These two officers accordingly rolled it carefully up and placed it in the boat."-JEFFREY.

1. This coolness in the face of the enemy is highly admirable; but it must not be supposed that opportunities for the exercise of such qualities are confined to the naval or military service. Every station in life gives occasion for the display of heroism. The following story, told also by Lord Jeffrey, of Lord Althorp, is not unworthy, I conceive, to rank side by side with this of Collingwood:-"I went to Althorp at ten o'clock to ask whether the Ministry of which he was Premier was dissolved, and had a characteristic scene with that most honest, frank, true and stouthearted of all God's creatures. He had not come down stairs, and I was led up to his dressing-room, where I found him sitting on a stool, in a dark duffle dressing-gown, with his arms (very rough and

hairy) bare above the elbows, and his beard half shaved and half staring through the lather, with a desperate razor in one hand and a great soap-brush in the other. He gave me the loose finger of the brush hand, and with the usual twinkle of his bright eye and radiant smile, he said, You need not be anxious about your Scotch Bill for to-night, for I have the pleasure to tell you, we are no longer His Majesty's Ministers."-Life of Jeffrey.

2. This is the ship that is now moored off Greenwich, being converted into a floating hospital for "the seamen of all nations."

3. The sailor who, in obedience to Nelson's orders, hoisted this signal, is now (1853) a pensioner in Greenwich Hospital.

THE RETURN OF THE ADMIRAL.

How gallantly, how merrily, we ride along the sea,
The morning is all sunshine, the wind is blowing free;
The billows are all sparkling and bounding in the light,
Like creatures in whose sunny veins the blood is running bright.
All nature knows our triumph-strange birds about us sweep-
Strange things come up to look at us, the masters of the deep :
In our wake like any servant, follows even the bold shark-
Oh, proud must be our Admiral of such a bonny barque.
Oh, proud must be our Admiral, tho' he is pale to-day,
Of twice five hundred iron men, who all his nod obey-
Who have fought for him and conquered—who have won with
sweat and gore,

Nobility, which he shall have, whene'er he touch the shore.
Oh, would I were our Admiral, to order with a word,

To lose a dozen drops of blood and straight rise up a lord-
I'd shout to yon shark there which follows in our lee;
Some day I'll make thee carry me like lightning thro' the sea.
Our Admiral grew paler and paler as we flew ;

Still talked he to his officers, and smiled upon the crew;
And he looked up at the heavens, and he looked down on the sea,
And at last he saw the creature that was following in our lee.
He shook-'twas but an instant-for speedily the pride
Ran crimson to his heart, till all chances he defied:

It threw boldness on his forehead, gave firmness to his breath,
And he looked like some grim warrior new risen up from death.

That night a horrid whisper fell on us where we lay,
And we knew our fine old Admiral was changing into clay,
And we heard the wash of waters, tho' nothing could we see,
But a whistle and a plunge among the billows on our lee.
"Till dawn we watched the body in its dead and ghastly sleep,
And next evening at sunset it was slung into the deep;
And never from that moment, save one shudder thro' the sea,
Saw we or heard the creature that had followed in our lee.
BARRY CORNWALL.

THE life of Nelson, of course, abounds with illustrations of my subject-naval daring,—but all are so well known that great difficulty has been experienced in presenting any to the reader with a feature of novelty. One, however, narrated by Colonel Drinkwater Bethune, the historian of "The Siege of Gibraltar," and an eyewitness of what follows, is as well worthy of general fame as some of Nelson's more splendid achievements; and the more so as, on this occasion, that personal affection to his more immediate followers, which in every case secured their devoted attachment to himself, was the inciting cause to a display of that gallantry which, a day or two after, was more conspicuously called forth in the cause of his country, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent,' after which "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first-rates" (he having boarded one enemy's first-rate from the deck of another) became a boasting byword of the English sailor.

Commodore Nelson, whose broad pendant at that time was hoisted in the Minerve, Captain Cockburn, got under weigh from Gibraltar on the 11th of February 1797, in order to join Sir John Jervis's fleet. The frigate had scarcely cast round from her anchorage, when two of the three Spanish line-of-battle ships in the upper part of Gibraltar Bay were observed also to be in motion. The headmost of the Spanish ships gaining on the frigate, the latter prepared for action, and the Minerve's situation every instant becoming more hazarous, Colonel Drinkwater asked Nelson his opinion as to the probability of an engagement; the hero said he thought it was very possible, as the headmost ship appeared to be a good sailer; "but," continued he looking up at the broad pendant, "before the Dons

get hold of that bit of bunting I will have a struggle with them; and sooner than give up the frigate I will run her ashore."

Captain Cockburn, who had been taking a view of the chasing enemy, now joined the Commodore, and observed that there was no doubt of the headmost ship gaining on the frigate. At this moment dinner was announced; but before Nelson and his guests left the deck, orders were given to set the studding sails. Seated at dinner, Colonel Drinkwater was congratulating Lieutenant Hardy, who had been just exchanged, on his being no longer a prisoner of war, when the sudden 66 of a board" threw the dinner party into disorder. There is perhaps, no passage in naval history of deeper interest than the following account of what then occurred :

cry

man over

"The officers of the ship ran on deck; I, with others, ran to the stern windows to see if anything could be observed of the unfortunate man. We had scarcely reached them, before we noticed the lowering of the jolly boat, in which was my late neighbour, Hardy, with a party of sailors, and before many seconds had elapsed the current of the Straits (which runs strongly to the eastward) had carried the jolly-boat far astern of the frigate, towards the Spanish ships. Of course the first

object was to recover, if possible, the fallen man; but he was never seen again. Hardy soon made a signal to that effect, and the man was given up as lost.

