they have named themselves) may be provided for. It
is a well-known fact, that there is hardly a peer in the upper House, or
many representatives of the people in the lower, who are not, or who
anticipate to be, under some obligation to this Company by their
relations or connections being provided for in those distant climes; and
it is this bribery (for bribery it is, in whatever guise it may appear)
that upholds one of the most glaring, the most oppressive of all
monopolies, in the face of common sense, common justice and common
decency. Other taxes are principally felt by the higher and middling
classes; but this most odious, this most galling tax, is felt even in
the cottage of the labourer, who cannot return to refresh himself after
his day of toil with his favourite beverage without paying twice its
value out of his hard-earned pittance, to swell the dividend of the
Company, and support these _pruriencies_ of noble blood.

And yet, deprecating the evils arising from the system of entail, I must
acknowledge that there are no other means by which (in a monarchical
government) the desirable end of upholding rank is to be obtained. I
remember once, when conversing with an American, I inquired after one or
two of his countrymen, who but a few years before were of great wealth
and influence. To one of my remarks he answered, "In our country all
the wealth and power at the time attached to it does not prevent a name
from sinking into insignificance, or from being forgotten soon after its
possessor is dead, for we do not entail property. The distribution
scatters the amassed heap, by which the world around him had been
attracted; and although the distribution tends to the general
fertilisation of the country, yet with the disappearance, the influence
of the possessor and even his name are soon forgotten."

These remarks, as will appear in the sequel, are apposite to the parties
which I am about to introduce to the reader. As, however, they are
people of some consequence, it may appear to be a want of due respect on
my part, if I were to introduce them at the fag-end of a chapter.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.

"'Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove,
Alternate change of climates has he known,
And felt the fierce extremes of either zone,
Where polar skies congeal th' eternal snow,
Or equinoctial suns for ever glow;
Smote by the freezing or the scorching blast,
A ship-boy on the high and gi