replied in a still lower tone, "The fate of this expedition depends on the helm in your hands. Give it to me, and go and hide your head in whatever you fancy the safest part of the ship; but fears are catching, and if I hear you tell yours to any one of your messmates, your life shall answer for it to-morrow." The poor fellow, panic-struck, went away, and, overcome with shame, sat down on the arm-chest, whilst Captain Faulknor seized the helm, and with his own hand laid the Zebra close to the walls of the fort; but before he had got upon them at the head of his gallant followers, a cannon ball struck the arm-chest and knocked the pilot to atoms. We here subjoin a private letter of Captain Faulknor's to his mother, giving an account of the capture of the island.

66 HONOURED MADAM,

"On the 20th of this month I was made Post Captain in the Undaunted, a French frigate of 28 guns, captured in Fort Royal Harbour, the magazine and arsenal of all the French West India Islands: the whole island has surrendered to the British arms. The Zebra has been employed during the whole siege, and I have moved alternately on land and on shore. At the storming of Fort Royal, a circumstance so fortunate happened to myself that I cannot help relating it. I had a ship's cartouche-box, which is made of thick wood, buckled round my body, with pistol cartridges for the pistol I carried by my

r

side. As the Zebra came close to the fort, a grape shot struck, or rather grazed, my right-hand knuckle and shattered the cartouche in the centre of my body. Had it not miraculously been there, I must have been killed on the spot. Thanks to Almighty God for his kind preservation of me in the day of battle.

"This important island being secured, the fleet and army will next proceed to St. Lucia, and then to Guadaloupe, where we expect to find but little resistance. The Admiral told me to-day I was immediately to go into the Rose, a removal which will be very pleasant to me, as she is an excellent English frigate, quite manned, and in good order. . . . Adieu, my dearest mother; may this find you well and happy, prays your most affectionate and dutiful son,

"ROBERT FAULKNOR."

"P. S.-The Admiral has appointed me to the Rose, paying me such compliments, that it is impossible for me to relate them. The sword and colours of Fort Royal were delivered to me by the Governor of the fort, and I take the credit to myself, that after the Zebra had stood a heavy fire, and when we had the power to retaliate, for we were mounted on the walls, I would not allow a man to be hurt on their being panic-struck and calling for mercy. It would take a volume to relate the events which have happened to me since I left England. The Zebra, when she came

out of action, was cheered by the Admiral's ship, and the Admiral himself publicly embraced me on the quarter-deck and directed the band to play, 'See the Conquering Hero comes.' Such compliments are without example in the navy; I never could have deserved them."

The island of Guadaloupe was subsequently taken, as Captain Faulknor had contemplated, without much resistance; but again, this easy capture must be attributed to his daring; for having taken the strong fort of Fleur d'Epée by a sudden assault, climbing the side of an almost perpendicular mountain, all further resistance ceased, and the fate of the island was decided. In this assault Captain Faulknor had another narrow escape; for when the party under his command had mounted on the ramparts, they were so blown by the steepness of the ascent, and their strength so much exhausted, that the strongest amongst them was unmanned, and at the moment the alarm was given, Captain Faulknor was attacked by two soldiers, one of whom made a thrust at him with a bayonet, which went through the sleeve of his coat, without, however, wounding him, and the other made a blow at him, which he parried; the Frenchman, eluding his thrust in return, immediately sprung upon him, clasped his arms round his neck, and, fixing his teeth in the breast of his shirt and wrenching the sword out of his hand, tripped him up and fell with great violence upon him, and Captain Faulknor's

life was only saved by two of his seamen, who flew to his relief at the moment that his antagonist's hand was raised to stab him.

These escapes, however, gave but little additional length to his short and brilliant career; on the 5th January, 1795, a very few months after he had earned his post rank and imperishable fame on the walls of Fort Royal, Captain Faulknor, then in command of the Blanche frigate, fell, shot through the heart, in an action with the French frigate La Pique, which had come out on purpose to fight him, but remained a prize to her antagonist. Honours and speeches in Parliament were lavished on the dead hero, and a public monument in St. Paul's Cathedral marks the sense entertained of his extraordinary services by a grateful country, and will, it is hoped, serve as an incentive to similar deeds of daring should war again call forth the energy of the British character in the stern encounter of hostile arms.

BENBOW'S LAST FIGHT.

Nothing connected with the British navy would be complete without a notice of the old Admiral, whose name is as familiar in our mouths as household words, and upon which even that phlegmatic prince William the Third ventured a joke, when, in reply to objections that had been

urged against the employment of some Court favourite upon an expedition which it was supposed would be attended with great danger, he said, "Well, then, I suppose we must spare our beau, and send honest Benbow."

Celebrated in story and in song, the beau ideal of the honest and rough and ready British sailor, although no monumental brass or marble records his deeds, and no proud column is reared to his memory,tradition alone pointing to Deptford churchyard as his last resting-place,-still he has built for himself a lasting fame; and Benbow's name lives in many a yarn, and will only be forgotten with that of Nelson and the deeds of the English navy. The particular incident in his eventful life that I propose to narrate is the sad conclusion of his career of glory, and this fairly falls within the catalogue of deeds of daring. In the autumn of the year 1702, having received notice that the French Admiral Ducasse, with a squadron of five ships, was in the neighbourhood of Carthagena, Benbow sailed from the West Indies, in order to engage him, with his flag flying in the Breda, having under his orders seven ships, carrying from 70 to 48 guns. He succeeded in falling in with the enemy on the afternoon of the 19th August, and immediately made the signal to his ships to engage; but the leading vessels of his squadron, either from disaffection or cowardice, held back, and were only partially engaged that