342 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MARCH, 



of excise upon the prices of the necessaries 

 of life ? Does he not mark the practice of 

 the fanners of flinging the labourers upon 

 the rates, from the double motive of interest, 

 and power tyrannizing thus over the indi- 

 vidual, and forcing their neighbours to con- 

 tribute to the payment of wages ? The 

 poor especially the country poor are essen- 

 tially and eminently industrious ; but all en- 

 .couragement is wickedly withdrawn from 

 them they are ground to the earth they 

 are stripped of their little farms their com- 

 mons their very gardens even, where they 

 exceed a few square yards ; and what is still 

 worse, they are unfeelingly by the landlords 

 given up to the tender mercies of the 

 farmers for all which, they are indebted 

 merely to our blessed political economists 

 men who regard the poor as machines, them- 

 selves as the inventors, and the rich as the 

 owners. 



We have forgotten the tales but in a 

 word the c Smugglers' is well told the 

 Miser has a touch of the tedious, and no 

 point of sympathy the Fatalist is em- 

 phatically extravagant the Parish Appren- 

 tice horrible while the Schoolmistress, 

 and the Rose of Kent, both victims, one 

 of the villainy, the other of the indiscretion 

 of man, and their own undisciplined feel- 

 ings, are very beautiful pieces, but still 

 written in a spirit that inclines the author 

 to make mountains of mole-hills. 



Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Paul Jones : 

 2 vols. I2mo. 1830. To this day the general 

 impression is still that PaulJones was a pi- 

 rate, and one of the most desperate and 

 daring, whose hand was against every man 

 and every man's hand against him. His 

 attempts and his menaces on both firths of 

 Scotland, while in the service of the rebel 

 Americans, threw the whole coast into 

 alarm, and the government itself denounced 

 him as a lawless plunderer and traitor. So 

 thoroughly indeed became he the bugbear 

 and ogre of the north, and so obscured and 

 distorted was his story by the loyalty-prints 

 of the day, that we have had him very 

 lately the hero of two romances ; and now, 

 to the surprise of every body, comes forth a 

 legitimate history of the man regularly au- 

 thenticated from his own papers, journals 

 and correspondence. Some years ago, a 

 Mr. Sherburne, described as registrar of the 

 American navy, when America had not 

 even l half-a-dozen fir frigates with bits of 

 striped bunting,' published what he called a 

 life of Paul Jones from very imperfect ma- 

 terials, but still authentic ones. The story 

 of even these materials is not without in- 

 terest. At the end of the war, when Paul 

 was appointed by congress agent for prize- 

 money in Europe, he deposited .these pa- 

 pers, consisting of copies of his corres- 

 pondence with congress and Mr. Jefferson, 

 his log-books and account-books, and sun- 

 dry papers, with a friend at Philadelphia, 

 taking with him whatever he considered of 



more real importance. The papers thus 

 deposited were, on his death, removed by 

 the direction of his sisters to a friend of 

 their own at New York. This person dy- 

 ing, they fell into the hands of his brother, 

 a baker of the same town, who appears to 

 have taken little care of them ; at all 

 events, on his death they were either torn 

 up or dispersed. One letter was found in 

 the shop, which led to further inquiry, and 

 finally to the recovery of many articles, es- 

 pecially to two log-books, one of them that 

 of the Bon Homme Richard, now in the 

 possession of Mr. George Napier, an ad- 

 vocate at Edinburgh. These papers con- 

 stituted Mr. Shelburne's materials. But 

 the papers from which the present life is 

 constructed were all the while in the hands 

 of his relatives at Dumfries, and were 

 known to be so ; for Mr. Shelburne him- 

 self, as well as others since, endeavoured to 

 obtain them, but were refused, as there was 

 then, it seems, some view on the part of 

 the family to the present publication. They 

 are thus described in the preface, " They 

 consist of several bound folio volumes of 

 letters and documents, which are officially 

 authenticated, so far as they are public pa- 

 pers ; numerous scrolls and copies of let- 

 ters, and many private communications, 

 originating in his widely-diffused corres- 

 pondence in France, Holland, America, 

 and other quarters. There is, in addition 

 to these, a collection of writings of the 

 miscellaneous kind likely to be accumu- 

 lated by a man of active habits, who had 

 for many years mingled both in the political 

 and fashionable circles, wherever he chanced 

 to be thrown. The Journal of the Cam- 

 paign of 1788 against the Turks, forms of 

 itself a thick MS. bound volume. A life 

 of Paul Jones, published by Mr. Murray 

 some time ago, was merely a reprint of an 

 abridgment of Shelburne's book. 



We may now be supposed to be at last 

 in possession of all that can be known of 

 Paul Jones, and the compiler of this his 

 last life has performed his task in a free and 

 fair spirit- desirous of rescuing his hero 

 from calumny, but judging him frankly, 

 without attempting to screen his obvious 

 faults. Paul, to say the least, was an ex- 

 traordinary man irresistibly impelled to 

 seek distinction by the native vigour and 

 restlessness of his genius. Of a very hum- 

 ble origin, at the early age of twelve (he 

 was born in 1747)? he was sent to White- 

 haven as a ship-boy, and before he was 

 twenty served as mate in a vessel of con- 

 siderable tonnage, and on one occasion, on 

 the death of the captain, brought home the 

 ship in safety. His trips were chiefly to 

 the West-Indies and America, till the af- 

 fairs of a deceased brother detained him 

 some time in America. This was at the 

 outbreak of the revolution he quickly 

 shared in the prevailing enthusiasm, and 

 hanging pretty loosely to local attachments, 

 was ready for any employment that pro- 



