We have intimated that Mr. Waghorn was both a man of thought and action, but this must be understood with certain marked limitations. Mr. Waghorn’s mind was of that peculiar construction, which appears never to think earnestly except with a view to action. Even that quality, which in other men is of the most ideal kind, and commonly exerts itself in matters of little or no substantiality of fact and purpose, with him partook of the physicality of his strong nature as much as the admixture was possible,—so that he may be said to have had a practical imagination. His objects and designs were welded into all the materials of his understanding and knowledge; his ambitions and hopes were fused with the generation of the mighty steam-forces that were to drive his ships across the ocean and inland seas; the elasticity of his spirit was identified with the flying speed of Arab horses, and dromedaries carrying the “mail” across the desert; and when he projected a wonderful shortening of time and space, he at the same moment beheld the broad massive arm of England stretched across to govern and make use of her enormous Indian territories, comprising a hundred million of souls. He never thought of himself; he was too much engaged with the vastness of his designs for his country. We shall see how that country rewarded his efforts. Thomas Waghorn was born at Chatham, in 1800. At twelve years of age he became a midshipman in Her Majesty’s Navy; and before he had reached seventeen, passed in “navigation” for Lieutenant, being the youngest midshipman that had ever done so—the examination requiring a great amount of both theoretical and practical knowledge, and being always conducted with severity. This made him eligible to the rank of lieutenant, but did not include it. At the close of the year 1817, he was paid off, and went as third mate of a Free-trader to Calcutta. He returned home, and, in 1819, obtained an appointment in the Bengal Marine (Pilot-Service) of India, where he served till 1824. At the request of the Bengal Government, he now volunteered for the Arracan War, and received the command of the Honourable East India Company’s cutter, Matchless, together with a division of gun-boats, and repaired to the scene of action in Arracan, with the south-eastern division of that army and flotilla. He was five times in action, saw much rough work by land and by sea, and escaped with only one wound in the right thigh. He remained two years and a half in this service, and after having received the thanks of all the authorities in that province, he returned to Calcutta in 1827, with a constitution already undermined from the baneful fever of Arracan, where so many thousands had died.