B Y R 



171 



B Y R 



purpose, by common consent, in the courti - 



iic court". The word, i from the 



Dutch littur, or bawtman, i.e. msticus; so that bye- 

 rum. 



To be obligatory, bye-laws must, of course, be 

 consistent with the charter or other fundamental 

 principles of the corporation or other body over 

 v. Inch they are meant to have effect ; they must de- 

 rogate nothing from the established usages of such 

 particular community ; be framed wilh an impar- 

 tial regard to the common interest; and be strictly 

 conformable to the public or municipal law of the 

 county. Blackst. Comm. Tomlins. Jacob's Law 

 />/./. (j. B.) 



BYNG. See BRITAIN, Index. 



BYRON, the Hon. JOHN, an admiral in the British 

 service, is chiefly known as the author of a " Nar- 

 rative of the Shipwreck of the Wager on a desolate 

 Island on the coast of Patagonia," and as being the 

 principal actor in that disastrous occasion. He was the 

 second son of William, fourth Lord Byron, and was born 

 on the 8th of Nov. 1723. Having entered the navy 

 at a very early age, he was appointed a midshipman 

 when only eight years old, in 1731, before which 

 time, however, he had made several voyages in a 

 merchantman. In the expedition which was dis- 

 patched against the Spanish settlements in South 

 America, under Commodore Anson, and which sail- 

 ed from Portsmouth on the 18th of September 174-0, 

 Mr Byron was a lieutenant on board the Wager. The 

 result of this expedition is sufficiently known, from 

 the classical account of it which was given to the 

 world under the direction of its commander. After 

 doubling Cape Home, with considerable difficulty, 

 the Wager became so disabled in her rigging, that 

 she was unable to keep company, and was at last 

 completely separated from her consorts in the Pacific 

 Ocean. During a violent storm which ensued, the 

 crew were exposed to all the apprehensions ari- 

 sing from the dangers of a lee shore, and as all en- 

 deavours to wear the ship off the land had proved 

 fruitless, every ray of hope was extinguished in the 

 awful night which succeeded. It came on dreadful 

 beyond description, and early in the morning the ship 

 struck. " In this dreadful situation," says Mr By- 

 ron, " she lay for some little time, every soul on 

 board looking upon the present minute as his last, 

 for there was nothing to be seen but breakers all 

 around us." From this perilous extremity, however, 

 they were relieved by a mountainous sea which hove 

 the ship off ; and soon after she most providentially 

 stuck fast between two rocks, when the day break- 

 ing, and the weather clearing up, the crew got safely 

 on shore. This miraculous deliverance from imme- 

 diate destruction, though in such circumstances a 

 most desirable event, and the highest object of their 

 wishes, was to many of them only a prolongation of 

 misery. " Whichever way we looked," observes our 

 author, " a scene of horror presented itself ; on one 

 side the wreck, (in which was all that we had in the 

 world to support and subsist usj) together with a 

 boisterous sea, presented us with a most dreary pros- 



pect ; on the other, the land did not wear a much 

 more favourable appearance : desolate and barren, 

 u about bign of culture, we could hope to receive 

 little other benefit from it than the preservation it 

 afforded us from the sea." But for the consequent 

 sufferings, and interesting adventures of Mr Byron, 

 during nearly five years, we must refer to hi* " Nar- 

 rative ;" we cannot, however, refrain from present- 

 ing to our readers the sum of them in the beautiful 

 lines of Mr Campbell in his address to Hope : 



Friend of the brave ! in peril'* darkest hour, 

 Intrepid virtue looks to thec for power; 

 To thee the heart its trembling homage yield*. 

 On stormy floods, and carnage cu. 



; ., . 



. such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore 

 The hardy Byron to hit native shore : 

 In horrid clinics, where Chiloc's tempests sweep 

 Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 

 "Fwas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock, 

 Srourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock, - 

 To wake each joyless morn, and search again 

 The famished haunts of solitary men, 

 Whose race unyielding as their native storm, 

 Knows not a trace of nature but the form ; 

 Yet at thy call, the hardy tar pursued, 

 Pale, but intrepid ; sad, but unsubdued ; 

 Pierc'd the deep woods ; and, hailing from afar 

 The moon's pale planet, and the northern star, 

 Paus'd at each dreary cry, unheard before, 

 Hyaenas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore; 

 Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime, 

 He found a warmer world, a milder dime, 

 A home to rest, a shelter to defend, 

 Peace and repose, a Briton and a friend." -f- 



Pleasure* of Hope. 



On his return to England in 1746, Mr Byron 

 appointed to the Syren frigate, which he continued 

 to command during the remainder of the war. Ill 

 fortune, however, seemed still to attend him. Every 

 cruize was unfruitful. " His courage and conduct 

 were undoubted," says his biographer, * but he was 

 ever a day too soon or a day too late ; or he sprung 

 a mast in chace, or lost his prize in a fog ; or fell in 

 with a wane of wind, which his enemy had passed, or 

 some disaster or other." So invariable, indeed, was 

 his ill luck, and so frequent his misadventures, that 

 he was emphatically called, by his nautical brethren, 

 " Foulvveather Jack." 



At the peace in 1750, Captain Byron went with 

 Commodore Buckle to the coast of Guinea; and in 

 1757 he commanded the America of GO guns, in the 

 luckless expedition against Rochfort, under Sir Ed- 

 ward Hawke. In 1760, however, when stationed 

 off the coast of America with the British fleet under 

 Lord Colville, his fortune began to brighten, and he 

 here found an opportunity of being of some service to 

 his country. The Admiral, having received intelli- 

 gence that a French squadron, with troops and stores 

 on board, had put into Chaleur Bay, in the Gulf of St 

 Lawrence, dispatched Captain Byron in quest of 

 them, with the Fame a 71- which he then commanded^ 

 together with the Repulse and Scarborough. Af- 

 ter experiencing some difficulty in approaching them, 



t This friend was Don Patricio Gedd, a Scotch physician, resident at St Jago, the capital of Chili. See the " Narrative," 

 page 161. 



