respect, as a brave officer, under whose command I served for a considerable time, I would not take the trouble to answer," &c. &c. I have the honour to remain, with the greatest respect, Sir, Capt. R. Hanoverian Jäger Guards, H. P. late 1st Light Infy. Batt. K. G. Legion. Hanover, Oct. 1831. (COPY.) BRIG.-GEN. ALTEN TO CAPT. HAYES, H. M. S. ALFRED. "H. M. S. Alfred, off Corunna, Jan. 26th, 1809. "Sir,-In consequence of the notification we received yesterday from Capt. Seymour, of H. M. S. Pallas, about the disasters which befell the army under the command of Lieut.-Gen. Sir John Moore, and their sudden sailing to England which followed it, I beg to request that you will profit of the present fair wind, to proceed there with the least possible delay with the corps under my command belonging to the same army; which expeditiousness I feel it my duty to represent to you as highly necessary, on account of the symptoms of infectious fevers which have already appeared amongst the troops, owing to the great hardships and fatigues they were exposed to on the late retreat; besides that the men being, from want of transports, very much crowded on board the ships, would make it, in my opinion, extremely dangerous for the health of the men, to wait any longer for the dispatches you expected to find from Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, either off Cape Finisterre or off Corunna, and not having received them at either place, makes it most probable they are gone to Vigo. "I have the honour, &c. &c. (Signed) MEMORANDUM BY CAPT. A. HEISE, A.D.C. "CH. ALTEN." "At the time this letter was written, a thick fog had come on, and the wind being at the time contrary to Vigo, no vessel could have gone there and returned within two days; we sailed, after having laid to for eighteen hours. "I certify that the above letter from Gen. Alten, with the Memorandum of Capt. Augustus Heise, is a correct copy extracted from the official letter-book kept by the latter in his capacity of A.D.C. to Gen. Alten, during the march from Astorga to Vigo in 1808-9. 26 Hanover, October 1831. "G. J. HARTMANN, K.C.B. Major-General, Reply upon Duelling-Riots at Bristol. "Viele menschen sind aller niederträchtigkeiten und schändlickeit en fähig, die allein ausgenommen, zu welchen muth gehört."-Welt und Zeit. "There are many men capable of every species of meanness and of baseness except that for which courage is required.” MR. EDITOR,-In the last Number of your Journal, a correspondent asks, "What would be the course pursued by the other officers of a regiment, one of whose number, having entered the army since the peace, and not having had in fact an opportunity of putting his personal courage beyond question, was to refuse a challenge sent to him in the ordinary way," &c.&c. As you seem to wish that an answer should be given to this question, and as it has no reference to any religious view that may be taken of the practice of duelling, a subject I have before expressed my intention of not again reverting to, I shall endeavour to give it a brief reply, leaving it to you, in your capacity of umpire, to confirm or reject my view of the case. Were a man to refuse a challenge from entertaining either moral or religious scruples as to the lawfulness of single combats; had his previous con duct and bearing been so perfectly in unison with such a profession as of themselves to convince his brother officers of the motives that influenced him in departing from established usage; had he constantly been, in his manners, as expressed by Boileau, “doux pour tout autre et rigoureux pour soi;” and had he thus proved himself, as such a man naturally would, incapable of giving any offence that could justify his being called to the field, the chances are that he would be supported in his resolution of not fighting. But with a man of different character, the case would of course be different, and there are unfortunately very different men in the world, and sometimes even in the army. There is your positive, disputatious, and law-giving character: there is also your d-d friendly fellow, always ready to point out to you, for your improvement no doubt, your faults and failings-then there is your little envious man, whose pleasure is to remind you, as often as convenient, of your errors, sorrows, and disappointments: you have the peevish man, who, like the haughty in manner and low in soul, can never be addressed in safety: you have the unhappy being, the venom of whose cankered heart is in a constant state of activity, as well as him whose excess of selfishness amounts to a hatred of every one else: and though last, not least, there is your blunt and vulgar-minded man, whose sole study consists in avoiding every thing like ordinary politeness, and in going as near the line of rudeness in every word and action as is compatible with personal safety; to say nothing of the regular scoundrel, who keeps cleverly within the bounds of discretion, though known to every one to be totally destitute of principle. And were a man belonging to any of these classes to refuse a challenge, the probability is that his brother officers would cease to hold friendly intercourse with him. Because, having shown himself amply capable of giving offence, and having by declining to give satisfaction, or to make proper atonement, renounced allegiance to the only code by which society can control the conduct of its members in the every-day transactions of life, he could not be deemed a safe companion, and fit to mix in company, least of all in military company, which is more than any other dependant for its harmony and happiness on the urbanity of manners and elegance of deportment for which it may now be safely said its members are so justly distinguished. In the corps in which I have served, and in the military society in which I have mixed, I do not recollect a single duel to have happened since the year 1811 : and strange to say, that bloodless meeting, as it proved, took place on the very ground where one of the most sanguinary contests of the Peninsular war was fought only a few days afterwards. The battle shock of mighty armies, together with the appalling scenes of suffering that naturally followed, were not calculated to enhance the glory of a single combat, which, tried