Chapter IV: Part 4

There was an alarm of a French fleet hovering near the coast, and not a single cruiser lay in the St Lawrence. The Governor became anxious, and having often observed Mr Douglas guiding with remarkable adroitness a sailing-boat in boisterous weather about the bay, he bethought him that the nautical skill of the young officer might be applied to better purposes than those of mere amusement. Douglas was sent for, and asked if he would be disposed to take command of an armed coaster, and go off as far as the Banks of Newfoundland in search of the enemy. He accepted the trust without a moment’s hesitation; and, carrying with him, in addition to a good crew, artillerymen enough to man his ten guns, he hoisted his pennant on board a schooner of 250 tons burden, and stood out to sea. Though never coming up with the French fleet—which, indeed, had steered in a different direction—he found more than one opportunity of showing how well qualified he was, under trying circumstances, to manage a ship of war, and probably to fight her. And many a time in after life he used to tell the story, adding that, “after all, a naval life was that for which nature had peculiarly fitted him.”

So passed a year in Lower Canada, at the close of which the roster of service carried Mr Douglas to Toronto, where he still found vent for his marine propensities on Lake Ontario. He became likewise a great sportsman, as well with the gun as with the fishing-rod, and made frequent incursions into the forests in search of game. This brought him more than once in contact with the Red men, over whom, by his cool courage and endurance of fatigue, he acquired a remarkable ascendancy. Among other circumstances worth noticing was his encounter in the bush with a young white girl, of surpassing beauty, who had lived among the Indians from her infancy. He states in his note-book that she had been carried off by a party of warriors who had ravaged a settlement, and that they treated her, as she grew up, with the utmost kindness and respect. “A strange chance discovered her to her brother, and he entreated her to return home; but she refused, declaring that she was perfectly happy, and could not support a different existence.”

In the autumn of 1798, tidings reached Mr Douglas of the death of the elder of his half-brothers. The event rendered necessary his immediate return to England, and he took a passage in the last ship of the season, a little brig, timber-laden and bound for Greenock. It seems to have been his destiny never to go to sea without encountering danger and difficulty. One night, shortly after clearing the Bay of St Lawrence, Mr Douglas was awakened by the vessel giving a sudden lurch, for which he could not account otherwise than by supposing she had struck on some sunken rock. He jumped out of bed, and, staying only to throw a greatcoat about him, ran upon deck. A brisk gale was blowing, and the brig, having got into the trough of the sea, staggered under single-reefed topsails, main-top-gallant-sails, and jib, and fore-and-aft main-sail, with the wind on the beam. The mate, whose watch it was, had got drunk, and gone below, and the helmsman seemed quite at a loss how to guide the rudder. Douglas saw that there was not a moment to be lost. He took the command of the ship, called up all hands, issued with clearness and promptitude orders which were instantly obeyed, and kept the vessel from foundering. The tumult brought the captain on deck, who stood by astonished and speechless. No sooner, however, had he satisfied himself of the untrustworthiness of the mate, than he directed the vessel to be put about, and would have returned to Quebec had not Mr Douglas volunteered to do mate’s duty during the remainder of the passage. There could be no hesitation on the captain’s part, after what he had just seen, to accede to this proposal: so the brig held her course, and arrived safe in the Clyde, where, with protestations of mutual respect and esteem, he and his friendly skipper parted.

Mr Douglas had not been long in Scotland before he fell in love, and soon afterwards married Miss Anne Dundas, a young lady of great personal beauty and cultivated mind. He obtained his promotion likewise in 1799; and having done duty for a while as adjutant of a battalion, he was subsequently posted to the horse-artillery. But better things than the command of a troop were in store for him. The military authorities had established at High Wyckham a cadet school, with a senior department attached to it, in which officers might be instructed for the Staff; and General Zamy, an old aide-de-camp of Frederick the Great, being appointed commandant, it was proposed to Captain Douglas that he should undertake the superintendence of the Staff College. Captain Douglas was not unnaturally reluctant to give up the proper line of his profession, but finding the Duke of York bent upon the arrangement, and being tempted to accede to it by the offer of a step of rank, he passed from the artillery into the line as a major, and took the place for which both his natural talents and acquired information eminently fitted him.

