Much less would I be thought to
reflect upon the fair merchant, whose liberal commerce is the prime
source of national wealth. I esteem his occupation, and respect his
character.' _Parl. Hist._ xvi. 1107.
[882] See _ante_, iii. 382.
[883] He was born in Nordland in Sweden, in 1736. In 1768 he and Mr.
Banks accompanied Captain Cook in his first voyage round the world. He
died in 1782. Knight's _Eng. Cyclo._ v. 578. Miss Burney wrote of him in
1780:--'My father has very exactly named him, in calling him a
philosophical gossip.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 305. Horace Walpole
the same year, just after the Gordon Riots, wrote (_Letters_, vii.
403):--'Who is secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind? How I
abominate Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out
of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions amongst
them! not even that poor little speck could escape European
restlessness.' See _ante_ ii. 148.
[884] Boswell tells this story again, _ante_, ii. 299. Mrs. Piozzi's
account (_Anec_. p. 114) is evidently so inaccurate that it does not
deserve attention; she herself admits that Beauclerk was truthful. In a
marginal note on Wraxall's _Memoirs_, she says:--'Topham Beauclerk
(wicked and profligate as he wished to be accounted), was yet a man of
very strict veracity. Oh Lord! how I did hate that horrid Beauclerk!'
Hayward's _Piozzi_, i.
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