soldiers. Already I congratulated myself on the success of my solicitude, which had for its object to prevent the effusion of blood; but at this time a fanatic priest had not kindled in your breasts the rage which predominates therein: the incensed Ferrand had not yet instilled into you the poison of falsehood and calumny. Writings, originating in despair and weakness, have been circulated; and immediately some amongst you, seduced by perfidious insinuations, solicited the friendship and protection of the French; they dared to outrage my kindness, by coalescing with my cruel enemies. Spaniards, reflect! On the brink of the precipice which is dug under your feet, will that diabolical minister save you, when with fire and sword I shall have pursued you to your last entrenchments? Ah! without doubt, his prayers, his grimaces, his relics, would be no impediment to my career. Vain as powerless, can he preserve you from my just anger, after I shall have buried him, and the collection of brigands he commands, under the ruins of your capital! Let them both recollect that it is before my intrepid phalanxes that all the resources and the skill of Europeans have proved ineffec. tual and that into my victorious bonds the destiny of the captain-general Rochambeau has been surrendered. To lure the Spaniards to their party, they propagate the report that vessels laden with troops have arrived at Santo Domingo. Why is it not the truth? They little imagine that, in delaying to attack them until this time, my principal object has been to suffer them to increase the mass of our resources, and the number of our

victims. To spread distrust and terror, they incessantly dwell upon the fate which the French have just experienced: but have I had reason to treat them so? The wrongs of the French, do they appertain to Spaniards? and must I visit on the latter the crimes which the former have conceived, ordered and executed upon our species? They have the effrontery to say, that, reduced to seek safety in flight, I am gone to conceal my defeat in the southern part of the island. Well then! Let them learn that I am ready; that the thunderbolt is going to fall on their heads. Let them know that my soldiers are impatiently waiting for the signal to go and re-conquer the boundaries which nature and the elements have assigned to us. A few moments more, and I shall crush the remnant of the French under the weight of mighty power. Spaniards! you, to whom I address myself, solely because I wish to save you; you who, for having been guilty of evasion, shall speedily preserve your existence only so far as my clemency may deign to spare you; it is yet time; abjure an error which may be fatal to you; and break off all connections with my enemy, if you wish your blood may not be confounded with his. Name to me, without delay, that part of your territory on which my first blow is to be struck, or inform me whether I must strike on all points without discrimination. I give you fifteen days, from the date of this notification, to forward your last intentions, and to rally under my banners. You are not ignorant that all the roads of St. Domingo in every direction are familiar to us; that more than once we have seen your dispersed bands fly before us.

In a word, you know what I can do, and what I dare; think of your preservation. Receive here the sacred promise which I make, not to do any thing against your personal

safety or your interest, if you seize upon this occasion to show yourselves worthy of being admitted among the children of Hayti.

CHARACTERS.

Account of the late Sir William Jones, &c. &c. &c. From his Memoirs by Lord Teignmouth.

HIS

IS father was the celebrated philosopher and mathematician, who so eminently distinguished himself in the commencement of the last century; and a short, but more accurate sketch of his life than has hitherto appeared, may be acceptable to the lovers of science.

Mr. William Jones was born in the year 1680, in Anglesea; his parents were yeomen or little farmers on that island, and he there received the best education they were able to afford; but the industrious exertion of vigorous intellectual powers supplied the defects of inadequate instruction, and laid the foundation of his future fame and fortune. From his earliest years Mr. Jones discovered a propensity to mathematical studies, and having cultivated them with assiduity, he began his career in life by teaching mathematics on board a man of war; and in this situation he attracted the notice, and obtained the friendship of lord Anson. He afterwards established himself as a teacher of mathematics in London, where, at the age of twenty-six, he published his Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos, a decisive proof of his early and

consummate proficiency in his favourite science.

The private character of Mr. Jones was respectable; his manners were agreeable and inviting; and these qualities not only contributed to enlarge the circle of his friends, whom his established reputation for science had attracted, but also to secure their attachment to him.

Among others who honoured him with their esteem, I am authorized to mention the great and virtuous lord Hardwicke. He was also introduced to the friendship of lord Parker, (afterwards president of the royal society), which terminated only with his life; and amongst other distinguished characters in the annals of science and literature, the names of sir Isaac Newton, Halley, Mead, and Samuel Johnson, may be enumerated as the intimate friends of Mr. Jones.

After the retirement of Lord Mac. clesfield to Sherborne Castle, Mr. Jones resided with his lordship as a member of his family, and instructed them in the sciences. In this situation he had the misfortune to lose the greatest part of his property, the accumulation of industry and economy, by the failure of a banker ; but the friendship of lord Macclesfield diminished the weight of the loss, by procuring for him a sine

cure

cure place of considerable emolu

ment.

