give the finishing stroke to this joyful event would not permit him to delay one moment in setting out for Portsmouth, and bringing up to his house in town the innocent sufferer, where they arrived on the morning of the 29th October. Miss Heywood can best speak her own feelings.

"Great Russell-street, Monday morning,

29th October, half past ten o'clockthe brightest moment of my existence! "My dearest mamma, I have seen him, clasped him to my bosom, and my felicity is beyond expression! In person he is almost even now as I could wish; in mind you know him an angel. I can write no more, but to tell you, that the three happiest beings at this moment on earth are your most dutiful and affectionate children,

"NESSY HEYWOOD.

"PETER HEYWOOD.

"JAMES HEYWOOD.

"Love to and from all ten thousand times."

The worthy Mr. Graham adds, "If, my dearest madam, it were ever given for mortals to be supremely blest on earth, mine to be sure must be the happy family. Heavens! with what unbounded extravagance have we been forming our wishes! and yet how far beyond our most unbounded wishes we are blest! Nessy, Maria,* Peter, and James, I see, have all been endeavouring to express their feelings. I will not fail in any such attempt, for I will not attempt any thing beyond an assurance that the scene I have been witness of, and in which I am happily so great a sharer, beggars all description. Permit me, however, to offer my most sincere congratulations upon the joyful occasion."

This amiable young lady, some of whose letters have been introduced into this narrative, did not long

*Mr. Graham's daughter.

survive her brother's liberty. This impassioned and most affectionate of sisters, with an excess of sensibility which acted too powerfully on her bodily frame, sunk, as is often the case with such susceptible minds, on the first attack of consumption. She died within the year of her brother's liberation. On this occasion the following note from her afflicted mother appears among the papers from which the letters and poetry are taken. "My dearest Nessy was seized, while on a visit at Major Yorke's, at Bishop's Grove, near Tunbridge Wells, with a violent cold, and not taking proper care of herself, it soon turned to inflammation on her lungs, which carried her off at Hastings, to which place she was taken on the 5th September, to try if the change of air, and being near the sea, would recover her; but alas! it was too late for her to receive the wishedfor benefit, and she died there on the 25th of the same month, 1793, and has left her only surviving parent a disconsolate mother, to lament, while ever she lives, with the most sincere and deep affliction, the irreparable loss of her most valuable, affectionate, and darling daughter.”*

*Several elegiac stanzas were written on the death of this accomplished young lady. The following are dated from her native place, the Isle of Man, where her virtues and accomplishments could best be appreciated.

"How soon, sweet maid! how like a fleeting dream

The winning graces, all thy virtues seem!

How soon arrested in thy early bloomn

Has fate decreed thee to the joyless tomb!

Nor beauty, genius, nor the muse's care,

Nor aught could move the tyrant Death to spare:
Ah! could their power revoke the stern decree,
The fatal shaft had pass'd, unfelt by thee!
But vain thy wit, thy sentiment refin'd,
Thy charms external, and accomplish'd mind;
Thy artless smiles, that seized the willing heart,
Thy converse, that could pure delight impart;
The melting music of thy skilful tongue,
While judgment listen'd, ravish'd with thy song:
Not all the gifts that art and nature gave
Could save thee, lovely Nessy! from the grave.
Too early lost! from friendship's bosom torn,
Oh might I tune thy lyre, and sweetly mourn

་

But to return to Mr. Heywood. When the king's full and free pardon had been read to this young officer by Captain Montagu, with a suitable admonition and congratulation, he addressed that officer in the following terms, so suitably characteristic of his noble and manly conduct throughout the whole of the distressing business in which he was innocently involved :

"Sir,-When the sentence of the law was passed upon me, I received it, I trust, as became a man; and if it had been carried into execution, I should have met my fate, I hope, in a manner becoming a Christian. Your admonition cannot fail to make a lasting impression on my mind. I receive with gratitude my sovereign's mercy, for which my future life shall be faithfully devoted to his service."*

In strains like thine, when beauteous Margaret's(a) fate
Oppress'd thy friendly heart with sorrow's weight;
Then should my numbers flow, and laurels bloom

In endless spring around fair Nessy's tomb."

