confederates were tried at the Bar of the Court of King's Bench, 25th April, 1799. The Counsel for the Crown were Sir John Scott [Lord Eldon], Law (Lord Ellenborough], Sir W. Garrow, Sir C. Abbot, &c., while the defendants had the powerful advocacy of Erskine and others. His Lordship and Mr. Fergusson were found guilty after a long and ingenious defence by the latter, which presaged his future eminence as a Counsel. LORD THANET was ordered to pay a fine of £1000; to be imprisoned in the Tower for a year; and to give security for good behaviour for seven years on the expiration of the sentence; himself in £10,000, and two sureties in £5000 each. FERGUSSON was ordered to pay a fine of £100; to be imprisoned in the King's Bench prison for one year; to give security for good behaviour for seven years from the expiration of the sentence; himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each. -See State Trials, vols. 26 and 27.—ED.] JAMES NAPPER TANDY. ["A person who afterwards made a considerable figure in the local affairs of Ireland raised himself about this time into considerable notoriety by his patriotic exertions. This was Mr. JAMES NAPPER TANDY, a gentleman in the middle station of life, without talent or natural influence, had become a warm advocate in the corporation of Dublin; he debated zealously in public, he argued strenuously in private, and persevered in both with indefatigable ardour. His person was ungracious-his language neither eloquent nor argumentative-his address neither graceful nor impressive-but he was sincere and persevering - and though in many instances erroneous and violent, he was considered to be honest. His private character furnished no ground to doubt the integrity of his public one-and, like many of those persons who occasionally spring up in revolutionary periods, he acquired celebrity without being able to account for it, and possessed influence without rank or capacity. In 1796, Mr. Tandy lost all his popularity, and nearly his life, by his apparent want of courage in an affair between him and Mr. Toler, then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Norbury, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Mr. Tandy having signified to Mr. Toler his desire to fight him, the Chief Justice readily accepted the offer. Both parties manoeuvred very skilfully; but Mr. Tandy delaying his ultimatum too long for the impatience of the Solicitor-General, he brought him before the House of Commons for a breach of privilege, and prosecuted him for sedition. Mr. Tandy escaped to the Continent, entered the French Service, invaded Ireland, was, with his confederates, arrested by the British Envoy at Hamburg, 24 Nov., 1798, contrary to the law of nations: the Minister of France claimed them as French citizens, and the Senate, unwilling to offend either power, came to no decision on the subject. Tandy was thereupon taken to Ireland and condemned to be hanged-was pardoned by Lord Cornwallis, and sent back to France, where he died a French General." -Barrington's Memoirs of the Union, vol. 1, where is a portrait of Tandy.-ED.] No. XXVII. May 14, 1798. THE gallant defence of the ISLES OF ST. MARCOU would justify a more serious celebration than is attempted in the following poem; and the modest and unassuming manner in which LIEUTENANT PRICE gives the account of services so highly meritorious, adds to the hope which we entertain that he will meet a more solid reward than any verse of ours or of our correspondent's could bestow. CITIZEN MUSKEIN, if he understands Horace, and can read English, will be amply rewarded for the victory of which he has, no doubt, by this time, made a pompous report to the Directory, by the perusal of the 14th Ode of the 1st Book, for which we have to return our thanks to a classical correspondent. A CONSOLATORY ADDRESS TO HIS GUNBOATS. BY CITIZEN MUSKEIN. O navis! referent in mare te novi fluctus. O GENTLE GUN-BOATS, whom the Seine Scarce could our guardian goddess, Reason, Though with LEPAUX'S and REWBELL'S aid, To make your bright three-coloured flags; Deform the works of STONE and STAEL, Children of Muskein's anxious care, * STONE.-Better known by the name of WILLIAMS. We decline printing this rhyme at length, from obvious reasons of delicacy; at the same time that it is so accurate a translation of pictis puppibus, that we know not how to suppress it, without doing the utmost injustice to the general spirit of the poem. LYRICS OF HORACE. ODE XIV., BOOK I. TRANSLATED BY ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM. O Ship, fresh billows soon again Torn are thy sails! nor Gods hast thou, Thou, who wast late my anxious fear, [MUSKEIN was an inhabitant of Antwerp, whom the Directory not only appointed to superintend the construction of the flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of Great Britain (usually called by the French sailors "bateaux à la Maskein"), but made a "capitaine de caissiau". An attack was ordered to be made upon the two small islands of SAINT MARCOUF (each not more than 200 yards in length), of which, in July, 1795, SIR SIDNEY SMITH, with the Diamond frigate, had taken unobstructed possession, and which were considered to give to the English great facility in intercepting between the ports of Havre and Cherbourg. The islands are situated off the river Isigny, on the coast of Normandy, and about four miles distant from the French shore. After being garrisoned with about 500 seamen and marines, including a great proportion of invalids, these small islands were placed under the command of LIEUT. CHARLES PAPPS PRICE, of The Badger, a cruiser-converted Dutch hoy, mounting four, or at most six, guns. On the 8th April, 1798, MUSKEIN, with 33 flat-bottomed boats, with a body of troops on board, and a few gun-brigs, was