Volume, which, even in this respect, are not wholly divested of a claim to his approbation? whilst, in another view, there is an advantage perceptibly gained, too obvious to be particularized, although not too small to be felt, which may prove no unsubstantial compensation to him, for what is lost in splendor of type, or width of margin. A tribute of liberal acknowledgment is due from the Editor, before he closes his remarks, to the merits of that authentic record of maritime facts and discoveries, "The Naval Chronicle ;" to the rich and various stores of nautical intelligence dispersed through the pages of which, he has been largely and constantly indebted in the prosecution of his extensive plan. The Editor takes this opportunity of recalling to the recollection of sea-officers in particular, a part of the prospectus by which that respectable miscellany was originally announced to public notice and patronage. "In common with the rest of our countrymen we have long beheld with exul tation the progress of our naval power. It has grown up with the dignity of the british name, and has attained a colossal stature that appals our enemies, and awes the surrounding nations. What the venerable CAMDEN, in the year 1605, said concerning Britaine, is still, and we trust ever will be, descriptive of its character :—' It is walled and guarded with the ocean, most commodious for trafficke to all parts of the world, and watered with pleasant, fishful, and navigable rivers, which yield safe havens and roads, and furnished with shipping and sailers, that it may rightly be termed The Lady of the Sea. "A work, therefore, comprehending all the naval circumstances of Great Britain, must be interesting to its inhabitants. We have laid an extensive basis; and the superstructure we shall raise upon it, will, at least, be such as every true patriot shall approve. The literary department embraces every subject connected with the navy; and, we presume, will often be enriched by the communications of naval friends. Biography shall be executed with delicacy and correctness, and possess all the variety which a periodical work will allow. Portraits of naval officers will occasionally be introduced, when an opportunity occurs of making engravings from original pictures. "The difficulty which a naval officer experiences, when confined to the limits of his station, of becoming acquainted with what is going on amid the literary and philosophical world, will induce us to review the principal works that are published, interesting to the naval profession. The leisure of the mariner will be cheered and improved by that • The Mabal Chronicle, containing a General and Biographical History of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom; with a variety of Original Papers on Nautical Subjects.— Under the guidance of several Literary and Professional Men. Published in Monthly Numbers, price 3s. each, or in half-yearly Volumes, half-bound, 14. 1s. by Joyce GOLD, Naval-Chronicle Office, 103, Shoe-lane, London; where alo may be had single Numbers, or Volumes, for the purpose of completing series. variety of information which we shall be enabled to furnish. Whatever tends to elucidate the history of the navy, wil! be constantly brought forward; and we hope, by this means, to preserve and make known many papers, that would be irrecoverably lost. Nautical poems, and lyric poetry on naval subjects, which have long formed a peculiar feature in our national character, and come home to every british heart, will be carefully collected. Commerce is intimately connected with the present subject, and will occasionally come under consideration. To call the attention of the mariner to such objects of natural history as may often present themselves to him, will also be a part of our duty. Treatises, or essays, which relate to naval architecture and the improvement of navigation, will be particularly considered. Nor will any subject that may render the Maval Chronicle an useful, instructive, and interesting work, be omitted. "Such are the outlines of our plan; and we shall leave the public to judge from performance, and not by what we promise. Much of our success will necessarily depend on the patronage and assistance of professional men; yet, as the work comprises what is so calculated to invite a general attention, we trust its pages will prove acceptable to all ranks. Designs of sea views and naval engagements, will, from their accuracy, prove an excellent source of instruction to all who wish to perfect themselves in naval perspective. They will also enable others, whose avocations have not allowed them to contemplate the grandeur of the ocean, and the wooden walls of old England, to form a more just idea of these sublime objects. "In the present critical situation of Great Britain, it behoves every one to afford whatever assistance is in his power to promote the general welfare, that the designs of turbulent and restless spirits may be defeated. Our principles are from the old school: they are decided and firm:-and we trust that our patrons will have no reason to disclaim them." The first number of that publication, (which in truth is the groundwork of this,) appeared on the 1st of January 1799, and it has been continued until the present time, without interruption. It occupies a space in literature heretofore much neglected; the novelty of its design and tendency, the meritorious exertions by which, it has been uninterruptedly continued down to the present time, and the liberal mode in which the work is conducted, all combine, in the estimation of the Editor of Robinson Crusoe, who has for some years supervised the hydrographical section of the Naval Chronicle, to fairly entitle it to a distinguished place in every nautical library, and to the steady practical support of naval men; who, "In native vigor bold, by freedom led, No path of honor have they failed to tread : Of the time and labor of research bestowed upon this present undertak ing it becomes not the Editor to say much that they have neither been inconsiderable, nor without anxiety, those will easily credit who are best qualified to appretiate the task. If they shall prove at all successful in rendering the admirable work