Fitzgerald was given the command of the Brunswick, seventy-four) I belonged a year and a half to a flying squadron of frigates; namely the Pomone, Sir John Borlase Warren, the Arethusa, Sir Edward Pellew, and the Diamond, Sir Sidney Smith. Our cruizing ground was the coast of France, and our port of rendezvous was Falmouth. "The Artois was the fastest sailing frigate of the squadron. She could sail round the others. No ship could touch her, whether going large, or close hauled. We were always first up with the chase; and on the twenty-first of October, 1794, after an action close, vigorous, and persevering, the Revolutionnaire French frigate hauled down her colors to the Artois. Captain Nagle was knighted by his Majesty for the action. "In 1798 I embarked in a small brig, at Bristol, for the United States. I had before made some progress in Greek, and begun the study of the language of harmony, with the Father of Poetry, and the Bible of the Ancients. In Latin I had looked into every writer of the Julian and Augustan ages; the study of French had always been to me like the cracking of nuts; and in my vernacular idiom I had neglected no writer from Bunyan to Bolingbroke. Lowth had put me au fait of all the critical niceties of grammar; and when I read it was always with an eye to new combinations of diction. "I translated at New York Buonaparte's Campaign in Italy, a considerable octavo, and proceeded to the South. I now experienced the advantage of having educated myself. By impart ing what I knew of English, French and Latin to others, I was enabled to gratify my disposition to travel, and to subsist comfortably. "In 1802 I returned to England. I proceeded to London where my time was divided between pleasure and literature. I published a large volume of my own peregrinations. I wrote an American tale called Walter Kennedy, a Life of Chatterton, and a novel entitled The Wooden Walls Well Manned, or a Picture of a British Frigate. "In the winter of 1804 I returned to America. Our passage in the Cotton Planter was a rough *The author's books and translations, published in the United States, are as follows: 1) Campaigns of Buonoparte in Italy. Caritat. 1798. New York. H. 2) Ferdinand and Elizabeth. New York. H. Caritat. 1798. 3) Poems. Charleston. 1799. 4) Farmer of New Jersey. New York. man and Loudon. 1800. 70 pp. Printed by Fur 5) Wanderings of William. Philadelphia. R. T. Rawle. 1801. xii-299 pp. 6) Poems. New York. H. Caritat. 1801. 7) The First Settlers of Virginia: an historical novel. 2nd ed. New York. G. Riley & Co. 1805. xii-284 pp. 8) Berquin-Duvallon: Travels (1802) in Louisiana and the Floridas. New York. G. Riley. 1806. viii-181 pp. 9) Life and Campaigns of Victor Moreau. David Bliss. 56 Maiden Lane. 1806. New York. 10) Captain Smith and Princess Pocahontas. Philadelphia. B. Warner. 1817. iv-90 pp. The Travels of Four Years and a Half, &c. was issued at London in an amended edition, 1817, 'For J. Davis, Military Chronicle office. 14 Charlotte St., Bloomsbury.' The author's last book appears to have been "The American Mariners, or the Atlantic Voyage: a Moral Poem. Prefixed is a vindication of the American character from the Aspersions of the Quarterly Reviewers &c." Salisbury. 1822.] one. I never witnessed severer gales. It was necessary to keep the broad axe sharp, when the ship was lying to, in case she should go on her beam ends; that we might cut away her weather rigging or the masts, in order to enable her to get upon her legs again. "And now to the keeping of that Great Being, whose protecting arm extends over land and sea, I commend myself and my readers." A. J. M. SIR, BANKS OF THE OCCOQUAN IN frequent journeyings through your country, I have made remarks on the character, the customs and manners of the people; these remarks I purpose to systematize into a Volume, and to you I should be happy to be allowed the honour of dedicating them. The object of my speculations has been Human Nature; speculations that will lead the reader to the contemplation of his own manners, and enable him to compare his condition with that of other men. In my uncertain peregrinations, I have entered with equal interest the mud-hut of the negro, and the loghouse of the planter; I have alike communed with the slave who wields the hoe, and the task-master who imposes his labour. My motto has been invariably Homo sum! humani nihil a me alienum puto, and after saying this, whatever I were to say more, would be idle declamation. I am, SIR, Your most obedient, most humble Servant, JOHN DAVIS THOMAS JEFFERSON, Esq. President of the United States of America, Monticello, Virginia. |