late fires at Portsmouth and Bristol, for which the incendiary is put to death. But will an act of Parliament prevent such men as Jack the Painter from coming into the world, or control them when they are in it? You might as well bring in a bill to prevent the appearance or regulate the motions of a comet. John the Painter was so far from fearing death, that he courted it; was so far from concealing his act, that he told full as much as was true, to his own conviction. When once a villain turns enthusiast, he is above all law; punishment is his reward, and death his glory. But, though this law will be useless against villains, it is dangerous and may be fatal to many an innocent person. There is not an honest industrious carpenter or sailor who may not be endangered in the course of his daily labour. They are constantly using fire and combustible matter about shipping, tarring and pitching and caulking. Accidents are continually happening; and who knows how many of those accidents may be attributed to design? Indeed, the act says the firing must be done wilfully and maliciously, but judges and juries do not always distinguish rightly between the fact and the intention. It is the province of a jury only to try the fact by the intention; but they are too apt to judge of the intention by the fact. Justices of the peace, however, are not famed for accurate and nice distinctions; and all the horrors of an ignominious death would be too much to threaten every honest shipwright with for what may happen in the necessary work of his calling.

"But, as I think punishment necessary for so heinous an offence, and as the end of all punishment is example,

of the two modes of punishment I shall prefer that which is most profitable in point of example. Allowing, then, the punishment of death its utmost force, it is only short and momentary; that of labour permanent; and so much example is gained in him who is reserved for labour more than in him who is put to death, as there are hours in the life of the one beyond the short moment of the other's death."

Mr. Henry Dundas, M.P. for Edinburgh, Lord Advocate, here spoke against the motion.

The bill was ordered to be reported, but it dropped. The present law with regard to the burning in docks is this:-By the 24th and 25th Vic., c. 97, sec. 4, whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously set fire to any station, engine-house, warehouse, or other building belonging or appertaining to any railway, port, dock, or harbour, or to any canal or other navigation, shall be guilty of felony, and liable to penal servitude for life, or not less than three years, or to imprisonment not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement; and if a male under sixteen years, with or without whipping.

By the Act for the Government of the Navy, the 24th and 25th Vic., c. 115, article 30, every person subject to this act who shall unlawfully set fire to any dockyard, victualling-yard, or steam-factory yard, arsenal, magazine, building, stores, or to any ship, vessel, hoy, barge, boat, or other craft, or furniture thereunto belonging, not being the property of an enemy, pirate, or rebel, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as is hereinafter (in the act) mentioned.

THE TRIAL OF ADMIRAL KEPPEL.

THE trial of Admiral Byng, and, in a less flagrant degree, that of Lord George Sackville, had revealed the existence of a mode of prosecution fraught with danger in the hands of a weak or malignant administration. The means thus invented, were to throw upon the commander of an expedition which, from some cause over which he had no control, and possibly from the fault of Government itself, did not succeed, all the blame and penalty of the failure. Unlike the noble and friendly reception which Rome, in the days of its great and glorious contest with Carthage, gave to the defeated consul Terentius Varro, because he had not despaired of the Commonwealth ;-a British general or admiral, however distinguished on other occasions, was to be met, on his return from any mischance, with opprobrium, criminal prosecution, and probably death. Fortunately for the constitutional character of England, and the dignity and independence of its military and naval service, this plan, when attempted for the third time, utterly and signally failed. Admiral Keppel was, indeed, not the man for such an attack, nor was the time of it suitable either. His own credit as a commander and a man of sterling worth, and his popularity, stood on the very

firmest basis; and he belonged to the influential Whig party, which was then rising fast into power over a ministry as rapidly sinking under the disasters of the American War. Poor Byng had but his merit to protect him, and he perished; a better chance let Lord George Sackville off with his bare life; but Keppel had the public around him, and had not only the people in his favour, but also a giant band of personal friends. With such protectors as Rockingham, Burke, Fox and Sheridan, persecution might do its worst: he was invulnerable. The only thing to wonder at now is, the madness of a Government which could participate in such a prosecution against him. His trial is really a somewhat dull affair, as much from the certainty of his acquittal as from the prolixity of the details; yet it must be ever read with the deepest interest by all who advocate the free action and the fair latitude that should be allowed to every man who has to command the army or the navy of the British empire.

Before entering into the trial itself, it may be as well to give a short biographical sketch of the previous career of Admiral Keppel.

The Rt. Hon. Augustus Keppel, Viscount Keppel, of Elvedon, in the county of Suffolk, P.C., an admiral of Great Britain, and for some time First Lord of the Admiralty, one of the pre-eminent seamen of our naval history, was, like the unfortunate Admiral Byng, of aristocratic birth and descent: he was the second son of Sir William Anne* Keppel, K.G., second Earl of

* Queen Anne had stood for this peer, in person, as his godmother, and hence his second Christian name of Anne.

Albemarle, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Charles Lennox, K.G., first Duke of Richmond; and was the grandson of the famous friend and companion-in-arms of William III., Arnold-Joost Van Keppel, Lord of Voorst, whose aid to William in his acquisition of the throne at the Revolution was rewarded with the earldom of Albemarle, and other minor titles in the peerage of Great Britain. Augustus Keppel, the future admiral, was born on the 2nd of April, 1725, and entered the royal navy when thirteen years of age. He was a midshipman on board Commodore Anson's ship, the Centurion, in his voyage round the world, in 1740. Of the dangers, distresses, and advantages of that celebrated expedition, he therefore had his share: in particular, at the taking of Paita, by Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral Sir Peircy) Brett. In 1741 he had a very narrow escape; for, having on a jockey cap, one side of the peak was shaved off close to his temple by a ball, which, however, did him no other injury. Having been appointed, while still in his teens, in the course of that voyage, a lieutenant, he, soon after his return, in February, 1745, took post rank as captain of the Maidstone, 40, and was very successful in capturing several French privateers; but on July 7, 1747, as he was giving chase to one, running too near shore on the coast of France, near Nantes, his ship was unfortunately lost himself and crew were saved. Keppel's picture, admirably painted by his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, represents him as just escaped from that shipwreck. Being soon exchanged, and returning to England in 1747, he was one of the court-martial on the trial of Captain Fox, of the Kent, who, for misbeha