to the taxes, many of them of great length and intricacy. He continued to hold his office with the highest approbation, and to enjoy the fullest confidence of all the ministers who succeeded Mr. Pitt; and when he began, at an advanced period of life, to feel the necessity of consulting his own ease by retiring, Mr. Vansittart, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, most earnestly pressed him to retain his situation during his own continuance in office. However, in 1823, finding his health decline, he left the Board of Taxes, and retired altogether from public life. A pension was granted to him under a Treasury Minute, dated January 31. 1823, from which the following is an extract :

-

"The records of this Board bear ample testimony to the zeal and ability of Mr. Lowndes, during the time he has acted as Chairman of the Board of Taxes; and as my Lords are satisfied that he has rendered very important public services, they feel it due to Mr. Lowndes to mark their sense of those services, by making his a case of exception to the general regulations of the act, 3 Geo. 4. c. 113. In the exercise of the authority reserved to them by the fifth section of that act, my Lords, taking into consideration Mr. Lowndes's advanced age and important services, are pleased to grant him a retired allowance of 1800l. per annum."

Laborious as was Mr. Lowndes's official life, he was still, by his unwearied industry and careful economy of time, enabled to render considerable services to his country in other departments, as well as to devote much attention to the study of different branches of natural history, in which he took a great interest. In the early part of the revolutionary war, he commanded, as Major, a body of volunteer infantry, raised at Watlington in Oxfordshire and the adjoining parishes; and alien as was such an employment from all his previous pursuits, he acquired such a knowledge of tactics, as enabled him to fulfil his military duties in a more scientific manner than most officers of similar corps. For several years he sat as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Bucks; and filled the office as might have been expected from his

legal attainments and habits of business. When the close of the war in 1815 had somewhat lightened his labours at the Tax-office, he applied himself to the study of botany, and made a considerable collection of rare and valuable plants at his country-house in Oxfordshire. He afterwards turned his active mind to crystallology; and the splendid cabinet of minerals which he left behind him bears ample testimony to the zeal with which he devoted himself to that pursuit.

It is not necessary to draw the virtues of his private life from the shade; yet it may not be useless to record that the Holy Scriptures were the subject of his latest, and by no means of his least diligent studies; and that his extensive charities, many of which have only since his death come to the knowledge of his friends, testify abundantly the warmth of his benevolence towards his fellow-creatures.

Mr. Lowndes died at his house in Weymouth-street, on

the 27th of February, 1828; in the 76th year of his age.

We are indebted for the foregoing Memoir to a private friend of the deceased.

105

No. VIII.

CAPTAIN HUGH CLAPPERTON, R. N.

"We

ANOTHER enterprising and undaunted being, the victim of the attempts to penetrate into the heart of Africa. trust," to use the words of a writer in the Quarterly Review, "there will now be an end to the sacrifice of valuable lives, in prosecuting discoveries on this wretched continent, of which we know enough to be satisfied that it contains little at all worthy of being known; - a continent that has been the grave of Europeans, the seat of slavery, and the theatre of such crimes and misery as human nature shudders to think of."

The family of Captain Clapperton originally came from the north of Scotland, and were formerly of eminence both in the Church and in the Army; a bishop of that name being buried at Inch Colm, in the Firth of Forth, and another individual of the same name at Stockholm, in Sweden, where he attained the rank of field-marshal. The family subsequently came to the south, and resided upon the border of Scotland, in Teviotdale. The grandfather of Captain Clapperton appears to have been a man of considerable talent. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and Paris; and, on his return from the latter city, married a cousin of Colonel Archibald Campbell, of Glenlyon, Perthshire; and at length settled as a physician at Lochmaben, in Dumfriesshire. He had a numerous family, as had also his eldest son George, surgeon in Annan. Dr. Clapperton was a man of some attainments as an antiquary, for he seems to have assembled a large quantity of coins and other antiquities illustrative of the Border Countries, together with a collection of Border Songs, genealogical

accounts, &c. Several of these appear to have fallen into the hands of Sir Walter Scott, and to have been published in his "Notes," &c. to his poems, &c. Mr. George Clapperton married Margaret, daughter of John Johnstone, of Thorwhate and Lochmaben Castle, by whom he had ten or eleven sons, and a daughter. He married a second time, and died at Annan, leaving a widow, with three sons and three daughters. By the two marriages there are eight children surviving, Captain Clapperton was the youngest son by the first marriage. One of his brothers, John, obtained a commission in the marines, and was First Lieutenant on board the Elephant, with the gallant Nelson, in the memorable action off Copenhagen. John died on a voyage from the West Indies in 1803 or 1804. The next brother, George, died at Annan, of a disease contracted in the West Indies, where he was AssistantSurgeon in the Navy; the next, William, an old Navy Surgeon, is still living, as is also a sister, Margaret Isabella. The next brother, Charles Douglas, died a First Lieutenant and Quarter-Master of the Chatham division of Royal Marines, March 23. 1828, after twenty-three years' service. Another brother, Alexander, died on the coast of Africa; and the eldest son, by the second marriage, died at Demerara.

Captain Hugh Clapperton was born at Annan, in the year 1788. From circumstances that need not here be detailed, he did not receive any classical education. When he could do little more than read and write indifferently, he was placed under the tuition of Mr. Bryce Downie; a man of general information, though chiefly celebrated as a mathematician.* Under him, he acquired a knowledge of practical mathematics, including navigation and trigonometry. Mr. Downie, though now blind with age, still possesses a vigorous memory, and speaks with affection of the lamented traveller. He describes him as having been an apt scholar, as well as a most obliging boy; and we are told that at this period the extremes

* Mr. Downie was mathematical teacher to the Rev. Edward Irving.

of temperature made little impression on Clapperton's "iron frame."

At the age of seventeen Clapperton was bound an apprentice to the sea, and became the cabin-boy of Captain Smith, of the Postlethwaite of Maryport, to whose notice he was kindly recommended by the late Mr. Jonathan Nelson of Port-Annan. The Postlethwaite, a vessel of large burden, traded between Liverpool and North America, and in her he repeatedly crossed the Atlantic, distinguished even when a mere youth for coolness, dexterity, and intrepidity. On one occasion, the ship, when at Liverpool, was partly laden with rock-salt, and as that commodity was then dear, the mistress of a house which the crew frequented very improperly enticed Clapperton to bring her a few pounds ashore in his handkerchief. After some entreaty the youth complied, probably from his ignorance of the revenue laws, was caught in the act by a custom-house officer, and menaced with the terrors of trial and imprisonment unless he consented to go on board the Tender. He immediately chose the latter alternative, and after being sent round to the Nore, was draughted on board the Clorinde frigate, commanded by a very gallant officer, who is now the Hon. Captain Briggs. Here he was ranked as a man before the mast; but feeling a desire to better his situation, he addressed a letter, detailing his mishap and recent history, to a friend, Mr. Scott, banker, in Annan, who had always taken a warm interest in the family. Mr. Scott, as the likeliest channel that occurred to him, applied to Mrs. General Dirom, of Mount Annan, who happened to be related to the Hon. Captain Briggs; and through the influence of that lady, combined with his own professional merit, the brave Clapperton was speedily promoted to the rank of midshipman; a circumstance which tended, in no mean degree, to fix his destiny, and shape his future fortunes in life. It has often been remarked, that what at first appears to be a misfortune, is sometimes the happiest thing that can befal us, and so it chanced in the present instance. Had he remained in the American or coasting trade, he might have become first