A LIFE OF ADVENTURE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4792, 1 August 1876, Page 3

A LIFE OF ADVENTURE.

If the time in which we live is eminently practical, and the mechanical appliances of civilisation seem to involve a certain monotony in the lives of men, as contrasted with those of a ruder age, there are even in these degenerate days those who know how to extract from them the elements of adventure and excitement which specially pertain to them, and to invest 19th century life with a romance peculiarly its own; One such has just passed away from among us. There are many in all parts of the world who, when theyreadof the death inthe Albany of Captain Charles Stewart Forbes, R.N., will recall with a sigh the daring and reckless seaman, the warm-hearted and generous friend and cheery companion, whose eventful career has just closed. Few men have lived so much in so few years, or seen and done more with so little noise. The first years of young Forbes’ service were passed as a midshipman in the North Star, with Sir Everard Home, on the Australian station ; the Crimean war found him in command of a gunboat in the Baltic : and on the breaking out of hostilities in China, he proceeded to the scene of operations as lieutenant commanding the Algerine. Throughout the war he never lost a chance of distinguishing himself, and the Algerine soon became celebrated for her success in “ pirate pigeons.” Returning home just as Garibaldi landed in Sicily, Forbes hurried put, and was the only Englishman who participated in the first action outside Palermo. Conspicuous from the beginning to the end of the campaign, in his blue flannel suit, and always in the hottest of the fire, he soon attracted the notice, and ultimately the friendship of Garibaldi, finaUy reconnoitering Naples in a carriage in advance of the General, and receiving a triumphant welcome intended for. the latter, which enabled him to report on his return that the Royal troops had evacuated the city. On his return to England Forbes published an account of the campaign, which is probably the most authentic record of it which exists. He next made a most interesting exploration in Iceland, giving ns the result of his experience there in a graphic and interesting form, On receiving his promotion he went out to the River Plate as commander of the Curfew, and completed his term of service in those always stirring regions, just in time to accept the command, under Captain Sherard Osborn, of one of the vessels of the expedition which was being fitted out for the Emperor of China. Taking his vessel along the West Coast of Africa, pmd touching at several ports on his way, he arrived at his destination to find the project of a Chinese Imperial Fleet, commanded by British officers, abandoned, and returned to England the bearer of despatches from Captain Osborn to the English Government. On his arrival in England, Forbes found his love of adventure almost immediately gratified by the command which he obtained, without difficulty, of a blockade runner, for the American war was then at Us height, and he soon distinguished himself in his new vocation. His system of evading the enemy required that combination of skill, coolness, and courage which the habits of his life were so eminently calculated to develope. Steering his ship with his own hands, ho ran into port on tho darkest nights on the bearing which he had taken during the day when first sighting land,and whenthesmall vesselwhichhe commanded was too far out to be visible to the blockading squadron. The close of the war found him in the harbor of Galveston, and, unable to extricate his ship, he left her to join the fortunes of the ill-fated MaximiUan in Mexico. Of his hairbreadth escapes and the varied perils he encountered during his blockade running and Mexican experiences, we have, unfortunately, no published record. After a severe attack of yellow fever in one of the West India Islands, where he narrowly escaped premature burial, he returned to in shattered health. Scarcely, however, allowing himself time to recruit, the year 1865 saw Captain Eorbos once more on the way to the East, for the purpose of obtaining from the French Government in Cochin China a telegraph concession, and thence he proceeded to Japan in order to negotiate a loan with the Government of that country. He failed in this, but established such relations as enabled him to return to England in the capacity of agent for the Chinese and Japanese for the purchase of arms and vessels of war. Before leaving Japan he made a most interesting exploration of the then almost unknown island of Yesso, the results of which he embodied in a paper for the Royal Geographical Society. He now for a short time devoted himself to mercantile pursuits connected with this agency in London, but was once more tempted out to China by the offer from the Imperial Government of the appointment of Marine Commissioner and Inspector of Chinese Lighthouses. This novel and interesting position he held for about two years, when he again returned to England ; this time by way of California. He was so much struck with the resources of that rapidly developing portion of the Western Hemisphere that he determined to extend his financial operations—which had nowbecomo considerable —in that direction. His usual shrewdness and good luck did not desert him in this new field of enterprise, and as the result of two expeditions to the mineral regions of Nevada, he drew as a prize a share of the Comstock Mine, and about a year ago returned to his own country in possession of a very large fortune. Unhappily it came too late. A typhus fever, during which he remained for seventeen days delirious in San Francisco, shattered a constitution which much exposure to bad climates had u ndermined, and thus prematurely terminated a Ufe of incident and adventure of which we have been only able to give a brief sketch, at the comparatively early age of 47. Had he lived in a more exciting period of the world’s history he would have made himself a great name. As it is, his death has caused a gap in a very wide and varied circle of society, and many men the most dissimilar in race, religion, and position, will sigh when they hear that Charles Forbes is dead.