in the observance of their sacred rites. They have more gravity and austerity in their manners. The traveller is less infested by beggars, and his nose offended with fewer nuisances than in the streets of the former place; but Mr. Burckhardt saw little of them, having been seized with a fever a few days after his arrival. When sufficiently recovered, he made the best of his way to Yembo, the seaport of Medina, with a view of crossing over to Egypt; but the soldiers and the lady of Mahomed Ali, and numerous Turkish hadjis, had engaged all the ships. This was the more unfortunate, as he soon discovered that the plague was raging in Yembo, though the Moslems said that was impossible, as the Almighty had for ever excluded that disorder from the holy territory of the Hedjaz.' No instance of this fateful disease had, in fact, been known in the Hedjaz within the memory of man. It had, on this occasion, been carried from Cairo to Suez, thence in some bales of cotton cloth to Djidda, and so on to Yembo. Forty or fifty persons were dying daily; a dreadful mortality in a population of only five or six thousand. The governor, it seems, took every precaution to prevent the extent of the evil from being known; but the howling lamentations of La illaha ill' Allah! which announce a Moslem funeral, struck the ear from every quarter, and forty-two of these were counted by our traveller in one day. That this horrible malady should spread its ravages far and wide among this infatuated people is not to be wondered at. The women,' says Burckhardt, enter the apartments, embrace and console all the females of the family, and expose themselves every moment to infection. It is to this custom, more than to any other cause, that the rapid dissemination of the plague in Mahomedan houses must be ascribed; for, when the disease once breaks out in a family, it never fails of being transmitted to the whole neighbourhood:' and yet we have been told, and barefaced effrontery had made the tale believed in high quarters, that the plague is not infectious!

Burckhardt, however, had the good fortune to escape it, though obliged to remain in the midst of it for eighteen days, when at length he succeeded in getting a passage in a sambouk, or large open boat, to Cosseir; but having spent twenty days in reaching Sherm, at the entrance of the gulf of Akaba, he here hired camels for himself and servant, and in a few days reached a small village near Tor, called El Wady, consisting of a few houses surrounded with date-trees, and gardens well stocked with fruits of various kinds. Here he remained for some time, in the enjoyment of complete repose, good mountain air, and excellent water. After a fortnight's residence, this lamented traveller found his strength sufficiently recruited to enable him to proceed for Cairo, which he reached on the seventh day from Tor.

We

We have little further to add on the subject of the Hadj; or of· The Arabian Prophet's native waste,

Where once his airy Helpers schemed and plann'd,

Mid phantom lakes, bemocking thirsty men,

And stalking pillars built of fiery sand.'

The humiliation of Mr. Canning's maximus Othmannides' will go far, we think, to put an end to the follies and the vices, the habits of indolence and mendicity, which these pilgrimages to Mekka are calculated to encourage. The donations of the pilgrims were at one time alone sufficient to support the great number of eunuchs and other idlers attached to the mosque. When these began to fail, large sums in money and in corn were sent annually from Egypt, and still more from Constantinople; but we may conclude that the supplies from either of these quarters will in future be small indeed. Burckhardt says the tickets, entitling the bearers to annual life pensions from the Constantinopolitan surras, as they are called, were sold, when he was there, at two years and a half purchase, which spoke not much as to the opinion of the people of Mekka, even at that time, of the stability of the Turkish government. From Mahomed Ali of Egypt nothing has been received of late years, and probably never will be in future; he is well known to be an utter infidel. His resources, besides, just now, are otherwise employed, in the construction and repair of his fortifications, in training his army according to European tactics, and in augmenting his naval force. His whole conduct, indeed, sufficiently betrays his intention of endeavouring to establish an independent government in Egypt, to which, it is said, he calculates on being able to annex the Sultan's now loose and but nominal dependencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers—and probably also Morocco-in all which, we must say, we wish him success.