From 1804 up to 1814 Douglas continued to be connected with the educational department of the army. It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of the services which he rendered. He not only instructed candidates for Staff employment by lessons gathered from the past, but deduced, from his own clear perception of things, hints and suggestions which were then entirely new. He had many differences because of this habit with General Zamy, who, like veterans in general, was slow to believe that the tactics and strategy of his own youth could be improved upon. But in 1806 the old man retired, and Douglas, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, took his place at the head of the establishment. A fresh impulse was immediately given to the course of study. Not surveying only, but pontooning, artillery, and the theory of the whole art of war, were taught, and those brilliant Staff officers sent out who in the Peninsular struggle gave to the Great Duke such efficient support. Sir Howard, however—for he had by this time succeeded by the death of another brother to the baronetcy—yearned for active employment in the field. He applied for and obtained permission to join Sir John Moore’s army, which he overtook just as the retreat from Benevente began; and he shared its fortunes both in the painful marches which it accomplished, and in the battle near Corunna, which enabled it to re-embark without dishonour. By-and-by, when the expedition to the Scheldt was fitted out, Sir Howard prevailed upon the Duke of York to appoint him to the Staff of Lord Chatham’s army as Deputy Quartermaster-General. The enterprise grievously failed; and the loss by disease among the troops and ships’ companies engaged was very severe. But even under such circumstances Sir Howard proved of great service to his chief: for having kept a journal of each day’s proceedings as it occurred, he was able to show, when examined concerning the causes of the failure, that by far the largest share of blame rested with the navy, or rather with the officer whom the Admiralty had placed at its head.

For two years subsequently to his return from Walcheren, Sir Howard led a quiet and useful life as head of the Military College. In 1811, however, a fresh opportunity was found for employing him abroad. The Government of that day put a far higher value on the services of the Spanish guerillas than they deserved, and were incredulous of Lord Wellington’s assurances, that on the regular armies of Spain no dependence could be placed. It seemed to Lord Liverpool and his colleagues that the Spaniards, if properly armed and supplied, were capable by their own valour of driving the French beyond the Pyrenees; and they made choice of Sir Howard Douglas to go among them, because they believed that he possessed talents and energy enough to awaken them to a sense of their duty. He received instructions, therefore, towards the end of July, to proceed without delay to Lord Wellington’s headquarters, and to arrange with him all details respecting his future proceedings. Perhaps there is no interval in the long and useful career of Sir Howard Douglas which afforded him more frequent opportunities of doing good service to his country than that which, extending over little more than a year, was spent by him in Spain; but the tale is one which will not bear condensation.

After conferring with Lord Wellington on the Portuguese frontier, Sir Howard rode across the country to Oporto, and thence took a passage by sea to Corunna. He entered there into relations with Spanish juntas, Spanish generals, and the chiefs of guerilla bands, and found them all, with the exception of one or two individuals belonging to the latter class, even more impracticable than he had been led to expect. He gave them first arms, money, clothing, and had the mortification to learn that the best battalions and batteries, as soon as they became fit for war, were shipped off for South America. He turned next to the irregulars, and succeeded in getting a levy _en masse_ set on foot, which very much perplexed, and gave constant occupation to, the French troops scattered over that and the adjoining provinces. But the circumstance which more than any other affected his own fortunes, was a combined attack on the fortified convent of St Cintio Rey by Sir Home Popham’s squadron from the sea, and the guerilla band of Don Gaspar on shore. It was while watching the effect of the Venerable’s fire that Sir Howard became struck with the ignorance of the first principles of gunnery which manifested itself both among officers and men, and that he conceived the idea of applying, should leisure ever be afforded him, a proper remedy to the evil. From that idea emanated his first great treatise, to which the British navy owes so much, and of which the rulers of the British navy, the Lords of the Admiralty, did not condescend, for many months after it had been submitted to them, even to acknowledge the receipt.

There can be no doubt that to Sir Howard’s activity in Galicia the successful issues of Lord Wellington’s campaign, in the early summer of 1812, were greatly owing. Had he not managed to find employment for two whole divisions of French infantry, these, with a division of cavalry, must have joined Marmont’s army; in which case the battle of Salamanca would have either not been fought at all, or it might have ended less triumphantly than it did. But no man can work impossibilities; and the time arrived when, having accomplished the main purpose of his mission, Sir Howard received orders to return to England. He could not quit the Peninsula, however, without once again communicating with Lord Wellington, whom he found just about to undertake the siege of the Castle of Burgos. To Douglas’s practised eye the place appeared of immense strength in proportion to the means disposable for its reduction; and a private reconnaissance led him to conclude that the whole plan of attack was faulty. In both opinions he stood alone; yet such was the respect in which his judgment was held, that the chiefs of artillery and engineers communicated what he had said to Lord Wellington, and Lord Wellington sent for him. The following is Mr Fullom’s account of this interview:—“‘Well, Sir Howard, you have something to say about the siege?’ ‘I think the place is stronger than we supposed, my Lord.’ ‘Yes, by G—; but our way is to take the hornwork, and from there breach the wall, and then assault over the two advanced profiles.’ ‘I would submit to your Lordship whether our means are equal to such an attack?’ ‘I am not satisfied about our ammunition,’ replied Lord Wellington. ‘The enemy’s guns are 24-pounders, my Lord, and we have only three 18-pounders and five 24-pound howitzers. The 18-pounders will not breach the wall, and our fire must be overpowered, unless your Lordship brings up some guns from the ships at Santander.’ ‘How would you do that?’ ‘With draught oxen as far as the mountains, and then drag them on by hand; we can employ the peasantry, and put a hundred men to a gun.’ ‘It would take too long.’ ‘I think the place may be captured, with our present means, from the eastern front, my Lord,’ returned Sir Howard; and he disclosed his plan, with his reasons for thinking it the most practicable. Lord Wellington made no remark. Possibly he saw the defects of his own plan, but it had been deliberately adopted, and he was not convinced that it ought to be abandoned.”