In this retreat he became acquainted with Miss Mary Nix, the youngest daughter of George Nix, a cabinet-maker of London, who, although of low extraction, had raised himself to eminence in his profession; and, from the honest and pleasant frankness of his conversation, was admitted to the tables of the great, and to the intimacy of lord Macclesfield. The acquaintance of Mr. Jones with Miss Nix terminated in marriage, and from this union sprang three children; the last of whom, the late Sir Wil liam Jones, was born in London, on the eve of the festival of St. Michael in the year 1746: the first son, George, died in his infancy; and the second child, a daughter, Mary, who was born in 1736, married Mr. Rainsford, a merchant retired from business in opulent circumstances. This lady perished miserably, in the year 1802, in consequence of an accident from her clothes catching fire.

Mr. Jones survived the birth of his son William but three years: he was attacked with a disorder, which the sagacity of Dr. Mead, who attended him with the anxiety of an affectionate friend, immediately discovered to be a polypus in the heart, and wholly incurable. He died soon after, in July 1749, leaving behind him a great reputation, and moderate property.

The care of the education of William now devolved upon his mother, who, in many respects, was eminently qualified for the task. Her character, as delineated by her husband, with somewhat of mathematical precision, is this: that she was virtuous without blemish, gene

rous without extravagance, frugal but not niggard, cheerful but not giddy, close but not sullen, ingenious but not conceited, of spirit but not passionate, of her company cautious, in her friendship trusty, to her parents dutiful, and to her husband ever faithful, loving, and obedient." She had, by nature, a strong understanding, which was improved by his conversation and instruction. Under his tuition she became a considerable proficient in algebra; and, with a view to qualify herself for the office of preceptor to her sister's son, who was destined to a maritime profession, made herself perfect in trigonometry, and the theory of navigation.

In the plan adopted by Mrs. Jones for the instruction of her son, she proposed to reject the severity of discipline, and to lead his mind, insensibly, to knowledge and exertion, by exciting his curiosity, and directing it to useful objects. To his incessant importunities for information on casual topics of conversation, which she watchfully stimulated, she constantly replied, read, and you will know; a maxim, to the observance of which he always acknowledged himself indebted for his future attainments. By this method, his desire to learn became as eager as her wish to teach; and such was her talent of instruction, and his facility of retaining it, that in his fourth year he was able to read, distinctly and rapidly, any English book. She particularly attended, at the same time to the cultivation of his memory, by making him learn and repeat some of the popular speeches in Shakespeare, and the best of Gay's Fables.

In this year of his life, Jones providentally escaped from two ac

cidents,

cidents, one of which had nearly proved fatal to his sight, the other to his life. Being left alone in a room, in attempting to scrape some soot from a chimney, he fell into the fire, and his clothes were instantly in flames: his cries brought the servants to his assistance, and he was preserved with some difficulty; but his face, neck, and arms were much burnt. A short time afterwards, when his attendants were putting on his clothes, which were imprudently fastened with hooks; he struggled, either in play or in some childish pet, and a hook was fixed in his right eye. By due care, under the directions of Dr. Mead, whose friendship with his family continued unabated after his father's death, the wound was healed; but the eye was so much weak. ened, that the sight of it ever remained imperfect.

His propensity to reading, which had begun to display itself, was, for a time, checked by these accidents; but the habit was acquired, and, after his recovery, he indulged it without restraint, by perusing eagerly any books that came in his way, and with an attention proportioned to his ability to comprehend them. In his fifth year, as he was one morning turning over the leaves of a Bible, in his mother's closet, his attention was forcibly arrested by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse; and the impression which his imagination received from it was never effaced. At a period of mature judgment, he considered the passage as equal in sublimity to any in the inspired writers, and far superior to any that could be produced from mere human compositions; and he was fond of retracing and mentioning VOL. XLVI.

the rapture which he felt when he first read it. In his sixth year, by the assistance of a friend, he was initiated in the rudiments of the Latin grammar, and he committed some passages of it to memory; but the dull elements of a new language, having nothing to captivate his childish attention, he made little progress in it; nor was he encou raged to perseverance by his mother, who, intending him for a public education, was unwilling to perplex his mind with the study of a dead language, before he had acquired a competent knowledge of his native tongue.

At Michaelmas, 1753, in the close of his seventh year, he was placed at Harrow school, of which the worthy and amiable Dr. Thackeray was then head master. The amusements and occupations of a schoolboy arc of little importance to the public; yet it cannot be uninteresting or uninstructive to trace the progress of a youth of genius or abilities, from his earliest efforts to that proficiency in universal literature which he afterwards attained. During the two first years of his residence at Harrow, he was rather remarked for diligence and application than for the superiority of his talents, or the extent of his acquisitions; and his attention was almost equally divided between his books and a little garden, the culti vation and embellishment of which occupied all his leisure hours. His faculties, however, necessarily gained strength by exercise; and, during his school vacations, the sedulity of a fond parent was, without intermission, exerted to improve his knowledge of his own language. She also taught him the rudiments of drawing, in which she excelled. 3 A

In