"'No. 20,'" read he,--"what does that mean?" "The twentieth bottle launched, perhaps," said I, and he went on--"'For Godsake, if you find this, keep to the south-west--we are going that way, we think--we've fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear--just from the folly of these three--(they're looking over my shoulder, though)--we are not ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched--yours in haste--' What this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either!" "Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder," said I, trying to make it out. "By the powers! Westwood, though," and I jumped up, "that bottle _might_ have come from the Pacific, 'tis true--but what if it were old Rollock after all! _Thugs_, did you say? Why, I shouldn't wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. _That_ rascally brig!" And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over and over, we both agreed it was nothing but T. ROLLOCK! MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF WALES.[14] We have before us a valuable and interesting work on a portion of the British dominions much visited but little known, and one which is satisfactory, not only from the good feeling and taste it evinces on the part of its author, but also from its setting at rest a question that was lately much agitated, and to which we at the time adverted in our pages for May 1848. Sir Thomas Phillips has taken up the cudgel, or rather the pen, to defend the honour of his beloved country, and has acquitted himself well of the task, partly in combating real opponents, partly in knocking down men of straw. The book, however, comes so far late of its subject as that the interest felt upon it had been gradually subsiding. No very mighty grievance could be alleged by our hot-blooded Cambrian brethren; many hard words and blustering speeches had been uttered throughout the length and breadth of Wales, and a sort of Celtic agitation had been got up by sundry ladies and gentlemen, not much connected with the country. The nation at large, however, had not paid great attention to it; the British lion did not show any indication to lash his sides into foam with his magnanimous tail; the storm in a tea-cup was left to itself: oil had been floating on the face of the troubled waters; and though a few disappointed persons had tried to revive a little excitement, for the sake of "having their names before the public," peace was again reigning throughout Cambria's vales, and her people were following their own simple occupations, unknowing and unknown. Sir Thomas Phillips, however, with a most patriotic motive, determined to fire one shot more against his country's traducers; and thus, while concocting a final reply to the "Blue Books,"--as they are commonly called in the Principality--found himself led on and on, from page to page, and chapter to chapter, until, instead of a pamphlet, he has produced a thick volume of six hundred pages, and has compiled what may be termed a complete apology