But what wilt thou reck, does the stranger pass the spot heedless of thy name?

To return to Lieut. Austin, he adds

"To Lieut. Williams' exertions and kindness on the occasion, I cannot bear sufficient testimony, and it is a great loss to this gentleman, that I have not the pen of Capt. Foster to detail to you his able services and scientific attainments, for he was always associated with Capt. Foster in his labours and observations. With his assistance, I look forward to be enabled to give you satisfaction in the hydrographical department.

"It is necessary to inform you, that Capt. Foster's body had been plundered by some of the canoe-men of his valued private chronometer, together with his notebook, containing all his observations since leaving Porto Bello; but the Government watch was found in a breast pocket on the left side, and escaped detection-I presume from the unusual circumstance of a person carrying two watches.

"Having obtained permission from the Governor to erect a tablet to his memory in any place I might think fit, I have accordingly done so in the fort of St. Lorenzo at Chagres. It is a large piece of very hard and durable wood, cut in the usual form of a grave-stone, bearing a copper plate, with the following inscription neatly engraved thereon.

"This tablet is erected by the senior Lieutenant and officers of his Britannic Majesty's sloop Chanticleer, to perpetuate the memory of their late Commander, Henry Foster, F.R.S. who was drowned in the river Chagres on the 5th February 1831, while measuring the difference of longitude between Panama and Chagres. This talented and distinguished officer was employed in nautical and astronomical science, having nearly completed his mission of three years' duration. He fell at his post, ripe in honours, but young in years. Ætat 36.' "Afterwards was placed beneath the former,

"His remains were found on Tuesday, the 8th, floating in the river a little below Palomatia, and buried on the spot."

Lieut. Austin continues,

"I have forwarded by the same conveyance as this, an official statement of the event for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

"Thus I believe and hope that everything has been done with propriety, and that I have entered into all the detail that a letter admits of. Permit me to apologise for the length of the communication and the trouble I have given. "With every sentiment of respect, "I have the honour to be, Sir, "Your obedient humble servant, (Signed) H. F. AUSTIN."

Such intelligence was as unexpected at home as it was on board the Chanticleer, while she was under way off Chagres, and equally distressed his friends here, as it had his officers. But the event was past, his country had lost a most valuable and scientific officer, and his relatives, with their fondest, but early-blighted hopes, were left to mourn the loss.

The command of the Chanticleer, of course, devolved on Lieut. Austin, who, after having taken the steps mentioned in his letter, lost no time in executing to the best of his power the remaining part of Capt. Foster's orders. As this consisted only of measuring the meridian distance between a few more points, namely, the east end of Jamaica, Cuba, St. Thomas's, Bermuda, and the Azores, these were obtained on the way home, by which all the objects of the voyage were fully completed, excepting the longitude between Chagres and Panama, the notes of which were lost with Com. Foster. The Chanticleer returned to Falmouth, and on being paid off at Woolwich shortly after, Lieut. Austin and Mr. Williams received that promotion which they so justly merited.

EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE

IN THE FLEET AND ARMY-AND ITS REMEDY.

In a work which has the welfare and happiness of the United Services for its express design, the honour of the British arms for its peculiar care, and the glory of the British empire as the object of its most anxious solicitude,-in such a work no apology seems necessary in calling the attention of its readers to the consideration of a subject of so vital importance to our happiness, honour, and glory, as that which forms the subject of the treatise now before us on the extent and remedy of national intemperance. The author commences with an animated description of the nature and extent of inebriation in Scotland:

"Those ruthless conquerors who, in their wasting career, have created numberless widows and orphans amid the havoc of kingdoms, and for a time overspread regions with amazement and despair; those mortal pestilences which in some brief but desolating month have subdued smiling districts to the aspect of the shadow of death, have severally been denominated scourges of the human race. But it may be confidently declared that no mischief in the sorrowful annals of nations have proved so diffusive and so unwavering as the plague of inebriation-the dominion of intoxicating liquors; and none has achieved so effectually its deleterious empire over both the bodies and the souls of men."

In tracing the history of this gigantic evil, our author goes back to remote antiquity, and concludes with the following powerful obser

vations:

"In more modern times, the tyrants of Scotland, during the religious persecutions, the Lauderdales and Middletons of the seventeenth century, amid heartless and mad carousals, took cruel counsel against the virtuous of the land, and issued those destructive orders, that on the hill side, in the innocence of their rural farms, and amid the tears and distraction of mothers and children, flamed over our fathers in the bitterness of death. And although in present times it has not been our lot to witness this sin outrageously exerting itself by violent and hasty revolution in the plunge of kingdoms, yet have we within half a century beheld its creeping sloth-like progress in our population, whom it has now lowered to such a state of degradation, as that we seem to stand in imminent danger of sinking to a depth of moral turpitude far below the tide-mark of continental nations, notwithstanding all the stability of our transcendent civil and religious privileges."

