The gallant defence of the Isles of St. Marcou would justify a more serious celebration than is attempted in the following poem; and the modest and unassuming manner in which Lieutenant Price gives the account of services so highly meritorious, adds to the hope which we entertain that he will meet a more solid reward than any verse of ours or of our correspondent’s could bestow.

Citizen Muskein, if he understands Horace, and can read English, will be amply rewarded for the victory of which he has, no doubt, by this time, made a pompous report to the Directory, by the perusal of the 14th Ode of the 1st Book, for which we have to return our thanks to a classical correspondent.

A CONSOLATORY ADDRESS TO HIS GUN-BOATS.

[Muskein was an inhabitant of Antwerp, whom the Directory not only appointed to superintend the construction of the flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of Great Britain (usually called by the French sailors “bateaux À la Muskein”), but made a “capitaine de vaisseau”. An attack was ordered to be made upon the two small islands of Saint Marcouf (each not more than 200 yards in length), of which, in July, 1795, Sir Sidney Smith, with the Diamond frigate, had taken unobstructed possession, and which were considered to give to the English great facility in intercepting between the ports of Havre and Cherbourg. The islands are situated off the river Isigny, on the coast of Normandy, and about four miles distant from the French shore. After being garrisoned with about 500 seamen and marines, including a great proportion of invalids, these small islands were placed under the command of Lieut. Charles Papps Price, of The Badger, a cruiser-converted Dutch hoy, mounting four, or at most six, guns.

On the 8th April, 1798, Muskein, with 33 flat-bottomed boats, with a body of troops on board, and a few gun-brigs, was about to make a combined attack on the two islands, but was driven off by two British frigates, The Diamond, Capt. Sir R. J. Strachan, and The Hydra, Capt. Sir Francis Laforey, and stood into Caen river. While there for three weeks, repairing damages, he was joined by seven heavy gun-brigs, and about 40 flat-boats and armed fishing vessels, bringing with them additional troops.

On the 6th May, Lieut. Price received information that an attack was meditated during the night. By 10 p.m., owing to the prevailing calm, the small naval force on the station, consisting of the 50–gun ship, Adamant, Capt. Wm. Hotham, 24–gun ship, Eurydice, Capt. John Talbot, and 18–gun brig-sloop, Orestes, Capt. W. Haggitt, had not been able to approach nearer to the islands than six miles—precisely what the assailants wanted. The attacking force consisted of 52–gun brigs and flat-bottomed boats, having on board, as was reported, about 6000 men. At day-break, on the 7th, the flotilla was seen drawn up in a line opposite to the south-west front of the western redoubt; and instantly was opened, upon the brigs and flats composing it, a fire from 17 pieces of cannon, consisting of four 4, two 6, and six 24 pounder long guns, and three 24 and two 32–pounder carronades, being all the guns that would bear. The brigs remained at a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, in order to batter the redoubt with their heavy long guns, while the boats, with great resolution, rowed up until within musket-shot of the battery. But the guns of the latter, loaded with round, grape, and canister, soon poured destruction amongst these, cutting several of the boats “into chips,” and compelling all that could keep afloat to seek their safety in flight. Six or seven boats were seen to go down, and one small flat, No. 13, was afterwards towed in, bottom upwards. She appeared, by some pieces of paper found in her, to have had 144 persons on board, including 129 of the second company of the Boulogne battalion.

The loss sustained by the British garrison amounted to one private-marine killed, and two private-marines and two seamen wounded. According to one French account, the invaders lost about 900 in killed or drowned, and between 300 and 400 wounded. As a reward for their conduct on this occasion, Lieutenants Price and Bourne were each promoted to the rank of Commander. The former died a Post Captain, at Hereford, in 1813, aged 62.—James’s Naval History, vol. ii., pp. 128–131: ed. 1886.—Ed.]

[M. PlÉville was Minister of Marine, and, shortly after this unsuccessful dÉbut of the famous flotilla, was succeeded by Rear-Adm. Bruix, who directed Rear-Adm. La Crosse to take the command, and to make a second attack upon the islands. This, however, the French Government declined to make.—Ed.]

Helen Maria Williams.—[“Among the literary celebrities of the French Revolution was Helen Maria Williams, at whose house were wont to assemble the most distinguished of the liberal writers of France, her own reputation giving considerable Éclat to these meetings. She wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in our language, was a prisoner under the reign of terror, and published a work on the French Revolution which is full of the most touching incidents, and adorned with specimens of the ardent and pathetic poetry, the product of French genius under the excitement of those most mysterious days. A. Humboldt was much attached to her, and committed to her care the translation and publication of some of his most elaborate works.

“She had two nephews, Athanas and Charles Coquerel, whom she educated, and who both attained considerable fame, one in the theological and the other in the political field. Athanas was for some time the preacher in the Protestant Church at Amsterdam, and married the daughter of a Swiss gentleman, the only person I have ever known on the Continent to adopt the dress and profess the opinions of an English Quaker. Miss Williams maintained intimate relations with her English friends, was familiar with the great lights of the Revolution, and her conversation was most instructive, entertaining, and varied. All her sympathies were on the side of freedom, and though she was not so prominent as to be persecuted by the Emperor, like Madame de StaËl, she was the object of a good deal of suspicion and narrowly watched by the police.”—Autobr. Recollections by Sir John Bowring, pp. 353–4.—Ed.]