Mr Fullom has not told this anecdote quite correctly. Sir Howard was more closely questioned as to the mode of conveyance for the guns, and answered more pertinently, than is here set down. He suggested that the 24-pounders should be dismounted, the guns placed in the boles of trees hollowed out, and the carriages run forward by themselves. Thus the narrowest track through woods and round rocks would suffice for the conveyance of the former, while the latter, being comparatively light, would offer no formidable resistance wherever men or bullocks could travel. Lord Wellington, however, adhered to his own plan, and sustained the only reverse which marks the progress of an experience in war extending wellnigh over a quarter of a century. It is just towards both parties to observe, that the baffled hero was too magnanimous not to acknowledge his error. “Douglas was right,” he exclaimed, as he mounted his horse to begin the retreat; “he was the only man who told me the truth.”

Sir Howard returned to England, and there resumed his occupations as a military instructor; but his mind was full of a project for forcing attention to gunnery on the chiefs of the navy; and the disastrous results of the first frigate-actions in the American war not a little quickened his zeal. He had a more herculean task before him, however, than he himself imagined. Strange to say, his disinclination to the study of pure mathematics had never been overcome; and now he found himself obliged to master all the arcana of the science, so far as these had any relation to the movement of a vessel through water under all possible contingencies. While pursuing these studies he effected such improvements in the reflecting circle and semicircle for land and marine surveying as attracted the attention of the Royal Society, which immediately elected him a member; and then he gave himself up steadily to the object for which all this abstruse study had been only the preparation. He produced a treatise in which every point connected with the theory and practice of artillery was handled. He discussed not only the power and range of various kinds of ordnance, with the uses of their several parts, and the effects of transit, windage, recoil, and suchlike, but he explained how a school of naval gunnery could be established, and submitted the whole in MS. for the consideration of the Lords of the Admiralty. Weeks and months passed by, however, without bringing him so much as a written acknowledgment of its receipt; and then, and not till then, he wrote privately to his friend Sir Graham Moore. Sir Graham made such apology as the case would admit of, and did his best to fix upon the subject the attention of his colleagues; but a year elapsed before any decided steps were taken. At last the scheme was adopted; and in 1819, Sir Howard, having first of all obtained the sanction of the Government, gave his valuable treatise to the world. It attracted at once the attention of scientific men both at home and abroad, and led to frequent correspondence between the author and all persons capable of appreciating and taking an interest in so important a matter.

Promoted to the rank of Major-General, Sir Howard was nominated in 1824 to the Governorship of New Brunswick, and to the command of the troops stationed there, and in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda. Mr Fullom tells an amusing story of Sir Howard being met on the pier at Halifax by Mr Justice Haliburton, which fails in this respect, that it happens unfortunately not to be accurate. It was not Sam Slick, but his cousin of the same name, who in 1796 had served in the Fusiliers, and in 1824 greeted his old comrade as Governor of New Brunswick. But there is so much of _vraisemblance_ in the matter, that the anecdote may very well remain where it is. On the other hand, Mr Fullom’s narrative of Sir Howard’s administration of the province is not only correct to the letter, but extremely interesting. It came to pass while he was there that one of those fires occurred, of the appalling effects of which we in this old world of Europe can form no conception. It was an unusually dry summer, the third of a succession of such, when first in the town, and by-and-by far off in the forest, flames suddenly broke out. Government House was the first to be burned down; then whole streets ignited at once; and just as a line began to be drawn between what remained of the town and the ashes of dwellings consumed, a lurid glare, seen afar off, gave warning that even a worse calamity was in progress.

“Several days elapsed before the fire subsided, and then it became
masked by a smoke which darkened the whole country. But night proved
that it had not burned out; for showers of flame shot up at intervals,
and trees stood glaring in the dark, while the mingled black and red
of the sky seemed its embers overhead. Thus a week passed, when Sir
Howard determined to penetrate the forest, and visit the different
settlements. A friend has described his parting with Lady Douglas and
his daughters, whose pale faces betrayed their emotion, though they
forbore to oppose his design, knowing that nothing would keep him from
his duty. But this was not understood by others, and the gentlemen of
the town gathered round his rough country waggon at the door, and
entreated him to wait a few days, pointing to the mountains of smoke,
and declaring that he must be suffocated if he escaped being burned.
He thanked them for their good feeling, grasped their hands, and
mounted the waggon. It dashed off at a gallop, and wondering eyes
followed it to the woods, where it disappeared in the smoke.

