with suitable pictures and statues of naval heroes and their glorious atchievements, in which Lord Nelson and his transcendent actions must for ever stand pre-eminently conspicuous, would far surpass, in genuine grandeur, perhaps, and certainly in rational and philosophical contemplation, the loftiest and most stupendous pillar or pyramid ever raised by human art and industry, for little other purpose than to attract the gaze of profitless admiration, with the vain attempt of mocking the powers of tempests and of time, by which the proudest of these trophied monuments must necessarily be bowed to subjection, and finally crumbled into dust.  The solitary hermitage, which shelters a single hoary head, is more interesting to the feeling heart than the proudest display of barren pomp that neither rises over the tomb of departed worth nor affords any living mortal a comfortable habitation.  The grand naval pillar, to commemorate the battle off the Nile, for which a large sum was some years since subscribed, without any previously decided plan, and which is said to be still undisposed of, if employed in erecting a respectable edifice for the residence of those brave veterans by whom that battle was fought, and such of their successors, for ever, as should live to find such a residence desirable, might be so constructed and endowed, with the money contributed, as to afford a higher satisfaction to the subscribers; a superior, and perpetually renewable, memorial of the event; and a far more gratifying object of contemplation, even for such of the brave heroes who may never need such a sanctuary; than the loftiest and most embellished obelisk that human ingenuity can ever devise, or human industry execute.  This is a subject on which the author could with pleasure dilate; and the promotion of which he would gladly assist, in every way, with all his slender abilities:  but, at present, it is an agreeable reverie, in which he feels that he must no longer indulge.

He will, however, transcribe one of Lord Nelson’s letters written on the subject which led to this digression, as a satisfactory proof of his lordship’s attention to the mercantile interests of his country in that respect, and at this particular period.

     “Palermo, 25th Feb. 1799.

     “GENTLEMEN,

“I have received your letter of the 23d.  I can assure you, I have always the greatest pleasure in paying attention to the representations of the masters of merchant ships; who, at this distance, act for their owners in Great Britain.  I can have no difficulty in granting you a convoy to Leghorn; but it is my duty to again point out to you the expressions of Mr. Windham’s several letters, and the request of the English factory at Leghorn to Captain Louis:  and, at the same time, you must be sensible that an English man of war cannot always lay in the neutral port; and I expect, that the Minotaur is now on her passage to join me.  If, under all these circumstances, you still