The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-10-30 00:00:00

MAAIOND ROCK, Af.4RTINIQUE.

The following account is extracted (min a Le.kr, received in
the Si..riug of the present vear t)ur iinseine
will be anti Iby the v.vacity of its St.le, and the Irrel
P,liire it of a Colony of British Stamen, settled;
soi al) singular a spot.

••=.1•1,
DIAMOND *Ong ►et. 17, 1804.
At present, nsy dear friend, take all your roman-
tic ideas about Hlghgate, Hamstead, and the lower
regions of Norwood Forest, or even your own Chal-
font, and burn them, to make room for a set of rew
ones, as wild as those of Crusoe, and more true.
There is in this hemisphere, an island called Mar-
tiniqu:, belonging to the French, as you well know;
and there is ne kr it, in the middle of the sea, a huge
rock, called the Diamond, from its shape, I suppose,
which vety likely you do not know. This rock has
stood, since the creation, no doubt, without man,
bold as he is, ever daring to venture near its destruc-
tive form. The surge has beaten against its spiky
splnters for these thousand years, in vain anger,
and the hollow cave still remurmurs to the howling
winds. This mighty rock has been gazed at by all
nations, but trodden by none ; sea crabs alone have
ventured up into its holes, and birds of prey have
alone ascended to its rugged summits. Behold the
genius of the dee: the genius of British enterprise !
It is n n a month since all this was, and now the

voice of sung and labour resounds through every
part of it ; wigwams and thatching% cuts and ham-
mocks, appear in every hole; the pot and kettle s
smoke ascend% and the light glimmers in the cavi-
tics where sea birds and bats formerly built their
nests. IVltere was the boasted ingenuity of French
engi e.ring ? It was too tremendous for their skill.
Nose they stand on the shore with their spy-glasses,
and wonder, as the wise-acres did when Columbu,
gave the egg the mighty thump. Yet think not, my
dear friend, that I have conjured up the genius of
Fancy. More than I can say, and more than you
can believe, have been accomplished by the fertile
enterprise or Commodore Hood, mid the indefatiga-
ble extrtievis of she Centaur alone Believe me, I
shall never take off my hat for any thing less than a
British seaman.

Were you to see how, along a dire, and, I had
almost said, a perpendicular acclivity, the sailors
are hanging in clusters, hauling up a four-aad-
twenty-pounder by hawsers. you would wonder !
they appear like mice. hauling a little sausage e
scat cely can we hear the Governor on the top. Is.
reeling them with his trumpet, the Crutour lying
close under it. like a cocoa-shell, to which the
h.ossers are fixed. From that ship, which you
must know is a seventy-four, issued forth carpenters,
smiths. tunnels, miners, machines. engines and di-
reAors, and also your friend, their humble historian,
who thus Attempts to describe their gigantic ex-
ploits, though his pencil is unable to keep pace with
their 141inurs. I have a thousand things to tell you
about myseh, but nothing can I think of relating,
while a microscope would hardly discover so dims.
otitis's. a being. stuck in same crevice of this tremen-
dous piece ot grotto work, which is itself scarcely a
cArbo,.cle on the nose of the West Indies. Hem I

have lived son a munch, drawing from morning till
night, f-ec as the goat that browses on the rock, and
baryy as the bromiings of fancy, and the goodie-s
ef every body around me, can make a mortal, in the
Elysium of ideas, and the luxury of high feelings.
But I will now endeavour at something more like
method, lest you should conceive the heat, which is
excessive, has disordered my brain more than it usu.
ally is The aright of the Diamond is six hundred
feet, meesure.l by a quadrant on board of the Ulysses;
its circumference is not quite a mile, Martinique
being dos.• by within three quarters of a mile. The
south side of the rock is inaccessible, it beiag a Au
steep, like a wall. sloping a little towards the top,
and the grass climbing up. The east side is also
inaccessible. whh an overhanging cave about three
hundred yrds highs on the south west side also are
eaves of great magnitude, but perfectly impregnable
from that side. The west has breakers running in-
to the sea, where the people first landed ; here a
guard is placed. and a lodgment made for stores;
the landing is sometimes very dangerous, and at
best you must creep on your hands and feet,
through crannies, till you wind to the north west
• side. every moment endangering your neck. should
you sap. At last you reach the north-west, and
here a slope of green fig trees, a beautiful grove,
fix telicsies the eye: chi. grove mounts up, under
an inenense grouo winch overhangs it, and here is
nog the 'ant of the governor, Captain M—. Close
by stands the tent which I inhabit; our family consists
of a Newfoundland Jog, a c4t and kitten, and such
wild sparrows and ralms as chuse to visit us.
The surge often drives tae pray as high as I sit :
It is a music of which the ear never tires. I mess
with Captain Moires, and we generally have visitors;
she link of good nature is never broken, and we are
as profusely liberal as oar circumstances and sinks.
tion will admit. Each lends the other his spoon, a
pen knife serves to cut up a jcint, arid fingers are
substitutes for forks. the language of the heart
fl,.ws here as purely as at the proudest board of
ticklish tasty; it is unadulterated from the source of
nature. A bottle of ni ideira and claret follows
dinner, to the remembrance of out friends in Eng-
land. Fish, melons, .3.c. are somninies brought
from the Martinique shores, by the small boats

