At that period, and under those circumstances; with the consciousness of having served his country with a fidelity and earnestness beyond what is due to any human tie; with the shouts and triumphs of a Mediterranean population still ringing in his ears, and with a spirit raised above the excruciating torture of his wound by a sense of the glory he had won; this intoxicating dream is dissipated by the intelligence of pecuniary losses, which threaten destitution to his family, and by the notice of a prosecution on the part of the neutrals, whom he had felt it his duty to detain; which might have consigned him to a debtor’s prison for the rest of his days. Life, if considered as a state of discipline, must be a state of trial. Character is to be developed by circumstances; and God is to be glorified by the evidence thus given by his servants of their adoption and renewal. Under this conviction we acquiesce in the assertion that, “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth;” and can see the purpose for which the affliction is sent in the character which is gradually evolved; but the fulness of this assurance does not invalidate the severity of the trial, and we must feel for man while he is in the crucible, though we may be confident as to the effect that it will finally produce. I feel it, therefore, due to the character of Sir Jahleel Brenton, to dwell on this point of his story, because it includes circumstances of trial which cannot be generally appreciated, and because it involves that species of trial which has been commonly found the hardest to endure. Oppression, we are told, maketh a wise man mad. Ingratitude, man’s ingratitude is continually named as the bitterness of life. The great men of heathen times are found quitting their country in the decline of life, disgusted at the treatment they met with; and we cannot wonder if self-love on one side was dissatisfied with that return, which self-love expected or self-love offered on the other.