LIFE OF CAPTAIN BEAVER.*
LITERARY SPECTATOR.
THIS is one of those books which it is impossible to read without im- provement. It affords an example of high virtue and sterling merit, which, while it stimulates to self-examination and self-correction, pre- sents us with a model by which to conform ourselves. The conduct and character of Captain Baavaa may be a guide for all public men, and more particularly for those who have chosen the navy for the theatre of their services. The 'author may not have executed his task in all points with that good taste and that power of managing his materials which might have beeh expected from one who belongs to so many learned societies ; neiertheless we feel grateful to him for having in any form produced the numerous, useful, and valuable extracts, obser- vations, and descriptions from Captain BEAVER'S papers, as well as for the character and view which he has altogether contrived to convey of his subject.
Captain BEAVER was one of those. men who command success. He left nothing to chance ; he never did things by halves ; he combined his measures with judgment ; he took every circumstance into calcula- tion; and when the head had devised the plan, he had those qualities which secured its execution,—the quick eye, the vigorous arm, the firmness, the courage, nay the temerity of a true British sailor, together with that fertility of resource and facility in meeting the con- tingencies of action which mark the genius of this the noblest of pro- fessions: for such surely it is, since it not only calls into constant play the best of our physical qualities, but likewise demands for its due dis- charge a familiarity with intellectual occupations of the highest order. The real naval captain is buffeting with danger every hour of his life;, his existence is constantly perilled in the ordinary exercise of his duty: he must be a moral governor of a large body of unruly spirits,—no easy task ; he must be an astronomer, a scientific navigator, a geogya- pher ; he is often called upon for diplomatic tasks of delicacy ; he is in momentary want of courage, skill, and education. So much for the means, and the end is one which all ages have agreed in esteeming the most meritorious—the salvation of his country. If any one would see the virtues of a naval officer concentrated in the person of one commander, they will apply to the pages before us for an accurate portrait of a man whom all agreed to consult in the moment of danger, whom no one ever hesitated to trust, and who never failed to discharge his duty with perfect success. Capt. BEAVER. died on the confines of middle age (forty-eight years) after having spent three-fourths of his life in the service. With slight exceptions, he had been constantly in active employment from the breaking out of the French war, which took place after the North American Revolu- tion, to the time of his death in 1813; and there was no species of ser- vice in which he had not been employed, from the daring enterprises of an ambitious boy, to the landing of an army in the face of an enemy, or the grave and important duties of a captain of the fleet. His prema- * The Life and Services of Captain Philip Beaver, late of his Majesty's ship Nisus. By Captain W. H. Smyth, R.N., K.S.F., F.A.S., and F.S.A., &c. London,181). Mang. ture death may be said to have arisen from carrying one of his charac- teristic virtues too far : fortitude taught him to despise suffering; and while looking down with a sort of contempt upon the operations of mere bodily pain, he permitted the call of even slight duties to withdraw his attention from the consideration of the slight measures necessary to stop its progress : the consequence was exteritis ; the severe suffering of which malady he bore with the same firmness that he would have displayed under the rack or the thumbscrew for a good cause. Here is indicated the only failing of this virtuous man ; as indeed it is the failing of all his class. They carry their stoicism a little too stiffly: if Captain BEAVER had known now and then how to pardon human in- firmity, whether in himself or in others, he would have been a perfect character. It is the fault of such men to be impatient of inferiority— to be intolerant of error. The CATOS of the Navy, they never carry those points which demand some portion of flexibility.
Captain PHILIP BEAVER was the son and grandson of clergymen ; and his biographer remarks upon the fact of how much the Navy has been indebted to the sons of the Church. It is enough to mention the names Of NE.LSON, HOOD, BRIDPORT, GRAVES, and KEATS. PHILIP BEAVER'S first service was in the Monarch, a ship of the line, which in 1778 made one of the grand fleet under Admiral KEPPEL. The grand fleet, it will be recollected, coquetted for some time with the French fleet under Comte D'ORVILLIERS, and after some desultory enga.gements, retired to the safe retreat of Portsmouth, that the Admi- rals might have leisure to settle' the quarrels which had prevented the forces under their command from performing any signal service to their country. The retreat of Admiral KEPPEL caused a strong sen- sation all over the kingdom : he was threatened with the fate of BYNG. PHILIP BEAVER, then a boy, being accidentally met by the venerable Admiral FORBES (he who so nobly refused his sanction and his signa- ture, as a Lord of the Admiralty, to the fate of BYNG), the veteran seaman was so satisfied with his account of the controverted transac- tions of the fleet, that he declared he had never understood them before. BEAVER being asked his personal opinion of the recriminating flag- officers, he answered, with the warmth which in all his after life accom- panied his condemnations of any backwardness in the performance of a duty, `, they both deserve to be shot."
