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NOVEL ELECTION TACTICS.

the respectable inhabitants voted in my favour, and my agent assured me that a judicious application of no very considerable sum, would beat my opponent out of the market. This, however, being resolutely refused, the majority voted in favour of his five pound notes, and saved my friends of the Admiralty Court and other naval departments from an exhibition of misplaced zeal, which, as subsequently proved, could only have ended in my parliamentary discomfiture.

To be beaten, even at an election, is one thing; to turn a beating to account is another. Having had decisive proof as to the nature of Honiton politics, I made up my mind that the next time there was a vacancy in the borough, the seat should be mine without bribery. Accordingly, immediately after my defeat, I sent the bellman round the town, having first primed him with an appropriate speech, intimating that "all who had voted for me, might repair to my agent, J. Townsend, Esq., and receive ten pounds ten!"

The novelty of a defeated candidate paying double the current price expended by the successful oneor, indeed, paying anything- made a great sensation. Even my agent assured me that he could have secured my return for less money, for that the popular voice being in my favour, a trifling judicious expenditure would have turned the scale.

I told Mr. Townsend that such payment would have been bribery, which would not accord with my character as a reformer of abuses a declaration which seemed highly to amuse him. Notwithstanding the

explanation that the ten guineas was paid as a reward

BECOME A REFORMER.

181

for having withstood the influence of bribery, the impression produced on the electoral mind by such unlooked-for liberality, was simply this—that if I that if I gave ten guineas for being beaten, my opponent had not paid half enough for being elected; a conclusion which, by a similar process of reasoning, was magnified into the conviction that each of his voters had been cheated out of five pounds ten.

The result was what had been foreseen. My opponent, though successful, was regarded with anything but a favourable eye; I, though defeated, had suddenly become most popular. The effect at the next election, must be reserved for its place in a future chapter.

It was this election that first induced me to become a parliamentary Reformer, or as any one holding popular opinions was called in those days, a "Radical," i. e. a member of a political class holding views not half so extreme as those which form the parliamentary capital of reformers in the present day, and even less democratic than were the measures brought in during the last session of parliament by a Tory Government, whose predecessors consigned to gaol all who, fifty years ago, ventured to express opinions conferring political rights on the people.

It is strange that, after having suffered more for my political faith than any man now living, I should have survived to see former Radical yearnings become modern Tory doctrines. Stranger still, they should now form stepping-stones to place and power, instead of to the bar of a criminal court, where even the counsel defending

those who were prosecuted for holding them became marked men.

Still it is something worth living for—even with the remembrance of my own bitter sufferings, for no greater offence than the advocacy of popular rights, and the abolition of naval abuses.

CHAP. XI.

SERVICES IN THE PALLAS CONTINUED.

SERVICES IN THE PALLAS.

THE

THE PALLAS AT HALIFAX. -CLAMOUR OF SHIPOWNERS. -SAIL FROM THE DOWNS.-CAPTURE A VESSEL. THE POMONE SENT TO ENGLAND. CAPTURE OF THE TAPAGEUSE. FRENCH RUN ASHORE.-CHASE OF THE CORVETTES.-OFF CHASSERON. -COLD APPROVAL OF LORD ST. VINCENT.CRUISE OF THE PALLAS.SIGHT THE FRENCH SQUADRON. FRENCH SIGNAL HOUSES. ISLE OF AIX. ENGAGE THE FRENCH SQUADRON. JOINED BY THE KINGFISHER.- DETAILS OF THE ACTION. CONSTRUCTION OF KITES.

THE

On the 28th of May 1805, the Pallas again sailed from Portsmouth in charge of a convoy for Quebec. On this voyage little occurred worthy of note, beyond the fact that when we made the American coast we were, from a cause presently to be mentioned, no less than thirteen degrees and a half out in our dead reckoning! The reader must not imagine that we were 800 miles out of our course, for that was corrected whenever observations of the sun or stars could be obtained; but as these might at any time be rendered uncertain from the fogs prevalent on the banks, the most vigilant care was necessary to prevent the ship and convoy from being wrecked.

In my former voyage in the Thetis we had the advantage of a very clever man on board -a Mr. Garrard - who not being able to subsist on his salary as assistant astronomer and calculator at Greenwich, was glad to accept the berth of schoolmaster on board my uncle's

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THE PALLAS AT HALIFAX.

frigate. From the instructions of this gentlemen, I had formerly profited considerably, and was not a little pleased when he applied to me for a similar berth on board the Pallas. With so skilful an observer, there could be no mistake about the error just mentioned; which arose from this circumstance, that for the sake of economy, the Navy Board or the dockyard authorities had surrounded the binnacle of the Pallas with iron instead of copper bolts; so that the compass was not to be depended upon. Fortunately the atmosphere was tolerably clear, so that no danger was incurred.

As, however, I had no inclination to risk either the ship or my own reputation amongst the fogs of Canada for the sake of false economy, the course of the Pallas and her convoy were directed to Halifax, there to free the compass from the attraction of iron. On demanding copper bolts from the dockyard officers, they were refused, on the ground that permission must be first obtained from the authorities in London! To this I replied, that if such were the case, the Pallas should wait with the convoy at Halifax whilst they communicated with the Admiralty in England! for that on no account should she enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence till our compass was right. The absurdity of detaining a convoy for six months, on account of a hundred weight of copper bolts was too much even for dockyard routine, and the demand was with some difficulty conceded.

It would be wearisome to detail the uninteresting routine of attending the convoy to Quebec, or of my taking charge of another for the homeward voyage; further than to state, that from the defect of having no