From the parents, the vice seems at length to have descended to the children. Our author informs us

"That we have the hopeless grief of hearing our very boys in the streets bragging of their feats and familiarity with the liquid poison."

And again

"From one official report on the subject, I am induced to believe that the balance of intoxication, as compared between the sexes, now preponderates on the female side."

There is (says Mr. Hume) in human affairs an extreme point of

On the Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance. Published by William Collins, Glasgow.

depression from which they naturally begin to ascend in an opposite direction. Some eighteen months ago Scotland appears to have arrived at this point, when the philanthropic author of the work before us at last succeeded in arousing his countrymen to a sense of their dangerous situation; from that happy period Temperance Associations, in despite of inveterate habit, prejudice, and self-interest, have been making a most rapid progress in the north, and those combinations of the wise and virtuous of the land promise at no distant period to blot out the darkest spot from the moral history of their country, and place her in that high station which she once occupied amid the nations of the earth.

In looking to the Temperance Record for May, we observe that there are now 208 Societies in Scotland, consisting of 40,529 members, and that for some time past the monthly increase has been about 4000 individuals. In discussing the remedy of this vast national evil, our author proves the advantages, which example, accompanied with combined exertion, has in this as in most other matters over precept, and appeals to the great public experiment which has already been made in the United States of America, from which the most salutary lessons may be obtained. It appears that the sin of intoxication was there, from whatever means, a more prevailing mischief among the upper classes at least than in our own country,-our consumption amounting to about thirty millions of gallons of spirits per annum, while theirs exceeded fifty millions of gallons in a much smaller population.

"The subject of intemperance (says our author) had been long mourned over by the wise and patriotic in that land; much unconnected exertion had been used, and many plans adopted to stop the growing evil and reduce the population within the bounds of moderate indulgence.

"But every exertion had hitherto failed, and the influence of intoxication predominated more than ever. An important discovery, however, has been made, which lies in the transcendent benefit to be reaped in the agitation of this matter from combined exertion. But above all, the happy results that have lately followed are, by our trans-atlantic friends, chiefly referred to the resolute and uncompromising principle of utter abstinence by a portion of the population; which is justly looked upon as the sine quá non and basis of all successful effort on this question. The principle of the American Societies may, therefore, be shortly stated as utter, immediate, sudden, and complete abandonment, combined with associations to a certain extent in all ranks of society. This will undoubtedly appear to every man who begins the consideration of this most interesting subject as a startling difficulty; and the notion of obtaining, in this manner, a cure to the inveterate abuse of wine and spirits in this country will, without fail, be viewed at first sight more as the phantasm of a fanatical enthusiast than the sober conclusions of a rational citizen. We must not, however, permit our preconceived opinions to outweigh the testimony of authentic fact, for it is demonstrated from the records of the American Societies, that this principle adopted by a few, and aided in its progress by an associated chain of institutions, has nearly slain the gigantic evil that threatened to bury the whole nation in literal family and individual destruction.

In the present state of society in Scotland, therefore, it appeared necessary that a certain portion of the upper ranks should for a time relinquish the use of wine, at all events of ardent spirits; that they should form a voluntary association throughout the land, the basis of which should be abstinence, and on no account to introduce any element of force into the plan, which is contrary to the essential princi

ples of solicitation and free-will. The results of this patriotic selfdenial is becoming more and more observable, as we have shown from the Temperance Record of Scotland to which we have already called the attention of our readers. It may be asked why should moderate drinkers in the upper ranks practise abstinence? Why should they make a sacrifice, and what effect will self-denial on their part have on the drunkard of low degree? To this we answer, that the lower ranks derive all their views and feelings from the higher. Fashions are never known to press upwards; example, therefore, is the only means by which the upper ranks can with any prospect of success enforce temperance on the common people: fashion is every thing with us; what in fact has of late years produced the comparative sobriety among the better orders in Britain, but the fashion of imitating Continental temperance?