"The attention of every person was now turned to the safety of Hardy and his boat's crew. Their situation was extremely perilous, and their danger was every instant increasing from the fast sailing of the headmost ship of the chase-the Terrible, --which by this time had approached nearly within gunshot of the Minerve. The jolly-boat's crew pulled 'might and main' to regain the frigate, but apparently made little progress against the current of the Straits. At this crisis, Nelson, casting an anxious look at the hazardous situation of Hardy and his companions, exclaimed, 'By, I will not lose Hardy: back the mizen-topsail." No sooner said than done: the Minerve's progress was retarded, having the current to carry her down towards Hardy and his party, who, seeing this spirited manœuvre to save them from returning to their old quarters on board the Terrible, naturally redoubled their exertions to rejoin the frigate. To the landsmen on board the Minerve an action now appeared to be inevitable, and so, it would appear, thought the enemy, who, surprised and confounded by this daring manoeuvre of the Commodore's (being ignorant of the accident that led to it) must have construed it into a direct challenge.

"Not conceiving, however, a Spanish ship of the line to be an

equal match for a British frigate, with Nelson on board of her, the captain of the Terrible suddenly shortened sail, in order to allow his consort to join him, and thus afforded time for the Minerve to drop down to the jolly-boat to take out Hardy and the crew, and the moment they were on board the frigate, orders were given again to make sail. Being now under studding-sails, and the widening of the Straits allowing the wind to be brought more on the Minerve's quarter, the frigate soon regained the lost distance, and in a short time we had the satisfaction to observe that the dastardly Don3 was left far in our wake; and at sunset, by steering to the southward, we lost sight of him and his consort altogether, and Commodore Nelson thus escaped, to share in the Battle of St. Vincent, and win fresh laurels from the Spaniard."-GIFFARD.

1. The battle of St. Vincent was fought | sion of the idea might be improved within 1797. Sir John Jervis was admiral, out the oath by which it is introduced. and Nelson was one of his captains. For Why should sailors continue to swear a full account of the engagement see after oaths have so long been banished that excellent work, Allen's Battles of from good society? There is nothing the British Navy. manly, but rather the reverse, about the thing.

2. Exchanged, with or for what?

3. Currents set in both from the East and West, to the Mediterranean sea. How is this when so many large rivers fall into it?

4. It is to be hoped that the generous and noble sentiment here expressed will ever animate our sailors; but the expres

5. Don is a title in Spain, formerly given to noblemen and gentlemen only, but now common to all classes. It is commonly supposed to be contracted from dominus, dom; and the Portuguese dono, the master or owner of anything, gives some countenance to the opinion.

THE Royal George was a ship of 100 guns. Originally her guns had been all brass, but when she was docked at Plymouth, either in the spring of 1782 or the year before, the brass fortytwo pounders on her lower gun-deck were taken out of her as being too heavy, and iron thirty-two pounders put there in their stead; so that after that she carried brass twenty-four pounders on her main-deck, quarter-deck and poop, brass thirty-two pounders on her middle-deck, and iron thirty-two pounders on her lower-deck. She did not carry any carronades.' She measured sixty-six feet from the kelson to the taffrail; and being a flag-ship, her lanterns were so large, that the men used to go into them to clean them.

In August 1782, the Royal George had come to Spithead.

She was in a very complete state, with hardly any leakage, so that there was no occasion for the pumps to be touched oftener than once in three or four days.

By the 19th August she had got six months' provision on board, and also many tons of shot. The ship had her gallants up; the blue flag of Admiral Kempenfelt was flying at the mizen, and the ensign was hoisted on the ensign-staff, and she was in about two days to have sailed to join the fleet in the Mediterranean. It was ascertained that the water-cock must be taken out and a new one put in. The water-cock is something like the top of a barrel, it is in the hold of a ship on the starboard side, and at that part of the ship called the well. By turning a thing which is inside the ship, the sea-water is let into a cistern in the hold, and it is from that pumped up to wash the decks. To get out the old watercock, it was necessary to make the ship heel so much on her larboard side as to raise the outside of the water-cock, above water. This was done about eight o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August. To do it, all the guns on the larboard side were run out as far as they would go, quite to the breasts of the guns, and the starboard guns drawn in amidship, and secured by tackles one on each side the gun. This brought the water nearly on a level with the port-holes of the larboard side of the lower gun deck. The men were working at this water-cock on the outside of the ship for near an hour, the ship remaining on one side, as I have stated.

About nine o'clock A.M., we had just finished our breakfast, and the last lighter,2 with rum on board, had just come alongside; this vessel was a sloop of about 50 tons, and belonged to three brothers, who used her to carry things on board the men-of-war. She was lashed to the larboard side of the Royal George, and we were piped to clear the lighter, and stow the rum in the hold. I was in the waist of our ship, on the larboard side, bearing the rum casks over, as some men of the Royal George were aboard the sloop to sling them.

At first no danger was apprehended from the ship being on one side, although the water kept dashing in at the port-holes at every wave and there being mice in the lower part of the ship which were disturbed by the water, they were hunted in the water by the men, and there had been a rare game going on. However by about nine the additional quantity of rum on board the ship, and the sea-water, which had dashed in at the port-holes, brought the larboard port-holes of the lower gun deck nearly on a level with the sea.

As soon as that was the case, the carpenter went to the lieutenant of the watch, to ask him to give orders to right ship, as