On the evening before the ships sailed, Sir Fowell wrote to Captain Trotter from Leamington. April 13. 1841. "My dear friend, "Once more I bid you farewell. I need not, I am sure, repeat to you the extreme interest with which I shall follow you; nor the earnest prayers which my heart will pour forth for your welfare and prosperity. You will find all that I feel at this time, regarding you and your whole party, in the 121st Psalm. May I beg you to convey to Captain W. Allen, Lieutenants Fishbourne and Strange, Dr. Mc William, and indeed to each of your officers, my very best wishes and regards. With my best regards, and with the sympathy of us all for Mrs. Trotter, I once more crave that the blessing of the Lord may be with you in your mission of peace and mercy. Your's ever, most faithfully, * * "P.S. April 14. "T. FOWELL BUXTON." How ardently I trust that you are steaming away to your satisfaction this blowing day. The expression is often on my lips, and always in my heart, 'Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave, Impel the bark, whose errand is to save.'" RETURN HOME. THE NIGER EXPEDITION, ITS SUCCESSES AND - THE THE SOUDAN AND WILBERFORCE SENT DOWN THE RIVER. THE NEWS REACHES ENGLAND. OF SIR FOWELL BUXTON. THE DENSE POPULATION. RIVER. - DISTRESS ALBERT PROCEEDS UP THE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE IN SOME SLAVES LIBERATED. — THE NUFIS. INCREASED SICKNESS ON BOARD THE ALBERT.-IT RETURNS TO THE SEA. PERILOUS DESCENT OF THE RIVER. ON BOARD. - DEATH OF CAPTAIN BIRD ALLEN. OPINIONS OF THE COMMISSIONERS AS TO THE EXPEDITION MORTALITY THE departure of the Niger Expedition from the shores of England left Sir Fowell's mind comparatively disengaged. Nothing now remained but to await the issue of the undertaking; and his broken health imperatively demanding attention, he stayed for some weeks at Leamington, under the care of Dr. Jephson. From thence he writes:— To the Rev. Dr. Bunting and Rev. John Beecham, Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. "My dear Friends, Leamington, April 26. 1841. "I regret much that I shall be prevented by indisposition from attending your annual meeting. Do me the favour to accept the enclosed very small and inadequate token of my interest in your missionary operations, more especially those connected with Africa and the West Indies. May God's blessing rest upon all the labours of your Society: may He raise up for you multitudes of new and generous friends; for never was there a time when a greater necessity existed that your hands should be strengthened, and that you should be furnished with the means of embracing other and hitherto neglected fields within the range of your exertions. I must not lose this opportunity of expressing the deep sense I entertain of the benefits which our Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and Civilization of Africa has received from the active and cordial co-operation which each of you has afforded." While on a short visit to Matlock, he writes to Mrs. Johnston : "May 4. 1841. "The thing that has most interested me, and has awakened many old and slumbering feelings, is the circumstance that thirty-nine years ago I spent a Sunday here with the Gurneys on our excursion to the lakes before H. and I were engaged. Could we then have drawn aside the curtain, and have seen what we should be on our next visit to Matlock our youngest child with us on the point of entering Cambridge-letters in our pockets from two of our married children, speaking, in most pleasant terms, of their sons and daughters; could we also have been aware that in the interim I had spent nearly twenty years in Parliament, and that the gracious Lord had blessed my efforts with regard to Slavery and the Slave Trade; -- could we, I say, in the former period have realised what we should be nearly forty years after, how strange but yet cheering would have been the peep into futurity; and now looking back through this long series of years, I am constrained to confess that "goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.” His health having been in a great degree restored under Dr. Jephson's care, he agreed to join his son, 1841. VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 531 and his nephew, Mr. Edmund Buxton, at a moor they had taken in the north of Scotland. Being surrounded by a cheerful party, the month he spent in the wild seclusion of Ausdale, a little shooting-lodge near the top of the Ord of Caithness, proved a time of peculiar pleasure and refreshment to him. Towards the end of his stay there he writes to his younger sons. "Ausdale, Sept. 6. 1841. "To-morrow morning we leave Caithness, and expect to reach London about the 25th instant. Every thing here marks that our visit has come to its natural conclusion. In the first place, all the grouse are killed. We may go out for half a day and not see above a brace; and then our tea, our wine, our marmalade, our currant jelly, our novel, are, some of them quite, and the rest all but, out. We have very much enjoyed being here. Nothing can have been more harmonious and one-minded than our party. We have lived in luxury, and, in one respect, have fared like savages, for our next day's dinner has been playing in the stream or roving in the forest. We have killed rather more than 500 grouse and 70 black game: and I am now going to tell you of certain other exploits of ours, which have created no little sensation in Ausdale House. Two days ago Edmund started, at 4 o'clock in the morning, to go, chiefly on foot, about nine miles, and then to look for a deer. To tell you the truth, I expected he would return very wet, very tired, and unencumbered by any weight of venison. After breakfast Edward and I set off in the same direction, hoping to meet him, and first met his man, who astonished us with the intelligence that he had killed a noble buck. We went on, and found him and Larry with the deer. Larry was in perfect ecstacies, and, though extremely tired, could hardly help dancing every time he looked at the beast. This adventure, you may suppose, did not abate our zeal to get a deer for ourselves, of which, however, there appeared no kind of pro bability. On the Monday morning I had set myself down to my letters, when intelligence was brought that another deer had been seen about the same distance from home. A great calling there was for rifles, and ponies, and balls, and hammers, and we were off immediately. A long and a tedious drag we had, till we reached the shepherd who had discovered the stag. He made us take off our macintoshes, and creep on all-fours till we were about 200 yards from the deer, when, on looking over a little rise, we saw his horns. A few minutes more, and Larry cried out, "He's moving! get up and fire." and fire." When we rose we saw two of them, and we fired at that which presented the best aim. My ball hit him, and he speedily fell dead. "I soon returned home, where I found every body in a state of great excitement, and the whole hamlet turned out to welcome the arrival of the stag. About 7 o'clock Edmund and Edward came in, Edmund having slain another very fine deer, which made our third; and we are all of us at the very pinnacle of glory! "Well, dinner is now coming upon the table, and so ends my epistle. "Ever your affectionate father (who would have been delighted if you had been of the party, and each slain your buck), "T. FOWELL BUXTON." Sir Fowell Buxton now resettled at Northrepps; the season was advancing, and every week increased the anxiety with which tidings of the Niger Expedition were looked for. At length they arrived, dated " August 20. River Niger," and were of the most encouraging character. "With two exceptions," said Captain Trotter," the whole company is in good health." "This," writes Sir Fowell, "I think highly satisfactory; and may God in his mercy grant |