On the whole, notwithstanding all that Burckhardt records as to certain symptoms of enthusiasm in the course of his hadj, it is sufficiently plain that, even in the original seat of Mahommedanism, the religious feelings of the people have cooled down considerably. The educated Moslems everywhere are mostly of the sect of Mahomet Ali of Egypt; nor, however we may question many of the details of Mr. Forster's work, can we have any doubt that all things are thus working together for the re-establishment of the true religion in the regions where man was first civilized, and where the oracles of God were uttered. In the meantime, the decline of the arch-heresy of the East will be regretted by no one who judges of the tree by the fruit. A long residence,' says Burckhardt, among Turks, Syrians, and Egyptians' (and no man knew them better), justifies me in declaring that they are wholly deficient in virtue, honour, and justice; that they have little true piety, and still less charity or forbearance; and that honesty is only to be found in their paupers or idiots.'

VOL. XLII. NO. LXXXIII.

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ART. III.-A Statement of some important Facts, supported by authentic Documents, relating to the Operation of Breaking the Enemy's Line, as practised for the first time in the celebrated Battle of the 12th April, 1782. London, 1829.

WE E have read with unfeigned regret this Statement of some important Facts,' written by Major-General Sir Howard Douglas, and printed at the head of a new edition of his valuable and standard work on Naval Gunnery,' as well as in the shape of a pamphlet. This revival of one old dispute, accompanied with the assertion of another claim, which has been suffered to remain dormant for seven and forty years, cannot fail to occasion, and, indeed, we happen to know that it has occasioned, a painful and angry feeling among the friends of the parties most interested, but more particularly in the family of the late Lord Rodney. We know enough of Sir Howard Douglas to be convinced, that nothing but a sense of duty urged him to make his Statement;' we have heard, and believe, that he is not only a highly distinguished officer in his profession, and an able and successful governor in one of our colonies, but a most amiable, kind-hearted, and benevolent man, and the last person who would intentionally give pain to any human being; and we are sure he will be the first to lament that such has unhappily been the result of his present publication. While, however, we thus feel ourselves reluctantly compelled to disapprove the measure to which he has resorted, we cannot but honour the motives, mistaken as we think they are, by which he has been influenced-a filial solicitude to establish a claim, which he conceives to be due to the memory and the character of his deceased parent, Admiral Sir Charles Douglas; but which, while living, from all we perceive and can learn, Sir Charles himself uniformly disavowed; indeed, Sir Howard himself tells us,' he is sure his father's spirit would not approve of his reclaiming any of the laurels of that achievement (the breaking of the enemy's line) from the tomb of his chief.'(Statement, p. 61.)

Of the late Lord Rodney we know nothing, beyond his character as a brave and intelligent officer, and his important public services; we have no personal acquaintance with any part of his family; but, in justice to the character he held, and the reputation he has left behind him, which one of the evidences-we might almost say the only evidence-brought forward by Sir Howard Douglas goes not only to sully but to destroy, and which are the property of the public, we have deemed it our duty to institute an inquiry into the validity of these claims-neither of which could be established, under all the circumstances of the case, without leaving Rodney poor indeed.'

If, in spite of every endeavour to view the case with impartiality, we should appear to lean somewhat towards the side of him whom we deem to be the injured person, it is because we think it a monstrous principle, that the name of an old and gallant officer, who has done the state some service '-who, in fact, had the good fortune of doing more than has fallen to the lot of ninety-nine in the hundred of his brother officers of the same rank, that stand, or have stood, on the list-should be subject, after the lapse of half a century, when he and all his contemporaries are no more, to be arraigned and brought to trial before the public tribunal, when the means are not to be procured by which a sentence of acquittal or condemnation can be satisfactorily pronounced. The only living witnesses present at the battle of the 12th April, 1782, as far as we can discover, are -Admiral Sir James Saumarez, who commanded the Russell; Admiral Knight, captain of the Barfleur, bearing the flag of Sir Samuel Hood; Sir Joseph Yorke, then a midshipman of the Formidable, not fourteen years of age; Captain Sir Charles Dashwood, a midshipman of thirteen years of age; and Sir Gilbert Blane, physician of the fleet.