There is another, and we think a most important result, proceeding from the combined effort of the latter classes in reclaiming the slave of dissipation and in the repression of drunkenness. Let us consider that crime of all sorts is progressive, that the drunkard was once a sober man, that he then became what is called a moderate man, he afterwards began to exceed step by step; he sinks to the lowest extremes of brutal intemperance as he advances in this pernicious course, at every step he loses a portion of the good opinion which his respectable friends or neighbours had formerly entertained for him, and of course a portion of that manly self-respect which is due to himself, and without which no one can act a wise, a virtuous, or an honourable part in society: but after he has arrived at the lowest stage of intemperance, after, like the leper of old, he has been expelled from the camp, lost to his friends, his country and himself, even here, however he may endeavour to conceal the fact from himself and others, in his heart he cherishes a respect for the sober part of the community, from whom his own indiscretion and folly have shut him out, and the warmest aspiration of this poor wretch is once more to be admitted into that society. Here then is the advantage of the moderate portion of the community practising abstinence; they know that this poor man cannot come to them, they accordingly meet him half-way; they tell him that his salvation depends on his abstaining from spiritous liquors, yet they ask him not to submit to any privation to which they themselves do not submit; they ask him to relinquish that which is undermining his health, ruining his affairs, and bringing his family to present and eternal misery; they ask him, in short, to join in their association; and what is the consequence? the man is at once raised a step in society, he at once gains a portion of the respect that he owes to himself, and if he only has the firmness to persevere, (which we are happy to say is done in almost every case,) this association with sober men will lead him back to the paths of duty, and bring domestic peace and joy to his home, which is now the abode of squalid poverty and wretchedness.

Such, then, is the remedy that has been proposed for intemperance, and which has been found to produce the most beneficial effects in civil life. We are most happy to observe that the system has also been transferred, and is now acted upon by a portion of the military. In the last Temperance Record, we observe that the 4th Royal Irish Dragoons, and the 91st (Argyleshire) regiments have each adopted the plan of

Temperance Societies. How would this work in the Navy? We are all but too well acquainted with the baneful nature of intemperance in that service; we know from painful experience, that if all the crimes committed in the navy were divided into five equal parts, four out of the five, at the very least, would be found to proceed from drunkenness; all quarrels, all riots and tumults, all neglect of duty, insolence to superiors, mutinous or seditious language, and other enormities, have ever been the issues and product of excessive drinking; and how often does the drunken revel end in the cry of murder! how often does the hand of the inebriate, in one rash hour, perform a deed that haunts him to the grave! One third of the patients confined under insanity, have brought that terrible disease upon themselves by drunkenness " Oh! that a man should put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brain."

Almost every accident that happens on board of ship may be traced to the same prolific source of evil; when our men fall from aloft or are lost overboard, have their limbs fractured, or are upset in boats, in short, in almost every instance where they either give or receive injury, the remote or proximate cause of the harm is to be found in the intoxication of one or of all the parties concerned; and in the upper ranks, how many honourable and gallant young men have we seen lost to themselves and their country solely from dissipation! wretched in fortune and in fame, blighted in health, in hope, in happiness, in expectation, pursued by misery and wretchedness in this life, or brought unwept and unhonoured to an early grave." Oh! thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee, the devil."

We have served during the war, and since the peace, in sixteen different ships of war, and we have taken passages at various times in about as many more; from our youth upwards, we have heard the subject of intemperance mourned over, we have seen many plans adopted, and much severe punishment inflicted for the purpose of putting a stop to the influence of intoxication, yet in all our experience we have never known the drunkard reclaimed by means of corporal punishment; we contend, therefore, that it is not to be flogged out of him; he may be scared for a time from terror of the infliction, but without some moral check the demon will most assuredly return doubly armed, aided rather than repressed by the moral degradation which repeated punishment must ever produce.

Wine and beer may be necessary as anti-scorbutic to sea-faring people; with ardent spirits it is quite otherwise; there is more virtue as an anti-scorbutic in one ounce of sugar with lime-juice than in a pint of spirits: would not the utter abandonment of ardent spirits be of the utmost consequence to the service? It might be done at once were the officers one and all to take advantage of the discovery which works so beneficially on shore, and which consists in the transcendent benefit of example and association; there are no class of beings on earth who follow the example of their officers for good or for evil with such sympathising good-will as sailors, and the readiness with which they relinquished a portion of the ardent spirits which formed a part of their allowance a few years ago, redounds to their immortal honour, and is another convincing proof of the fact that was formerly stated in this Journal-"That the progress of civilization may be traced in the advance of our military institutions more perfectly than in the laws