PHILIP BEAVER, as a midshipman, fought his way up to rank and reputation in all quarters of the globe, till the year 1784, when he was made lieutenant. The years which immediately followed were those of peace ; and after occasional glimpses of service, Lieutenant BE AVER gave way to the idea that he must employ himself in some other form than that of a defender of his country. He formed a project of colonization : a friend, who had been disappointed of the governorship of Sierra Leone, described to him in glowing terms the beauties of the neighbouring island of Bulama. "Let us colonize it ourselves," said he. The attempt was made ; an expedition was fitted out: it was placed under bad management ; the colonists died, or went mad, and the whole scheme, in spite of Herculean exertions on the part of BEAVER, failed: he survived almost alone, to return to Europe, to tell the tale of his sufferings and his struggles. He published a work on the subject, called "African Memoranda:' A fort was built in this island of Bulama ; several scores of men commenced the undertaking: before it was finished, not one was left to guard each of its four gates: to such a state of emaciation and depression were even the mind and body of Lieutenant BEAVER reduced, that on his being visited by two seamen from a vessel that had accidentally touched at Bulama, he could not avoid gazing all the eveniiag upon the bloom of their rosy cheeks—he conceived that they were angels, and above the beauty of mere mortals. He had been himself frequently on the verge of death ; and on one occasion he was so near it, that he was considered as ab- solutely departed, and had the satisfaction of learning in what light he was really considered by his fellow colonists and partners in enter- prise. The passage which describes this circumstance has such a beauty in it, and the situation is so extraordinary, that we shall gladly extract the passage which contains it. It is, as indeed are all the parts of interest, extracted from his own papers and writings.
"1 am aware that I shall be accused of consummate vanity for what I am now about to write : be it so—for I allow that even to the last moment of my recollection, when I absolutely thought that I was no longer for this world; when I was actually deprived of my speech, but not of ray senses, I felt great consolation in what I heard every one say of me ; for as no one conceived that I was sensible, or could pcssibly live an hour longer, they probably spoke only their real sentiments. "The people had crowded about the cabin-door all day, inquiring after my health, and shelved great anxiety for my recovery. As the front of my cabin, from one side of the ship to the other, was one continued window, I could hear everything that was said, but could not be seen, on account of a canvass screen round that part where my cot hung. Reader ! if this should ever be seen by other eyes than my own, call me vain if you please, for I do assure you that I was exceedingly so, when I heard every individual speaking only rny.praise ; the breath of slander itself c3uld not accuse me of any one thing which I wished not the world to know: every one said, that I had killed myself by my own exertions for their good ; that labouring and exposing myself, so much as I had done, no constitution could stand ; that now they must go home; for, as they had lost me, there was no one left who could take care of them.
"Between seven and eight in the evening I could no longer articulate ; but was seized with a rattling in my throat, which I conceived to be a symp- tom of my no very distant dissolution. I was still sensible, and indeed for an hour after the rattling had first seized me. It was now that I heard every one say that it was all over ; and that Captain Cox, sitting by the sky-light almost immediately over me, said that to-morrow he should have orders to get ready to sail for England. This, now that I am better, Mr. Munden and Mr. Aberdeen, the only two members of the committee, have confirmed ; as they had made up their Minds to give such orders the moment I was dead : for neither of them would take charge of the colony; and indeed if they would, nobody would have staid when I was gone. " I can with truth aver, that if in these moments I had the least wish to live, it was to preserve this colony. Death, if thou never comest in greater terrors, I shall never be afraid to meet thee ; for the happiest moments ofmy existence were those when I expected to cease to be. May my future life be such as to enable me always to meet thee thus ! "
Before his return from this most unprosperous expedition, the War broke out with Revolutionary France ; in the course of which, he was incessantly employed in the different ranks of Lieutenant, Commander, and Post Captain, wherever the sea carried a British vessel : in'the West Indies, and more particularly the East Indies he distinguished himself; at the Cape, where he afterwards died ; at landing of the English forces in Egypt ; at the reduction of Genoa, where he was not only a negotiator with MASSENA, but performed singular exploits of valour and skill; at Java when it was taken from the Dutch ; in that, he was wherever service was to be performed, during a period When our navy was omnipotent and omnipresent, and acquired and main- tained a character of power and genius which will probably remain long after the reality has passed away with all changeable things. Captain BEAVER had a noble disdain of money as a motive to acticall consequently he died poor, where others would have amassed fortunes: He was in all respects a hero ; for he left a wife and children depen- dent.upon the public bounty. His widow had not that reward which ancient republics bestowed upon the connexions of disinterested pa- triots; but she was thought of, and that is much in these times of cor- ruption and baseness ; she was made the matron of Greenwich Hos- pital: had her husband lived, she would have been most probably a peeress, and the dispenser of favours. Let the soul of the noble-minded PHILIP BEAVER rest in peace ; for his widow and his children live beyond the reach of want, and in the midst of those veterans in fellow- ship with whom he wore out his life for his grateful country.
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