on which they have been expended more extensively useful, in revealing more perfectly its intrinsic worth, its sources of knowledge and various delight; if especially, they may be found instrumental in advancing the interests of nautical tuition, facilitating the science of hydrography to the juvenile scholar, and scattering here and there a flower to enliven and embellish the more rugged parts of his paths: if such should be the happy fruit of those exertions which the Editor now commends finally to the favor of his readers, the recompense of many waking, and some tedious, hours, will reach him in a way of all the others the most grateful to his mind. ROBINSON CRUSOE. I WAS born in the year 1652, at York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner from Bremen named Kreutznaer, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, retired to York; from whence he had married my mother, whose relatives were named Robinson, and after whom I was so called, that is to say, Robinson-Kreutznaer; but by the corruption of words usual in England, we are commonly called, as 1 now write my name, Crusoe. I had two elder brothers; one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle against the Spaniards near Dunkirk.* What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my parents did know what was become of me. Being the third son of the family, and not bred unto any trade, my head began to be filled early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very aged, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house education and a country free school generally goes, and designed me for the law: but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea: and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me. My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against. what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving my father's house, and my native country; where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, aspiring to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found, by long experience, was the best state in the world; the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind; and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the hap piness of this state by this one thing; namely, that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in Oliver Cromwell, being confirmed in his protectorship by parliament, concluded a league with France, conditionally that the protector should assist the French with 6000 men; and that they should be put in possession of Mardyk and Dunkirk when taken; while on the other hand the princes of the house of Stuart and all persons who adhered to their fortunes should be expelled from France, Cromwell sent his stipulated succours, which wrought wonders in that expedition, not under the command of Reynolds and Lockhart, two successive ambassadors at the court of France, as many historians have erroneously recorded, but under General Morgan; as that brave soldier has avouched under his hand in a curious tract of the Harleian collection, entituled :-A true and just relation of Major-general Sir Thomas Morgan's progress in France and Flanders with the six-thousand English in the years 1657 and 1658 at the taking of Dunkirk and other im portant places as it was delivered by the general himself. (London 1699.) the middle of the two extremes, between the little and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the just standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches. He bade me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes : nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were, who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet, on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues, and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middling fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition; but in easy circumstances, gliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they are happy; and learning, by every day's experience, to know it more sensibly. After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself into miseries which nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have provided against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread; that he would do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and happy in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that must hinder it; and that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt: In a word, that as he would do very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at home, as he directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes as to give me any encouragement to go away: and, to close all, he told me I had my elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going into the Low-country wars, but could not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army; and though, he said, he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me; and I would have leisure, hereafter, to reflect upon having neglected his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my recovery. In this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic, I observed the tears ran down his face very plentifully, especially when he spoke of my brother; and that, when he spoke of ny having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved, that he broke off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me. I was sincerely affected with this discourse: as, indeed, who could be otherwise? and I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home, according to my father's desire. But, alas! a few days wore it all off: and, in short, to prevent any of my father's further importunities, in a few weeks after I resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did not act so hastily, neither, as my first heat of resolution prompted; but I took my mother, at a time when I thought her a little pleasanter than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world, that I should never settle to any thing with resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go without it; that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade, or clerk to an * Proverbs: xxx. 8. |