[Miss Williams, for some years, wrote that portion of the New Annual Register which relates to France. Among many other productions she was the author of the song Evan Banks (to the tune of Savourna Delish), which has often been attributed to Burns; a novel called Julia, and a Tour in Switzerland. Horace Walpole called her in his Correspondence a “scribbling trollop”.

She lived for many years, and until the death of that gentleman—in Paris, 1818—under the protection of John Hurford Stone, a man of letters, who in the early part of the French Revolution had removed with his wife to Paris, where he formed an intimacy with Miss Williams. She was born about 1762, and died in Paris in 1827 as a friend to the Bourbons, and the enemy of the Revolution!

This Mr. Stone was born at Tiverton in 1763. While in Paris he was in the confidence of the Directory, and became one of the chief printers there. In 1805, he brought out an edition of the Geneva Bible, and published several English reprints; also Miss Williams’s translation of Humboldt’s Travels. His brother, Wm. Stone, was tried in 1796 for High Treason, for holding treasonable correspondence with him.—Ed.]

ELEGY
ON THE DEATH OF JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ.

The following exquisite tribute to the memory of an unfortunate republican is written with such a touching sensibility, that those who can command salt tears must prepare to shed them. The narrative is simple and unaffected; the event in itself interesting; the moral obvious and awful.—We have only to observe, that as this account of the transaction is taken from the French papers, it may possibly be somewhat partial.—The Dey’s own statement of the affair has not yet been received. Every friend of humanity will join with us in expressing a candid and benevolent hope, that this business may not tend to kindle the flames of war between these two unchristian powers; but that, by mutual concession and accommodation, they may come to some point (short of the restoration of Jean Bon’s head on his shoulders, which in this stage of the discussion is hardly practicable) by which the peace of the Pagan world may be preserved. For our part, we pretend not to decide from which quarter the concessions ought principally to be made. It is but candid to allow that there are probably faults on both sides, in this, as in most other cases. For the character of the Dey we profess a sincere respect on the one hand; and on the other, we naturally wish that the head of Jean Bon St. AndrÉ should be reserved for his own guillotine.

ELEGY; OR, DIRGE.

On recurring to the French papers to verify our Correspondent’s statement of this singular adventure of Jean Bon St. AndrÉ, we discovered, to our great mortification, that it happened at Algiers, and not at Tunis. We should have corrected this mistake, but for two reasons—first, that Algiers would not stand in the verse; and, secondly, that we are informed by the young man who conducts the Geographical Department of the Morning Chronicle, that both the towns are in Africa, or Asia (he is not quite certain which), and, what is more to the purpose, that both are peopled by Moors. Tunis, therefore, may stand.

[Marshal BernadottÉ, the French Prince of MontÉ Corvo, died as Charles John XIV., King of Sweden, 8th March, 1844, in his eighty-first year. He married, in 1798, Eugenia-Bernardina-DÉsirÉe de Clary, daughter of a Marseilles merchant, and sister of Madame Joseph Buonaparte (Queen of Spain). “She, who was not a common-place person,” says Madame de RÉmusat, in her valuable Memoirs, “had before her marriage been very much in love with Napoleon, and appears to have always preserved the memory of that feeling! It has been supposed that her hardly extinguished passion caused her obstinate refusal to leave France.” She survived her husband many years, and died in Paris, in the Rue d’Anjou Saint HonorÉ. Her husband was succeeded on the throne of Sweden by their son, Oscar I., who married JosÉphine, daughter of EugÈne Beauharnais, Duc de Leuchtenberg, and granddaughter of the Empress Josephine.

BernadottÉ owed his elevation to the throne to the misgovernment of Gustavus IV., who had brought the nation to the verge of ruin, and who was deposed in 1809, when his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, became king as Charles XIII.; and the next year, BernadottÉ was elected Crown Prince, and successor to the throne.

In 1813, he rendered great assistance to the Allies, for, as Crown Prince, he joined the confederacy against France with 30,000 men; and, after defeating Marshal Ney, with great loss, on the 6th September, he, on the 18th October, with the co-operation of BlÜcher, again defeated him at the decisive Battle of Leipsic; and, on the 19th, the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, and the Crown Prince, entered the great square of Leipsic, amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants. He was a decided democrat, and hated by Napoleon, but was the only sovereign of the revolutionary branch who was permitted to retain his dominions after the great reaction in 1814. The choice made of this great soldier of fortune excited the surprise of all Europe at the time, but the wisdom of it was soon demonstrated by his prudent conduct. He had distinguished himself from all Napoleon’s other marshals by his clemency in victory. For half a century before his accession, Sweden had not known the peace and prosperity in which he left the country on his death.

In T. Raikes’s Diary will be found some interesting anecdotes of BernadottÉ’s gratitude for services rendered him while a young subaltern. But one is of a more startling nature, as it records his narrow escape from the death intended for him by the widow of the late king, who had purposely prepared a poisoned cup of coffee for him, which she herself presented to him at her own table. Having been suddenly warned, he succeeded in forcing it upon her. She resolutely accepted her fate, and died during the night.—Ed.]