“The devastation he met exceeded his worst fears; for the settlements
he went to visit no longer existed. The fire seems to have burst in
every quarter at once; for it broke out at Miramichi the same moment
as at Fredericktown, though one hundred and fifty miles lay between.
But here its aspect was even more dreadful, and its ravages more
appalling, as Miramichi stood in the forest completely girt round
except where escape was shut off by the river. Many were in bed when
they heard the alarm; many were first startled by the flames, or were
suffocated in their sleep, leaving no vestige but charred bones;
others leaped from roof or window, and rushed into the forest, not
knowing where they went, or took fire in the street, and blazed up
like torches. A number succeeded in gaining the river, and threw
themselves in boats or on planks, and pushed off from the banks, which
the fire had almost reached, and where it presently raged as fiercely
as in the town. One woman was aroused from sleep by the screams of her
children, whom she found in flames, and caught fire herself as she
snatched up an infant and ran into the river, where mother and child
perished together. Then came the hurricane, tearing up burning trees
and whirling them aloft, lashing the river and channel to fury, and
snapping the anchors of the ships, which flew before it like chaff,
dashing on the rocks, and covering the waves with wreck. Blazing trees
lighted on two large vessels, and they fired like mines, consuming on
the water, which became so hot in the shallows that large salmon and
other fish leaped on shore, and were afterwards found dead in heaps
along the banks of the river. What can be said of such horrors,
combining a conflagration of one thousand miles with storm and
shipwreck, and surprising a solitary community at midnight? Happily
the greater number contrived to reach Chatham by the river; but
floating corpses showed how many perished in the attempt, and nearly
three hundred lost their lives by fire or drowning.”

No small portion of Sir Howard’s time henceforth was spent in devising means for the relief of the unfortunate people whom this calamity had ruined. He made strong appeals to the benevolence of the British public, which were not disregarded, and he advanced from his own funds more than he could well spare. Nor was he inattentive to other matters. He made a voyage from harbour to harbour throughout the extent of his military command, and, with his usual luck, twice narrowly escaped shipwreck. Indeed, so completely was his name up as a Jonah, that the captain of the Niemen frigate, with whom he had been a passenger, took the alarm.

“The following day” (the day after one of these mishaps) “brought
Captain Wallace to dine with the Governor, and it came out that he had
been hearing tales about his Excellency which he did not consider to
his advantage, for he suddenly asked him if he had not once been
shipwrecked. Sir Howard replied by telling the story, and the
captain’s face became longer as he proceeded, though he made no remark
till the close. He then observed that his regard for him was very
great, and he valued their interchange of hospitality in port and
ashore, but should never like to take him to sea again; for he had
been twenty years afloat without mishap, except on the two occasions
when they had been together; and he should now look upon his
appearance in his ship as a passenger as a very bad omen indeed.”

On both occasions the ship had struck for lack of proper beacons, and Sir Howard at once applied the remedy. He caused lighthouses to be built where they were most required; and in order to improve the internal communications of the province, he made roads, and proposed a plan for connecting by a canal the Bay of Fundy with the Gulf of St Lawrence. Meanwhile he was not neglectful of the intellectual wants of the colonists, as yet very imperfectly attended to. He founded, endowed, and, after a good deal of opposition, obtained a charter for the University of Fredericktown, of which, in 1829, he became the first Chancellor, giving at the same time his own name to the College. These were works of peace; and he was equally careful in guarding against the chances of war. The treaty of 1783 had left the boundary-line between Great Britain and the United States very imperfectly defined; and as the inhabitants of the latter country increased in number, they began to encroach on the territories of the former. A good many squatters had forced themselves into New Brunswick, and been driven away, till at last a person named Baker, bolder than the rest, took possession of an outlying portion of land, and hoisted the American standard. The proceeding was much approved by the Government of Maine, and strong parties of the militia were turned out in anticipation of a collision with the garrison of Fredericktown.

Sir Howard Douglas, however, knew better than to precipitate hostilities. He contented himself with sending a civil message to Baker, requesting him to withdraw; and when no attention was paid to it, he gave such orders to the troops as would bring them to the frontier in a few hours should their presence be required. This done, a parish constable was desired to perform his duty; and the man, coming upon Baker without any fuss or parade, cut down the flag-staff, seized the squatter, and carried him off in a waggon to the capital of the province. All Maine was thrown into a ferment. The Governor threatened, and demanded that Baker should be set at liberty. Sir Howard refused so much as to see the messenger intrusted with this demand, justly alleging that he could hold communication on such subjects only with the Central Government at Washington. The result was, that Baker, being put upon his trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine; which fine, after an enormous amount of bluster, was duly paid. For his firm yet judicious conduct throughout this awkward affair Sir Howard received the approbation of the Home Government, becoming at the same time more than ever an object of enthusiastic admiration to the people whom he governed.

