BYRON, the Hon. JoHN, an admiral in the British service, is chiefly known as the author of a " Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Wager on a desolate Island on the coast of Patagonia," and as being the principal actor in that disastrous occasion. He was the second son of William, fourth Lord Byron, and was born on the 8th of Nov. 1723. Having entered the navy at a very early age, he was appointed a midshipman when only eight years old, in 1731, before which time, however, he had made several voyages in a merchantman. In the expe dition which was dispatched against the Spanish settle ments in South America, under Commodore Anson, and which sailed from Portsmouth on the 18th of September 1740, iklr Byron was a lieutenant on board the Wager. The result of this expedition is sufficiently known, from the classical account ol it which was given to the world under the direction of its commander. After doubling Cape Horne, with considerable difficulty, the 'Wager became so disabled in her rigging, that she was unable to keep company, and was at last completely separated from her consorts in the Pacific Ocean. During a vio lent storm which ensued, the crew were exposed to all the apprehensions arising from the dangers of a Ice shore, and as all endem ours to wear the ship olf the land had proved fruitless, every ray of hope was extinguished in the awful night which succeeded. It came on dreadful beyond description, and early hi the morning the ship struck. " In this dreadful situation," says Mr Byron, " she•lay for some little time, every soul on hoard look ing upon the present minute as his last, for there was no thing to be seen but breakers all around us." From this perilous extremity, however, they were relieved by a mountainous sea which hove the ship off ; and soon after she most providentially stuck fast between two rocks, when the day breaking, and the weather clearing up, the crew got safely on shore. This miraculous deliver ance from immediate destruction, though in such circum stances a most desirable event, and the highest object of their wishes, was to many of them only a prolongation of misery. " Whichever way we looked," observes our
author, "a scene of horror presented itself; on one side the wreck, (in which was all that we had in the world to support and subsist us,) together with a boisterous sea, presented us with a most dreary prospect ; on the other, the land did not wear a much more favourable appear ance: desolate and barren, without sign of culture, we could hope to receive little other benefit from it, than the preservation it afforded us from the sea." But for the consequent sufferings, and interesting adventures of Mr Byron, during nearly five years, we must refer to his u Narrative ;" we cannot, however, refrain from present ing to our readers the sum of them, in the beautiful lines of Mr Campbell in his address to (lope : " Friend of the brave ! in peril's darkest hour, Intrepid virtue looks to thee power ; To thee the heart its trembling homage yields, On stormy floods, and carnage cover'd fields.
— such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore The hardy Byron to his native shore :— In horrid clinics, where Chiloe's tempests sweep Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shriek, Scourg'd by the winds, and cradled on the rock : To wake tach joyless morn, and search again The famisli'd haunts of solitary men, Whose race, unyielding as their native storm, Knows not a trace of nature but the form ; Yet, at thy call, the hard% tar pursued, Pale, but inirepid ; sad, but unsubdued ; I'iere'd the deep woods ; and, hailing from afar The moon's pale planet, and the northern star, Paus'd at each dreary cry, unheard before, Ilyzenas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore ; Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime, lle found a warmer world, a milder clinic, A home to rest, a shelter to defend, Peace and repose, a Briton, and a friend.