We have two anti-Rodney statements to examine-and we shall begin with the elder of the two; the purpose of which is as follows:-The late Mr. John Clerk, of Eldin, near Edinburgh, (a gentleman in whose family great talents appear to be hereditary,) was the author of a treatise called An Essay on Naval Tactics' a book that was published, or printed, just about the time that Sir George Rodney left London to take the command of the West India fleet. In this book, an original manoeuvre, or one stated to be such, is described, (namely, that of breaking the line,) by the practice of which it is held forth, that a great advantage may be obtained over the enemy in battle; that this idea was communicated to Rodney previous to his joining the fleet, and also to Sir Charles Douglas; that it was acted upon in the memorable battle of the 12th April, 1782; and, by so acting, a decisive victory was gained over the French. Such is the statement set up by certain friends of Mr. Clerk. The family of Rodney wholly disavow any such claim, and maintain that no such communication was ever made to their relative, or that he had the least knowledge of any such book or plan as that of Mr. Clerk. But Sir Howard Douglas goes farther; he not only denies all knowledge of Clerk's book or plan, on the part either of Rodney or of his father, but asserts the whole merit of the manœuvre, of breaking the enemy's line, as due to the latter, then captain of the fleet, and in Rodney's ship; assumes that, had it not been for him, the idea, whether his or another's, would not have been acted

upon;' and that it is to Sir Charles Douglas the country is indebted for the manoeuvre, by which that brilliant and decisive victory was gained.'

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Our present inquiry, then, will be directed to the two main points now brought into discussion,-First-Had or had not Mr. Clerk's work, or his ideas on the subject of breaking the enemy's line,' been communicated, directly or indirectly, either to Sir George Rodney or to Sir Charles Douglas, previous to the battle of the 12th April? Second-Supposing the claim of Clerk to be disposed of, was it Sir Charles Douglas who, at the critical moment, first suggested, and by his perseverance and conduct, as it would appear in the Statement,' almost forced Sir George Rodney, contrary to his inclination, to pass through the enemy's line? We are aware of the difficult and delicate nature of the task we are embracing, and the little chance we have tantas componere lites,' to the satisfaction of the parties concerned; but a love of truth, and justice to the deceased, compel us to undertake what we conceive to be a subject of great national importance,—not as to the merit of the manoeuvre itself,-for naval officers are much divided on that point; but as involving the character of one of our most successful naval heroes.

I. Mr. Clerk, in the preface to his Essay on Naval Tactics,' (edition of 1782,) states as follows:

In January 1780, when I was in London, being fully impressed with the importance of the naval ideas which long had been working in my imagination, and in consequence of the strictures on Lord Keppel's engagement sent the year before, some appointments, for the purpose of further communication on this subject, were made by my friends. Among the first of these, was an appointment with Mr. Richard Atkinson, the particular friend of Sir George Rodney, who was then in London, and was immediately to set out to take the command of the fleet in the West Indies. At this meeting, the whole of my acquisitions on the subject of Naval Tactics, for many years back, was discussed. I communicated to Mr. Atkinson the theories of attack from both the windward and the leeward; the first as contained in the first part of this Essay; the last as contained in the second part, now published a second time. I particularly explained my doctrine of cutting the enemy's line, &c. as set forth in both first and second parts. I also produced the paper of strictures on Lord Keppel's rencounter of the 27th of July, which contained all my general ideas on the subject of Naval Tactics. All this Mr. Atkinson undertook to communicate to Sir George Rodney, which he could have no difficulty in doing, as I left in his custody sketches made according to my usual method of demonstration, together with the necessary explanations. From the best authority, I have been informed that Lord Rodney himself at all times acknowledged the communication; and having, from