While approving all that their representative had done, the British Government saw that it would be impossible with safety to leave the boundary question longer unsettled. Arrangements were accordingly made with the United States for referring the points at issue to arbitration; and the King of the Netherlands being accepted as arbitrator, Sir Howard was requested to return to Europe, and to watch proceedings. The King’s decision gave, however, little satisfaction to either party. England, indeed, would have acquiesced in it, though feeling herself wronged; but America failed to get all that she coveted, and refused to be bound. It remained for her, by sharp practice at a future period, to gain her end; and for England, under the management of Lord Ashburton and Sir Robert Peel, to be made a fool of. The part played by Sir Howard Douglas during the progress of this negotiation was every way worthy of his high reputation; but that which strikes us most is the sagacity with which, so early as 1828, he foretold events in the States themselves, which have since come to pass. In a paper addressed to the Secretary for the Colonies, which points out endless grounds of quarrel between the Federal Government and the Governments of the several States, he thus expresses himself:—

“Here we may see the manner in which the Union will be dissolved—viz.,
the secession of any State which, considering its interest, property,
or jurisdiction menaced, may no longer choose to send deputies to
Congress. This is a great defect in the Bond of Union, which has not,
perhaps, been very generally noticed, cloaked as it is under article
1st, section 5th of the Constitution, which states ‘that where there
are not present, of either House, members sufficient to form a quorum
to do business, a smaller number may be authorised, for the purpose of
forming one, to compel the attendance of absent members.’ But this
appears only to be authorised for the purpose of forming a quorum, and
only extends over members actually sworn in, who, being delegated to
Congress by the States they represent, are subjected to whatever rules
of proceeding and penalties each House may provide, with the
concurrence of two-thirds of its members. But there is nothing
obligatory upon the several ‘Sovereign States’ to send members to
Congress, or to prevent those sent from being withdrawn. The
‘Sovereign States’ have never bound themselves to do either; so that
the process of dissolution in this way is very simple, and the danger
imminent of a separation being thus effected, whenever the interests
of any particular State or States are touched by the Government, or
brought into discussion in Congress, although those interests may be
outvoted by the preponderating influence of other States having
different interests. But the State or States which are to suffer will
not, it is clear, send members to vote their own injury or ruin; and
it may safely be pronounced, from what I have shown in this paper,
that this is the manner in which the American Union will come to a
natural death.”

Sir Howard returned to England from the Hague, to find the Government bent on equalising the duties on foreign and colonial timber, and thereby depriving the people of New Brunswick of one of the most lucrative branches of their trade. He could not sit still and see done what he himself regarded as an act of great injustice. He made immense exertions, therefore, personally and through the press, to defeat the Ministerial measure, and he succeeded. It was impossible, under such circumstances, to return to New Brunswick, and he therefore resigned the government. Not even their satisfaction at the victory which he had achieved for them could reconcile the New Brunswickers to the loss of their Governor; and they marked their gratitude for all that he had done by presenting him with a magnificent service of plate. Indeed, it is very touching to remember how, up to the latest day of his life, every person connected with New Brunswick, on visiting England, sought him out as if he had been a private friend, and laid open to him matters, not of public only, but of private business. The Whig Ministers, on the other hand, naturally piqued at their defeat, left him for four years without any employment. Hence it was not till 1835, when Sir Robert Peel acceded to office, that Sir Howard received the appointment of Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. It was again his fate to be mixed up with calamities brought on by natural causes, and with political difficulties of no common order. There arrived one day from Ireland, at Government House, a Right Rev. Dr Hynes, a _protégé_ of Daniel O’Connell, who introduced himself to Sir Howard as Bishop of Corfu, and handed him a letter from Lord Glenelg, at that time Colonial Secretary.

“‘You seem not to be aware that there is already a Bishop in Corfu,’
remarked Sir Howard. Dr Hynes intimated that he was a Catholic Bishop
appointed by the Pope. ‘I know of but one Bishop here, sir,’ replied
Sir Howard, ‘and no other could be recognised.’ Dr Hynes remonstrated,
and pointed out the importance to England of the Roman Catholic
interest in the islands; but Sir Howard could not be persuaded that
the British Government was not strong enough to hold its ground
without this bulwark. The prelate appealed to the letter of the
Minister of the Colonies, but was shown that this was no recognition,
nor could such be given without the sanction of the Ionian Senate. He
declared he would assume his functions, and abide the consequences;
but met a firmness surpassing his own, and learned that he would not
be permitted to remain on the island. He denied that he could be
expelled, and warned the Lord High Commissioner that his conduct must
be answered in England. ‘I have only to say,’ was the reply, ‘that you
will be removed by the police if you are not gone within twenty-four
hours.’”

