like our other merchants from the rest of Europe, but the known conviction on the mind of the French ruler, that the moment we are obliged to consider the Sultan as an enemy, separates from the Ottoman empire the populous and fertile islands of the Ionian and Levant seas? With this fact before our eyes ought we not to carry our views still further, and to look forward to what would be a decisive avowal of our insular sovereignty, the natural necessary consequence of our maritime power. Nations have not tribunals of justice like men in society, power among them is the criterion of right, and those who deny this principle, doubt the dispensations of providence: the circumstances of the times and of our affairs call on us to look boldly at principles, and to act with decision."

I quote the preceding reflections to show what was then the current of my thoughts. The event has come to pass that was predicted from the nature of things; the insolent French system has been turned into derision, and the apostle of national perdition is buried in the cleft of a rock in the middle of the liberated sea.

CHAPTER III.

Transit trade through Turkey.-Go back to Gibraltar.- Return to London.-Marry.—Adventure with Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke.

ABOUT this time I heard that the goods by the caravan of camels, which I had conducted to Widdin, had arrived safe at their destination, and that there was secretly a most profitable commercial intercourse going on in the route I had opened up between Salonica by way of Sophia to Widdin. The news gave me great pleasure, and at the same time excessive pain, for there were many circumstances connected with the project that convinced me I might think good thoughts, but had not the luck to carry them into effect.

In this state of fluctuating feeling, Mr. Kirkman Finlay was in London, and explained to me that his house had some intention of establishing a branch at Gibraltar, Spain being then overrun by the French; and proposed to provide for me in it. This proposition was one, for different reasons, the most acceptable that could be made, for although burning with indignation at the manner in which

VOL. I.

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I had been allowed to incur danger and vexation at Widdin, I could not conceive that the manner in which I had committed the caravan to the care of a Greek, could be otherwise than unpleasant. But it has been my fortune, however meagre in the results, to bring me in connexion with honourable specimens of human nature. I therefore closed at once with Mr. Finlay, and was ultimately sent to Gibraltar with another gentle

man.

The nature of our business was not such as I would have preferred, but in my circumstances it was agreeable, and a connexion with Mr. Finlay's house, with many of the partners of which I was personally acquainted, was of all things, as it seemed, a stroke of good fortune; but I soon saw that in the business at Gibraltar I would be out of my element; for, unfortunately, I never in my life have been able to lay my heart to any business whatever in which the imagination had not a share. Part of the plan received a sudden check by the victorious career in the Peninsula of the Duke of Wellington, and I do not exaggerate my feelings when I say that I repined at his victories. His triumphal entry into Madrid was the death of my hopes, but there was no decent pretext for coming away, so I staid there several months; at last, however, I found myself obliged

by necessity to return to London for surgical advice; and yet it was with me absolutely a struggle whether to endure the progress of a vital disease, or to take this step. At last the love of life predominated, and I came home equally chagrined with the complexion of my fortunes and depressed with my malady. What added to my humiliations was, that a friend who conceived he might address himself freely to me, soon after, in total ignorance of the case, wrote to me a letter, implying great imprudence in my conduct for coming home. Immediately, by return of post, I wrote him an account of the whole affair, and the diseased condition of myself, which I had not revealed to any person but the late Mr. Lynn, the celebrated surgeon, of Westminster.

Returning inclosed the reproachful letter, and telling him that if after what he had said he could verify the imprudence with which he charged me, I begged he would consider our friendship as at an end. It would be great injustice not to say that he very frankly acknowledged the error into which he had fallen, by having listened too credulously to a report which he had received from a mutual friend. It would be too much in the professional style of a novelist to paint the effects of the scene his letter produced, for I could not disguise to myself that, however appearances might in future be

preserved, the confidence of an early friendship was no more. I therefore will not attempt to describe with what emotion I embodied the feelings of the moment in the following verses, but I felt upon me the heavy hand of misfortune to which only I reluctantly acknowledged disease superior.

EPIGRAM.

If 'tis old age to mope alone,

Fortune, hope, health, and friendship gone,

Return'd from viewing many a clime,

And reading but to kill the time,

With wat'ry eye, and bosom cold,

Friends, that were mine,- am I not old?

It happened soon after, that Prince Kcame to London, attended by a nephew of the famous Prince P and a Mr. C-, both very agreeable persons. P was in indifferent health, but he occasionally elanced gleams of mind very brilliant. With the Prince I was constantly engaged. He was indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, and when able to go about, I did all in my power to assist him. An anecdote deserves to be preserved. One day when going down St. James's Street, he remarked a pair of those zigzag kind of scissars in a cutler's window, and inquired what they were. I could give him no explanation, so we went into the shop together, and