Let the old sea-hero rest now, honoured of France, in his native Cevennes mountains; send smoke, not of gunpowder, but mere culinary smoke, through the old chimneys of the Castle of Jales,--which one day, in other hands, shall have other fame.

Brave Laperouse shall by and by lift anchor, on philanthropic Voyage of Discovery; for the King knows Geography.

(August 1st, 1785.) But, alas, this also will not prosper: the brave Navigator goes, and returns not; the Seekers search far seas for him in vain.
He has vanished trackless into blue Immensity; and only some mournful mysterious shadow of him hovers long in all heads and hearts.
Neither, while the War yet lasts, will Gibraltar surrender.

Not though Crillon, Nassau-Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there; and Prince Conde and Prince d'Artois have hastened to help.

Wondrous leather-roofed Floating-batteries, set afloat by French-Spanish Pacte de Famille, give gallant summons: to which, nevertheless, Gibraltar answers Plutonically, with mere torrents of redhot iron,--as if stone Calpe had become a throat of the Pit; and utters such a Doom's-blast of a No, as all men must credit.