The Bishop was unable to resist such an argument as this, and Papal aggression received a temporary check in Corfu. But Sir Howard had another battle to fight, and he fought it to a successful issue. Wherever he exercised authority, his great object seems to have been to promote the physical and moral wellbeing of society, and he applied himself with this view to compile a sound code of laws for the Ionians. Nothing could be more offensive to those who profited by bad laws; and the priests in particular, set on by the Patriarch of Constantinople, as he was set on by Russia, offered all the opposition in their power. Sir Howard’s mode of defeating this move of the Hellenistic faction proved at once novel and effective. He waited till the preparations for revolt (for open revolt was meditated) were complete; and then surrounded the house where the chief conspirators sat, arrested them all, and took possession of papers which placed the complicity of the Patriarch beyond doubt. These he sent to the British Minister at Constantinople, who obtained without difficulty the deposition of the Patriarch, and the setting up of a successor less disposed to become a tool in the hands of Russia.

Of the great earthquake which shook Zante to its centre the memory will not soon pass away. It began just as Sir Howard entered the harbour on one of his tours of inspection, and continued, with shocks recurring at narrow intervals, for a whole fortnight. The people, paralysed with terror, knew not what to do, or whither to betake themselves, till the Lord High Commissioner appeared among them, calm and collected. He gave the necessary orders for extricating the wounded from the ruins: he directed men, women, and children where to go; caused temporary barracks to be erected for their shelter; and appeared to them as a guardian angel in their hour of need. His good offices on that occasion, as well as a brief experience of the working of his laws, brought about a thorough change of opinion both with regard to them and to him. When he resigned his office, which he was obliged to do in consequence of the not very generous conduct towards him of Lord John Russell, then Colonial Secretary, he left scarce one enemy in the island, and had the honour of having an obelisk erected to him, by vote of the Senate, bearing this inscription: “Howard Douglas, Cavalier, and General, High Commissioner, Benefactor of the Ionian Islands.”

Sir Howard sat in Parliament for Liverpool during Sir Robert Peel’s last administration, and spoke and voted on all occasions like a sound yet thoughtful Conservative. In 1847 he retired from the House of Commons, and thenceforth applied his energies to the service of the country as a writer on professional and scientific subjects. His treatise on ‘Naval Gunnery’ had already gone through several editions, as did his volume on ‘Fortification;’ and he now compiled and published his ‘Military Bridges,’ perhaps the most generally interesting, if not the most important, of all his works. But it was not thus alone that he continued to be useful. His opinions were sought and freely given to each successive Government on every question connected with the improvement of arms, the selection of points to be fortified, the management of the navy, and the steps to be taken for putting the country in a state of defence. It is extremely interesting to know that, like the great Duke of Wellington, Sir Howard laid aside all party feeling whenever the honour or interests of the country came to be considered; and that he possessed, as he deserved, the entire confidence of Whigs not less than of Tories. His opinions as to the relative value of iron and wooden ships are well known; he was entirely opposed to the former, though he did not object to the process of casing the latter with mail; while in his ‘Naval Warfare with Steam’ he advocated a system of tactics which should bring the management of fleets very much into the same category with the management of armies in the day of battle.

Thus, honoured and beloved, Sir Howard grew old, without losing one jot of the elasticity of spirit which had characterised him in earlier days. He was very happy also in his family till death began to cut it short, and blow after blow fell so heavily, that, brave as he was, he sometimes reeled. In 1854 a grandson, the bearer of his own name, died; then came tidings of the decease of his eldest son, Charles, far away; then his second son left him; then two of his daughters, Mrs Harcourt and Mrs Murray Gartshore. The loss of Mrs Gartshore affected him very deeply; and well it might, for she was one of those gifted and beautiful creatures who shed light around them wherever they go, seeming too pure and noble for earth. And scarcely were his tears dry when Lady Douglas, his companion for fifty-seven years, followed her daughters. Two daughters and one son alone remained to him, and one of these daughters was a widow; the other kept his house, and was, indeed, everything to him. But she likewise was taken from him, in a manner as trying as could be to his Christian patience and courage. She had been in apparent health and cheerful with him at dinner one day, and next morning was found dead in her bed. If the old man’s head had fallen into the dust, who could have wondered? But it did not. “No one can tell,” he observed to Mr Bateman, the medical gentleman who was called in, “what a loss she is to me: she has devoted herself to me; but I must do what is to be done. She will sleep beside her mother, where I will soon join them.”

In this manner the sun went gradually down till it sank beneath the horizon. Not that he suffered himself to be unmanned by sorrow; quite otherwise. But the physical frame felt the shock, and yielded to it perceptibly.

