opportunity of reaching the Friendly Isles.

He heard me as gratefully as if I had had the power myself to transport him to his country; and declared,

that were he doomed never again to see it, his life would be misery and his death wretched. "Even to have been cast back again, bleeding on the rocks," said he, "on the fatal night I left it; to have been carried to my home, to have died amidst the embraces of my wife and children, that would have been happiness! But now, my life is cheerless, I must close my eyes alone!" His tears rolled over his cheek; and he turned his back, while I heard him sob almost to suffocation.

I hope for the honour of affection, that this feeling, this resolution may last. But man is so mutable! Besides, this unfortunate is in the meridian of his days, evidently of the liveliest passions. He is also a European who, having left his country when a boy, knew nothing of the fascinating luxuries of civilisation. When he becomes more intimately acquainted with our habits and our comforts; and when, perhaps, some tender European female, like Desdemona, may listen to his story, and love him for the dangers he has past! may not he then, too, probably forget the Otaheitan islands. If he do not, should I hear that he has, indeed, sailed for their distant shores; I shall for ever after admire, as much as I now pity, him; and regard him as a most extraordinary example of constancy and firmness. But should he become reconciled to Europe, and cease to sigh for the simple pleasures of his early years, he will only add another proof to the many already existing of human faithlessness and frailty.

I know you will hoot me for this doubt; and tell me that three years of constancy is quite probation enough to ensure him for the remainder. But those years were past, part on sea, and part in miserable journeys. Ease, I dread as the foe to his resolution. Some, that fight like lions when you attempt them by storm, by the sap fall as quietly into your hands as an infant child.

So I fear that repose, and the pleasures of society, may undermine the fidelity of our young chief; and then, what is to blame? He was a man, and he fell! "True," you will say, "but as he is a man he ought to stand. Boys may plead the vice of human nature; it is the business of men to conquer it."

A noble principle: and he who aims at it, is more likely to maintain his ground; than he who strikes lower. I acknowledge, that in judging of ourselves, it should be our stand ard; but when of others, mercy bids

us measure by erring mortality, and pity while we condemn. However, I know you would rather have occasion to admire than to pity, when pity is to be alloyed with disesteem. Therefore I am happy in the story of my young mariner, as he is yet a hero under all his misfortunes, to give you an object for both sentiments in their purest degree. Should he go to England, I will send him to you; and then I need not doubt all that has been represented to him of my country, being honoured to the word of your faithful friend.

IN considering the character of this young officer, it is very natural for the mind comparatively to recur to the contemplation of those heroes, ancient and modern, who have, as may be said, expired in the arms of victory, just at the moment when the charms of existence seemed to be expanded; therefore, in a conspicuous though distant part of this historical canvass, we are inclined to view Epaminondas wounded in the Elean field, at the very instant when his conquest of the Spartans was declared, surrounded by his weeping friends, and, phoenix-like dying amidst a blaze of glory. Descending to more modern times, we behold, mentally pictured, the death of Turenne, and Wolfe, extended on the plain of Abraham, raising his head at the cry of victory, and, as he sinks again into the arms of one of his brave soldiers, seeming to exclaim: "I thank God! I die contented!" Were it here necessary, VOL. III.

3 F

M.

we could record the names of many other British officers, naval and military, from the time of the decease of that conquering hero to the recent fall of general Moore, who have, in the same circumstances, gloriously expired; but this is by no means the case, as our general lamentations for their. loss have scarcely yet been repressed by our patriotick exultations, that, as in their lives, so in their deaths, they have rendered those names terrifick to our enemies, because they are combined with circumstances which tend to immortalize the glory of their country.

This immortality with respect to individuals is, as we have hinted in the few lines that we have chosen for our motto, secured beyond the reach of fate. Their achievements are blazoned on the broad shield of publick virtue, and their characters corsigned to the admiration of pósterity.

In this elevated point of view is among his brave compatriots, placed the fame of that glorious youth, whose actions, and brief notices of birth, &c. are the subject of this short Memoir. Our general observations are excursive, but we conceive that the occasion elicited them; and if our domestick traits are slight, they certainly include, what, respecting him, is necessary to be known; the historical detail extracted from papers of authority, is more particular; and, although in most instances extant, cannot, as an example, be too often repeated.

Respecting the paucity of our domestick traits of this gallant, persevering, and most able officer, we are not without hope that a more detailed account of him than we have at present in our power to give, may yet appear, replete with circumstances that may contribute still further to illustrate a character, which, we have the satisfaction to know, was as much admired by his friends, as the glory which his actions have displayed was exulted in by the publick. Under the impression of this hope, and waiting with ardent expectation for its fruition, we shall, as its precursors, lightly touch upon some of its prominent features.

George Nicholas Hardinge was the son of the rev. Henry Hardinge, DOW rector of Stanhope, in the county of Durham, who is the brother of George Hardinge, esq. chief justice of the Brecon circuit, and attorney general to her majesty. He was born on the 11th of April, 1781, and fell on the 8th of March, 1808, before he had passed the 28th year of his age.*

At an early period of his life, Mr. Hardinge, his uncle, adopted him as his son; took the charge of superintending his education; and purposed in due time to introduce him to his own profession, the bar.

Under such auspices, little doubt could have been entertained of his success; but, as the poet very justly says:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men," which frequently exhibits itself in that impulse of the mind that urges to professional pursuits, and is correctly denominated genius; so this predilection of the mind of young Hardinge became obvious while he was at Eton school, and inclined him to a nautical life; which even then appeared so predominant, that it combated, and at length overbore, all opposition, and finally was crowned with success.

At the age of twelve years, he commenced his naval career, under the command of captain Charles Tyler (now rear admiral) whom he loved as a father is beloved by a son, whom he admired as an example, and respected as a man.

With this distinguished and excellent officer our young adventurer sailed to Corsica, in the squadron under the command of lord Hood.

La Minerve, a forty gun frigate, captured and sunk, was by the exertions of captain Tyler weighed up, and, as a reward for those exertions, the command given to him. She acquired the name of San Fiorenzo. To that vessel our young midshipman was transferred-and in her, it is singular enough, he many years afterwards so gloriously finished his nautical career.