which venture from gain or curiosity. We throw
the shot upon their shore, and bring ev ry boat to
if we please. In the evening we walk in the
Queen's battery, thus tracing nur rocky pub along
the over•hanging ridge, to the summit. where our
little brotherly tents spread their canvas on cross

sticks, and are barricidoed with -tones. Warmed
by the genial bowl, we shake hands. hid good night,
retire up in the dried grass, and, rolled is blankets,
sleep shuts our weary eye•lids. while neither fear nor
one.tsiness intrudes on our repose. At night, the
continual roaring of the sea Selow is only iaterrupted
by the replies of watching sentinels above, or the
skretuns in the tropic bird, who sweeps from the top
to the water ro catch fish, wash he providently lays
up ;a his nest to feed on be day. If then, some-
tinses, the thought of those *distant beings, dear to
atfeaion, keep my senses awake, I behil.l the starry
face .•f the heavies' as I lean on my elhs•ve, the sea
atretchingbefore me her inaneam•. blue domain.
acid. trascing to the wakeful • y- of Providence, I
sir.k in rvfletlion, thought dissolves, and oblivion
removes every trace t,um the tablet of memory.
• in the rock, but they are
tccasion the gripes. Some

tanks, however, are building, and almost finished,
which will in one day catch as much rain-water
irons the sock as will serve the colony for half a
year. The place is very healthy, notwithstanding
which an hospital has ken begun, and the walls
are already mounting. I know not what the good
people of England will think of so hazardous an
undertaking, in a place where no spade can make
impression, and where every thing is blown and
torn from it by mining ; the lime fetched hom St.
Lucia ; the bricks cut out with gunpowder; 5,lwS,
hammers, anvils, &c. made out of old anchors ;
forges going, and all this within the• short time of
about six weeks ; for my own part, I am astonished
at the efforts of a single ship's crew. But, how-
ever perilous of access, the sailors build, like sea-
bilda, their nest in the most terrific caves. Like
busy ants the crew creep about the rude MASS j
every where they are at work; the saw, the anvil,
the axe, the grating file, resoned ; mines explode,
and the flying fragments rend the air.
The seamen call their coming hem gold, viers'
and so powerfnl is this liberty-looking wildness of
nature to the mind, that they return to the ship
with teludance, though often, while here, deprived
of every comfort and allowance. Here they will
work twice as hard. and conceal their tieing ill, and
even die without help, rather than leave die barren
rock to return on hoard. A few days ago, the
Centaur drifted, was driven to sea, And we were
left without ward; but, whatever I may have read
of Roman heroism, I every day see mnre striking
instances of that virtue among British seamen,
Thirsty, and often ivi'hoot brea 1, in the heat of the
sun on this comfortless, and at present barren
roek. in the face of the enemy, who is er-fting Ivo
works to throw booths, they remove rocks, colonise
a flinty soil without intermission and without
murmurs, and can still generously share the little
which they have left. Here I have found, that
the fine sayings of love of country, and the hearty
wisTbes of our native land, flow from the genuine
waumth of the heart, and evaporate not like the
ett !sions of the bottle. or the vanntisigs of plenty
an a full belly. Here, resolutions are formed in
thecface of want, and executed in despite of fate.
Thd boat's crew who cut out the derteur brig from
under the batteries of Fort P.oyal, wore true beet
euertipttene sir" of His Majesty. When the 111:1' ines
w e gone from the rock the other da . on an exec-
di on, and in the middle of the night, the alarm
was gives, and every man was in five minutes ad the
batteries to defend Ms Alejedy's rut k. The expres-
sions which, in the momentary eapeaation of dan-
ger, hunt from the loyalty and courag-ous hive of
country of our sailors, wouil shame the brightest
passage of admired Sophocles ; and often would the
death of an humble tar appear with greater lustre
than the laboured exit of a splendid monarch.
The manner of feeling which nature has given
you is so different from the many. that I dare write
to yea in the language which costs me no trouble in
composing. lam now sitting on the top of a rock,
and an old barrel is m) desk ; with no other library
than a blank pocket book that I bought at I. al-
mouth, and in which I both write what I think, and
I draw what I see.