“Sir Howard enjoyed excellent health up to Miss Douglas’s death. All
his teeth were sound; he walked three or four miles a-day, and
obtained eight hours’ sleep at night. But that event gave his system a
shock, and the controversy about armour-ships wore it more, showing
his friends a marked change. His sleep was less regular and composed,
and he frequently recited the lines of our great poet—

‘Oh, sleep! oh, gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh mine eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes.’

“But he hid his sorrows, appearing calm and cheerful, though his
manner was subdued and his conversation less animated. His vivacity
revived at times, particularly when he spoke of Scotland, the theme he
liked best; or when he recalled his early life in America, and
described the pathless forests, the villages of wigwams, or the falls
of Niagara, reciting Thomson’s lines—

‘Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood
Rolls fair and placid,’ &c.

“He derived little benefit from the Folkstone breezes on his last
visit, though enjoying his walks on the promenade, which he pronounced
the noblest platform in Europe. Its attractions were just to his
taste, for he could here see the coast of France, against which he had
raised such bulwarks, watch the yachts and shipping in harbour and
Channel, and glance around at the military strollers. Shorncliff Camp
was within reach, as well as the Military School at Hythe, in which he
took great interest, highly appreciating General Hay. He supported the
Volunteer movement, and aided in its organisation, addressing a letter
of advice to the National Rifle Association through his friend General
Hay, and receiving an acknowledgment in his election as an honorary
member. So well did he keep abreast with the age. He showed the same
interest in the movements at the Camp, and attended any display,
though not always to commend. He particularly censured a sham fight,
representing an attack on an enemy who had landed in a bay near Hythe.
The troops were marched down, and skirmishers thrown out on the beach,
when the whole body fell back on the heights, holding them to cover
their retreat. ‘What an absurd proceeding!’ remarked Sir Howard to Mr
Bateman, who was by his side; ‘the movement ought to be exactly
reversed. They should have brought down every man and gun as quickly
as possible if the enemy had landed, and attacked him, and driven him
into the sea. There would be some sense in that.’

“Sir Howard looked a soldier to the last, retaining his erect bearing,
and walking with a firm step, though cautiously, and with looks bent
on the ground. His sight had begun to fail, and cataracts were forming
on both his eyes, but he did not submit them to medical treatment.
‘They will last my time,’ he remarked to the author. He contrived to
write by never raising his pen, forming the letters by habit, and all
were plain to one acquainted with his hand. A career of threescore
years and ten left his character much what it first appeared, with all
its elements of dash, vigour, enterprise, aptitude, and perception,
its habits of industry, its generous instincts, and its warm
sympathies. Neither heart nor mind showed the wear of life, and he is
the same at eighty-five as at seventeen; inspiring the Volunteers at
Hythe as he inspired them at Tynemouth, and exercising the inventive
genius which scared the rats in improving the screw propeller. The
hand that caught up the child in the shipwreck, obeyed the same
impulse still; and Mr Bateman saw him walking up the street at
Folkstone with a loaded basket which he had taken from a poor little
girl. ‘My dear, give that to me,’ he said, as he saw her bending under
the weight; ‘I am better able to carry it than you.’ The words were
reported by a lady who heard them in passing, as the General of
eighty-five and the poor child of five walked away together.”

We are not going to draw an elaborate character of one whose life may be said to have formed his epitaph. Sir Howard Douglas needs no panegyrist to tell the world what he was. Chivalrous, truthful, high-minded, brave, he secured the esteem, not less than he commanded the respect, of all who approached him. Had circumstances so ordered it that he had ever directed the movement of troops in the field, we take it upon us to say, that among English generals few would have attained to higher eminence than he. As it was, he did more for the British army, and navy too, in his books and by his teaching, than either army or navy, or the heads of both branches of the service, have ever had the grace to acknowledge. To these more shining qualities of head and temperament he added the faith and humility of a Christian man: a humility which was far too real to be obtruded on careless observers; a faith which had not one shade of hypocrisy or fanaticism about it. Rest to his noble spirit! it will be long before we look upon his like again.

ITALIAN BRIGANDAGE.