at such time and place looked indeed deplorably little. But "These little things are great to little man," and must, perhaps, continue to be so, as long as the motto prefixed to this letter shall be true, or until the remedy, once proposed in your own Journal, shall have been adopted; and though I have before stated that I do not consider the fighting of fifty duels a proof of real courage, I am still of opinion, that in the absence of virtue and of honour, the recollection of a paltry pistol will even exercise some salutary influence. "It has a strange quick jar upon the ear Don Juan, Book iv. 415. The opinion here given, will not, perhaps, if honoured even with your approbation, decide the bet that has occasioned its being called for: a circumstance I do not much regret, for I am in truth no friend to bets or betting. And I hope your correspondent's young relative will not deem an old soldier uncourteous, if he takes advantage of the opportunity here offered, to dissuade the young gentleman himself, as well as all the junior members of the Services, against falling into a practice that has certainly nothing commendable, and that, however harmless in itself to a certain extent, leads frequently to unpleasant altercation, and sometimes even to more disagreeable consequences. It is at the best but an abrupt mode of terminating an argument, and though it may at times silence an adversary not able to sport his cash over freely, it never carries any thing like conviction along with it, but has generally the appearance of being proposed only in the absence of better, and more logical reasons. That men may be induced by the strength, beauty, and spirit of a horse to bet on the issue of a race, I can understand, because the exertions of the noble animal excite both interest and admiration in the beholder; but I can go no farther, and need not, I am sure, point out the evil consequences resulting too often even from this comprehensible sort of gambling. That a few men of talents, like Fox and Blucher, have been gamblers, proves nothing more than that great minds may receive a false direction from bad example and early habits. Boys, or very young men, when they observe their seniors playing for high stakes, and hear the practice spoken of as a manly and dashing pursuit, naturally feel a desire to imitate it; and in very early life, before the mind has acquired any sort of vigour, the turn of a card or roll of a die may be more easily supposed to afford interest than at a later period, for "The sports of children satisfy the child." Though there is not now much gambling carried on either in the Army or Navy, I should nevertheless be glad to see a good paper on the subject in the United Service Journal, which has already given so many articles of a tendency decidedly beneficial, to the junior and less experienced members of the professions. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, J. M. P.S. At the moment of writing this, the London newspaper of the 16th instant, containing what we may call a direct complaint preferred by the magistrates of Bristol against the officer who commanded the troops employed in that town during the late riots, is put into my hands. Of the parties I know nothing, and of the case itself it would now be wrong to speak; but when a document like the one alluded to is publicly put forth, it is just that the world, always more ready to clamour than to reflect, should in plain and distinct terms be reminded of the trying and difficult situation in which an officer is placed when called upon to quell an English mob by force of arms. Not only is it painful enough to order soldiers to use their destructive weapons against our unarmed countrymen ; but if an officer so circumstanced acts with vigour and promptness, whatever loss of life may follow will assuredly be laid to the charge of his rashness. If, on the other hand, he shows any wish to spare the effusion of blood, the mischief too often resulting from temporizing with a mob will be ascribed to his indecision. Let us suppose that the riot in Bristol had been put down by the troops on the first day of the disturbance, before the real spirit of the mob had come to light, and that, instead of the numbers who afterwards perished in consequence of their brutal intemperance and thirst for plunder, some fifteen or twenty persons had been killed and wounded by the soldiers, in what terms would the radical press have spoken of the military? Would not their conduct have been made the pretext for urging on a general arming in order to protect peaceful citizens against the fury of the soldiers? Would not the language of invective have been exhausted, and can a single term of abuse be imagined that the Times and other Journals of that stamp would not have heaped on the unhappy man whom evil fortune might have placed in command of the troops? Callous and cold-hearted cruelty are the least charges that would have been preferred against him; he would have been accused of the barbarous and inhuman slaughter of aged, helpless, and unoffending individuals, sacrificed merely to gratify his own, or his party's thirst of blood; his fair fame and character would have been ruined; and if his life had been spared, which in these times of political excitement is by no means certain, all that renders life valuable would have been destroyed. That a man must not be influenced by such considerations in following the upright path of even melancholy duty, I know very well. But how is the right path to be found, when party is constantly striving to obscure it? Every drop of blood shed during the last quarter of a century, in quelling riots, has been attributed to military violence, cruelty, and misconduct. The people were never blamed, but were constantly represented as displaying the meekness of lambs, while the military showed all the fury of tigers. If these representations were not evident and palpable falsehoods, might not a military man believe them and act upon the belief? Magistrates too, it must be recollected, are collectively, and in their official capacity, a wavering and irresolute set. Blustering and confident when danger is at a distance, they are terrified into inactivity when it approaches; they cling like frightened children