about to make a combined attack on the two islands, but was driven off by two British frigates, THE DIAMOND, Capt. Sir R. J. Strachan, and THE HYDRA, Capt. Sir Francis Laforty, and stood into Caen river. While there for three weeks, repairing damages, he was joined by seven heavy gun-brigs, and about 40 flat-boats and armed fishing vessels, bringing with them additional troops. On the 6th May, LIEUT. PRICE received information that an attack was meditated during the night. By 10 p.m., owing to the prevailing calm, the small naval force on the station, consisting of the 50-gun ship, ADAMANT, Capt. Wm. Hotham, 24-gun ship. EURYDICE, Capt. John Talbot, and 18-gun brig-sloop, ORESTES, Capt. W. Haggitt, had not been able to approach nearer to the islands than six miles-precisely what the assailants wanted. The attacking force consisted of 52-gun brigs and flat-bottomed boats, having on board, as was reported, about 6000 men. At day-break, on the 7th, the flotilla was seen drawn up in a line opposite to the south-west front of the western redoubt; and instantly was opened, upon the brigs and flats composing it, a fire from 17 pieces of cannon, consisting of four 4, two 6, and six 24 pounder long guns, and three 24 and two 32-pounder carronades, being all the guns that would bear. The brigs remained at a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, in order to batter the redoubt with their heavy long guns, while the boats, with great resolution, rowed up until within musket-shot of the battery. But the guns of the latter, loaded with round, grape, and canister, soon poured destruction amongst these, cutting several of the boats "into chips," and compelling all that could keep afloat to seek their safety in flight. Six or seven boats were seen to go down, and one small flat, No. 13, was afterwards towed in, bottom upwards. She appeared, by some pieces of paper found in her, to have had 144 persons on board, including 129 of the second company of the Boulogne battalion. The loss sustained by the British garrison amounted to one private-marine killed, and two private-marines and two seamen wounded. According to one French account, the invaders lost about 900 in killed or drowned, and between 300 and 400 wounded. As a reward for their conduct on this occasion, Lieutenants PRICE and BOURNE were each promoted to the rank of Commander. The former died a Post Captain, at Hereford, in 1813, aged 62.-James's Naval History, vol. ii., pp. 128-131: ed. 1886.-ED.] [M. PLEVILLE was Minister of Marine, and, shortly after this unsuccessful début of the famous flotilla, was succeeded by Rear-Adm. Bruix, who directed Rear-Adm. La Crosse to take the command, and to make a second attack upon the islands. This, however, the French Government declined to make.-ED.] HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.-[" Among the literary celebrities of the French Revolution was Helen Maria Williams, at whose house were wont to assemble the most distinguished of the liberal writers of France, her own reputation giving considerable éclat to these meetings. She wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in our language, was a prisoner under the reign of terror, and published a work on the French Revolution which is full of the most touching incidents, and adorned with specimens of the ardent and pathetic poetry, the product of French genius under the excitement of those most mysterious days. A. Humboldt was much attached to her, and committed to her care the translation and publication of some of his most elaborate works. "She had two nephews, ATHANAS and CHARLES COQUEREL, whom she educated, and who both attained considerable fame, one in the theological and the other in the political field. Athanas was for some time the preacher in the Protestant Church at Amsterdam, and married the daughter of a Swiss gentleman, the only person I have ever known on the Continent to adopt the dress and profess the opinions of an English Quaker. Miss Williams maintained intimate relations with her English friends, was familiar with the great lights of the Revolution, and her conversation was most instructive, entertaining, and varied. All her sympathies were on the side of freedom, and though she was not so prominent as to be persecuted by the Emperor, like Madame de Stael, she was the object of a good deal of suspicion and narrowly watched by the police."-Autobr. Recollections by Sir John Bowring, pp. 353-4. — ED.] MISS WILLIAMS, for some years, wrote that portion of the New Annual Register which relates to France. Among many other productions she was the author of the song Ecan Banks (to the tune of Savvarna Delish), which has often been attributed to Burns; a novel called Julia, and a Tour in Switzerland. Horace Walpole called her in his Correspondence a “ 'scribbling trollop". She lived for many years, and until the death of that gentleman-in Paris, 1818-under the protection of JOHN HURFORD STONE, a man of letters, who in the early part of the French Revolution had removed with his wife to Paris, where he formed an intimacy with Miss Williams. She was born about 1762, and died in Paris in 1827 as a friend to the Bourbons, and the enemy of the Revolution! This MR. STONE was born at Tiverton in 1763. While in Paris he was in the confidence of the Directory, and became one of the chief printers there. In 1805, he brought out an edition of the Geneva Bible, and published several English reprints; also Miss Williams's translation of HUMBOLDT's Travels. His brother, WM. STONE, was tried in 1796 for High Treason, for holding treasonable correspondence with him.-ED.] ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ. The following exquisite tribute to the memory of an unfortunate republican is written with such a touching |