Terrorism, in one shape or other, is the bane of Italy. By a system of organised terrorism the princes of Italy have governed their states, and by means of terror the peoples have replied to their rulers. From the wide diffusion of this sentiment throughout the nation, secret societies took their root in the land, and men became banded together for attack, protection, resistance, or revenge. There was none so high in character or so elevated by station that he might not be denounced; there was not one so degraded that he might not be associated with the secret acts of the Government. The only idea of rule was through the instrumentality of a secret police. All were suspected—all were watched. The report of the secretary was entertained as to the character and the acts of the minister, and the secretary was himself under the close inspection of some underling in his office. The work of the State went on under the assumption that no man was honest; and it was really curious to see how all the complicated questions of a Government could be dealt with by a system whose first principle was that there was no truth anywhere. It impaired nothing of a man’s position or influence that he was known to take bribes. Corruption was the rule, from the star-covered courtier beside the throne, down to the half-naked lazzarone on the Mole. “Take care of your pockets, gentlemen, there’s a minister coming,” was the decorous pleasantry of King Ferdinand at one of his last receptions, and the speech had a significance which all could appreciate. It was especially in Southern Italy that this corruption prevailed the most. Amongst a race long enervated and demoralised, the work of Government went easily on by means of such agency. The great efforts of the rulers were directed, not to repress crimes against property and offences against society, but to meet political disaffection and discontent. The noted thief would be leniently dealt with, while the Liberal journalist would be sentenced to the ergastolo. Assassination and robbery went on increasing, and none seemed to feel terrified; while the imprisonment of one man for some expression of Liberal opinions, or some half-implied censure of the Government, was sure to strike terror into many a heart.

The “Government” was, in fact, very little else than an organised conspiracy against the spread of all civilisation. Its efforts were directed to keeping the people in a degraded ignorance—the slaves of priestly superstition, thinking little of the present and utterly regardless about the future. The Neapolitan temperament was well suited for such a system. Caring wonderfully little how life was sustained, so that no labour was exacted for its maintenance,—light-hearted, even to recklessness—indifferent to almost all privations,—such a people were neither subject to the same fears nor stirred by the same hopes as the Northern Italian. They asked, in fact, for little beyond the permission to exist. Discontent, in its political significance, had no place among them; they had never heard of any better liberty than idleness, and if they had, they could not have prized it. With natural acuteness, however, they saw the corruption that surrounded them—how the minister took bribes from the contractor, and how the contractor cheated the State—how the customs officer was bribed by the smuggler, and how the first merchants of the capital filled their warehouses with contraband goods. They saw that no man’s integrity ever interfered to his disadvantage, but that self-interest was the mainspring of every action; and could a people so acute to learn be slow to profit by the lesson they acquired? Out of this system of terror, for it was and is a system, grew two institutions in Southern Italy—Brigandage and the Camorra. The former of these asserted its influence over the country at large; the latter, which was an “organised blackmail,” limited its operations to towns and cities. Brigandage is no new pestilence in Italy; it has existed for centuries. From the character of the country, so difficult to travel and so interlaced with cross paths only known to the inhabitants, all pursuit of these robbers has been rendered difficult; but besides this, another and far greater obstacle has presented itself in the sympathy of the peasantry, who, partly from affection and partly from fear, have always taken part with the brigands to protect or to conceal them. The same disposition of the country people to side with those who break the law that we see every day in Ireland, is recognisable here. Like the Irish, the lower Italians have never regarded the law but as a harsh and cruel tyranny. They only know it in its severity and in its penalties—they have never had recourse to it for protection or defence; it has never been to them a barrier against the exactions of the great man, or the unjust pressure of the powerful man; they have felt it in its moods of vengeance, and never in its moments of commiseration. Elevated above their fellows by a certain wild and savage chivalry, the brigands have long exercised a terror over the people of the South. Their lives were full of marvellous adventures, of terrible incidents and hairbreadth escapes, sure to excite interest in the minds of an uneducated and imaginative race, who grew to regard the relators in the light of heroes. Nor did the Church itself scruple to accept the ill-gotten gains of the highwayman: and the costly robe of the Virgin, and the rich gems that decked her shrine, have often and often displayed the spoils that have been torn from the luckless traveller.

In this mixture of religious superstition with a defiance of all human law, we see again a resemblance between the Italian and the Irishman, whose traits have indeed an almost unerring similarity in everything. That “wild justice” of which the great Irish rhetorician once spoke, is the rule of each. Assuming that society has formed a pact against them, they have taken up arms in their own defence; and whether it be the landlord or the traveller, it matters little who shall pay the penalty. It is next to impossible to deal with crime where the general sentiment favours the criminal. The boasted immunity of the policeman in England is but another name for the ascendancy of the law. How comes it otherwise that one man armed with a mere truncheon dares to arrest a thief in the midst of his accomplices and associates, while we see in Italy ninety thousand soldiers unable to repress Brigandage in two provinces of the South, where the number of the brigands is set down as four hundred? Such in substance is the report lately furnished to the Chamber of Deputies at Turin by the order of General Lamarmora. The forces for the repression of Brigandage amount to ninety thousand well-armed and well-disciplined soldiers, and the enemy are stated as four hundred half-naked and scarcely armed wretches, as destitute of courage as of food. Such is the picture given of them; and we are left in utter astonishment to guess why, with such a disparity of numbers, the curse of Brigandage should yet be known in the land.