to every hope of exterior aid, and petulantly expect marvels from all exertions but those it might be their own duty to make. Of course I am speaking of magistrates in their official character only; individually, an English gentleman is as brave in a brown coat as in a red one. To ruin the army by every species of falsehood, sophistry and misrepresentation, has long been the object of a party in this country. How much their fatal exertions tended to weaken our military policy in foreign transactions, has been often shown in your own Journal; that we should at last have had occasion to deplore the effects of these exertions even in domestic affairs, is therefore much more to be lamented than to be wondered at: but having paid so dearly for the melancholy and humiliating lesson we have just received, let us not, by attempting to shift the blame from erroneous principles to mere individuals, deprive ourselves of the benefit we may derive from it for our future guidance. Steering from the Bow. MR. EDITOR,-Having seen two communications from Capt. Basil Hall inserted in your Journal, which afford me the gratification of knowing that so distinguished an officer entertains opinions similar to my own, on the advantages of the helmsman steering in the fore-part of the vessel, I am encouraged to send you a copy of a letter which I addressed so far back as the 28th of April 1829, to Lord Viscount Melville, His Lordship being at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, of which that subject forms a part, together with the recommendation of two rudders, one on the stem as well as the stern-post, to act separately, or simultaneously as occasion may require. I remain, Mr. Editor, No. 6, Euston Square, Nov. 12th, 1831. Your most obedient servant, WILLIAM MANNING, Capt. H. C. S. To the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, &c. &c. EXTRACT. "May I inform your Lordship, that in the course of nearly thirty years' experience, I have been frequently struck by the inefficacy of the common rudder attached to ships, and have often witnessed the imminent risk in which they have been placed from the impossibility of turning them by the use of the common rudder, in a space sufficiently small to avoid the danger to which they were exposed. For a long time I supposed this danger attri butable to sailing vessels only, but that a steam-vessel having both the fore and back motion in the use of her paddles, could turn in her own length. Last year, however, I was convinced of the fallacy of my opinion in that respect, as on going to Scotland in the City of Edinburgh steam-vessel, we had a hard gale of wind between the Fern Islands and the coast, when, to my surprise, although the wind was off the land, and the water smooth, the vessel would not tack with the utmost power of the steam; although going at the rate of three or four knots through the water, she could not be brought head to wind. Capt. Dewar, (an excellent seaman,) finding she would not tack, resolved to veer round before the wind to get the vessel's head the other way, and while doing this she ran at least a mile and a half, which took her dangerously close to the rocks of the Fern Islands. Capt. Dewar informed me, he could give the paddles the back motion, should the vessel approach too near; but I beg to observe this operation would not have any better effect in turning the vessel, and if the sea was high it would certainly knock in her stern, from that part of the vessel being forced against the waves, the stern not being constructed to resist the full violence of the sea breaking upon it as the bow is. I have troubled your Lordship with this detail, to render more apparent the defect for which I am about to propose a remedy. "The danger arises from not being able to turn the vessel in limited time and space. The cause of that inability is, the inefficacy of the rudder in present use. "The remedy I propose is, first, an improvement in the construction of the rudder; and secondly, the use of an additional rudder or helm on the stem, together with the one on the stern-post. "First, the remedy in the construction of the rudder which I propose is, that it shall be in the form of an isosceles triangle, to be united to the stem and stern-post, (which must be straight,) in the manner of a hinge, which will give greater strength to the rudder and do away with the broken water caused by the rudder in its present form, in consequence of the open space between it and the stern-post. 66 By the rudder being made to reduce gradually in thickness from the stern-post to its outer edge, it will pass through the water without producing any back-water, which will greatly improve the sailing of the ship, and when she has stern-way from the outer edge of the rudder being sharp, and its sides angular instead of parallel, it will have a much greater power in turning her, as the water will wholly take effect on the side of the rudder, which is not the case in its present form, in consequence of the outer edge being of equal thickness with the inner, and even bearing a large proportion to the surface of its sides. The sides of the rudder may either be curved or plane. "Secondly, the use of a rudder or helm, of the above construction, on the stem as well as the stern-post of ships and steam-vessels. "The helm or rudder being sharp at the outer edge, as above mentioned, and joined to the stem by a hinge so as to present a smooth surface to the water, it is evident that the slightest turn of the helm will cause the water to act obliquely on the side of the rudder, and thereby turn the ship's head with a quickness proportionate to her velocity, and this quickness will be nearly (if not quite) doubled by the use of the stern rudder at the same time, and whether the ship is going a-head or astern, the effect will be equally quick and certain. In my opinion, this is a consideration of the first importance, as it regards steam-vessels; from their great length they require a helm at both ends to give the navigator a proper command over them; and as I have observed, when they are in a high sea and nearly head to wind, the action of the paddles produces so much broken water, that the stern rudder loses a great part.of its effect in consequence of moving in troubled |