Were it not for the duties which I owe to my
family, and for the strong alley:Non which I bear
them. I could stay on this rock all the das s I have
to live. It is to me one of thus spots on earth
which are truly desirable; it breathes all the inde-
pendence of nature; it is large enough for the cu.
rious enquirer of all the year round, yet hot ton large
to be grasped by the mind every moment, or to be
aßaally overrun in a few hours. Not far away from
the rest of the world, it enjoys an everlasting sciing.
sheltered from heat and rain. so Mat in the heaviest
shower you may breakfast and cline in the open tar ;
and behold the hurricane rage below a t.l arnun
while you indulge in the gentle breeze. The habit-
able part, of which I have spoken. is like a horse-
shoe, the favourite shape of popular theatres, c-
vered with a canopy of rock. But what are ail
theatres to this ? The Roman theatre is a child's
card house to it 1 The morning dawn. ; the whole
world waits as she draws the curtain; the air is still,
the ocean blasts, and the hills catch fire! Thus shine,
methinks, the words and *lions of good men,
unlacquered with the leargold of fashion. An
everlasting clia.tge of scenery is displayed ; see the
clouds encircling the tops of the mountains i now
the sea, swept in showers, and curling with squalls;
now the su:i gilding the sugar-cane fields; the
sublime of nature is here so quickly and so agree-
ably mixed wits the beautiful, that the milid has
not time to be satiated with °lleac When you
are on the top, you behold the wide world and the
Eteat ocean : the sublime fastens on the soul ; crea-
tion can present nothing more grand. Whrn sou
descend. the green land, where you may see the
carriag. s travel, and count the feeding sheep.
sweetly relieves and beautifies the scene ; nor bas
the trouble of descending sularatted from the
pleasure. You have a sound appetite. a cheer( I
spirit. and you glory in health and existence So
natural is the inborn lure of the sublime, that could
any inhabitant of it city pop his head nut and beh..ld
so wide a field of nature, his soul would be instantly
immerged in it. and he would forget all his little
concerns; and so sweet is the change from it to the
minute and beautiful, that after so trying a sight, you
examine an ii.tet or a flower with indium pleasure,
sinking into the calmness of relaxation.

Friday last the Honingham Volunteers were re.
viewed by General Minsse ; after which the of.
Seers, and a 'cleft party of friends, dined with Lord
Ba ruin. at Honingham Hall.
Excessive rains, day and night. have within a
fortnight fallen in Cumberland, thereby rendering
the roads :Limon impassable; and, at length, the
diTerent bridges in the suburbs of Carlisle were
inacces.il,le, being surrounded with water. On
Ttwsday morning, the united rivers of Caldew and
Eden, over Sowing their banks on all sides, pre-
sented to the eye one undistinguished sheet of water,
which, washing the Stanwix banks, comple:ely de-
loged the Holmes, the iwifts, de. Some acres of
potatoes, and of newly-sown wheat, bordering on
these rivers, being a loose we-c not able to
resist the impetuosity of the ailed, which had now
risen to an alarming lleight : Several shsep and
pittng cattle, grazing on Rickerby Holmes, were
also swept away. «e can narrate no other
unless it he that of a Jray4sorse. which was drt)Wiltod
in another situation.

A
From Oct. 1

OR,
Cuciret (Ace.

RETURN OF FLOt
3 to Um. 19, from the

&advt. s• d. 1 S.eks •,. d.
14 SO 0 702.. ....72 0

Sacks e. d
71 67 0

01 74 01 166.. • . .71 0 114 66 0
11144 75 0 3797 '0 n •.4 63 0
390 '4 0 1n.... ...*^ 6 •0. 64 0
724 74 0 111....... 69 0 •7. 61 0
61 72 6 $3 .44 U Sin ..... . 54 •
Total--21,470 Sacics.—...A•e-age 758. I id.
Se. 71.1. hither than 1a.% Return.

1 hoe are some springs
of aultacralutlure• and')