"MY DEAR BLUNDELL,--I have made a sad mistake about poor Fane. I was called on to visit him suddenly this morning, and found him in his last moments at a miserable lodging in the Barbican, where he expired to-day at four o'clock. Before his death, he told me the circumstances connected with the command of the Gull. It appears that, when the commission came, he was unable to move in its use from gout and the effects of long dissipation, and that the Forrests of the Race being in town, prevailed on him, for a trifling sum, to give up the papers to a vagabond namesake of his own (but no connection, as far as I can understand), who had been an old associate of theirs in Cornwall. This fellow went down to Sheerness, and took the command unquestioned, in the hurry of preparation for sea, and, as I mentioned in my note of yesterday, has set sail for the fleet. By the by, there are dark reports in the Admiralty about the Forrests and the old Phoenix (Manson, jun.), that was supposed to have gone down at sea two years ago. The story goes, that they and this fellow Fane (against whom an order is already issued, on the elder Manson's application), made away with the crew at the Race, into which she had driven at night, and getting the ship off by the next tide, sailed her to Bordeaux, where they sold her to the Messrs Devereux, and fitted out their letter of marque with the money. Of course, this is in confidence. I have often warned poor Ellen's father of Adam Forrest, and told him how improper the situation was for her (I _know_ Forrest designed getting her for his cousin), but he was in the fellow's debt, and therefore under his control; so that, although he disliked the thing as much as I, my representations had no effect. His death must be a relief to us all, yet I cannot but lament him--bold, generous, and honourable he always was, even to the last; and, now that he is gone, let us say nothing of the one deforming vice.--Believe me, most truly yours," &c. &c.