y the
pretentions of vain pride, while experienced officers were overlooked, or
disdainfully repulsed, condemned to figure on the lists of the half-pay, of
the _reforms_, and even before the time, which would have called them to a
necessary, or at least legal repose. How burdensome to the State, are these
_retraites_ which render useless, men whose zeal and talents ought to
insure no other than their vessel, who wished but to spend their life there
in uninterrupted service, who would have found there a tomb, the only one
worthy of a French sailor, rather than suffer any thing contrary to duty
and honour. Instead of that, we have seen titles take the reward of
knowledge, repose of experience, and protection of merit. Men proud of
thirty years of obscurity, make them figure on the lists, as passed under
imaginary colours, and this service of a novel description establishes for
them the right of seniority. These men, decorated with ribbons of all
colours, who counted very well the number of their ancestors, but of whom
it would have been useless to ask an account of their studies, being called
to superior commands, have not been able to shew anything but their orders,
and their unskilfulness. They have done more: they have had the privilege
of losing the vessels and the people of the State, without its being
possible for the laws to reach them; and after all, how could a tribunal
have condemned them? They might have replied to their judges, that they had
not passed their time in studying the regulations of the service, or the
laws of the marine, and that, if they had failed, it was without knowledge
or design. In fact, it would be difficult to suppose that they intended
their own destruction; they have but too well proved that they knew how to
provide for their own safety. And what reply could have been made to them,
if they had confined their defence to these two points? We did not appoint
ourselves; it is not we who are to blame.

[50] Just as we are going to send this sheet to the press, we
learn from the newspapers, that this expedition has failed; that it was not
able to proceed above fifty leagues into the interior, and that it returned
to Sierra Leone, after having lost several officers, and among them Captain
Campbell, who had taken the command after the death of Major Peddy. Thus
the good fall and the Thersites live, and are often even honoured. Captain
Campbell was one of our benefactors, may his manes be sensible