(a) Alluding to some elegant lines, by the deceased, on the death of a female friend.

*The following appears to have been written by Mr. P. Heywood on the day that the sentence of condemnation was passed on him.

66

Silence then

The whispers of complaint,-low in the dust,
Dissatisfaction's demon's growl unheard,
All-all is good, all excellent below;
Pain is a blessing-sorrow leads to joy-
Joy, permanent and solid! ev'ry ill,
Grim Death itself, in all its horrors clad,
Is man's supremest privilege! it frees
The soul from prison, from foul sin, from wo,
And gives it back to glory, rest, and God!

Cheerly, my friends,-oh, cheerly! look not thus
With Pity's melting softness!-that alone
Can shake my fortitude-all is not lost.
Lo! I have gain'd on this important day
A victory consummate o'er myself,
And o'er this life a victory,-on this day,
My birthday to eternity, I've gain'd

Dismission from a world, where for a while,
Like you, like all, a pilgrim, passing poor
A traveller, a stranger, I have met

X

And well did his future conduct fulfil that promise. Notwithstanding the inauspicious manner in which the first five years of his servitude in the navy had been passed, two of which were spent among mutineers and savages, and eighteen months as a close prisoner in irons, in which condition he was shipwrecked and within an ace of perishing,-notwithstanding this unpromising commencement, he reentered the naval service under the auspices of his uncle, Commodore Pasley, and Lord Hood, who presided at his trial, and who earnestly recommended him to embark again as a midshipman without delay, offering to take him into the Victory, under his own immediate patronage. In the course of his service, to qualify for the commission of lieutenant, he was under the respective commands of three or four distinguished officers who had sat on his trial, from all of whom he received the most flattering proofs of esteem and approbation. To the application of Sir Thomas Pasley to Lord Spencer, for his promotion, that nobleman, with that due regard he was always

Still stranger treatment, rude and harsh! so much
The dearer, more desired, the home I seek,
Eternal of my Father, and my God!

Then pious Resignation, meek-ey'd pow'r,

Sustain me still! Composure still be mine.

Where rests it? Oh, mysterious Providence!

Silence the wild idea.-I have found

No mercy yet-no mild humanity,

With cruel, unrelenting rigour torn,
And lost in prison-lost to all below!"

And the following appears to have been written on the day of the king's pardon being received.

"

Oh deem it not
Presumptuous, that my soul grateful thus rates
The present high deliv'rance it hath found;-
Sole effort of thy wisdom, sov'reign Pow'r,
Without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls!
Oh! may I cease to live, ere cease to bless
That interposing hand, which turn'd aside -
Nay, to my life and preservation turn'd,-
The fatal blow precipitate, ordain'd
To level all my little hopes in dust,
And give me to the grave.

known to pay to the honour and interests of the navy, while individual claims were never overlooked, gave the following reply, which must have been highly gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Heywood and his family.

"Sir,

"Admiralty, Jan. 13th, 1797.

"I should have returned an earlier answer to your letter of the 6th instant, if I had not been desirous, before I answered it, to look over, with as much attention as was in my power, the proceedings on the court-martial held in the year 1792, by which court Mr. Peter Heywood was condemned for being concerned in the mutiny on board the Bounty. I felt this to be necessary, from having entertained a very strong opinion that it might be detrimental to the interests of his majesty's service, if a person under such a predicament should be afterward advanced to the higher and more conspicuous situations of the navy; but having, with great attention, perused the minutes of that court-martial, as far as they relate to Mr. Peter Heywood, I have now the satisfaction of being able to inform you, that I think his case was such a one as, under all its circumstances (though I do not mean to say that the court were not justified in their sentence), ought not to be considered as a bar to his further progress in his profession; more especially when the gallantry and propriety of his conduct in his subsequent service are taken into consideration. I shall therefore have no difficulty in mentioning him to the commander-in-chief on the station to which he belongs, as a person from whose promotion, on a proper opportunity, I shall derive much satisfaction, more particularly from his being so nearly connected with you.

"I have the honour to be, &c.
(Signed)

"SPENCER."