 | CHAPTER IV. The two admirals |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
On duty, and our leader Israel,
Who is expected momently.”
Marino Faliero.
As his fleet was safely anchored, and that too, in beautiful
order, in spite of the fog, Sir Gervaise Oakes showed a
disposition to pursue what are termed ulterior views.
“This has been a fine sight—certainly a very fine sight;
such as an old seaman loves; but there must be an end to
it,” he said. “You will excuse me, Sir Wycherly, but the
movements of a fleet always have interest in my eyes, and
it is seldom that I get such a bird's-eye view of those of my
own; no wonder it has made me a somewhat unreflecting
intruder.”
“Make no apologies, Sir Gervaise, I beg of you; for none
are needed, on any account. Though this head-land does
the crown, and none have a better right to occupy it than
His Majesty's servants. The Hall is a little more private,
it is true, but even that has no door that will close upon our
gallant naval defenders. It is but a short walk, and nothing
will make me happier than to show you the way to my poor
dwelling, and to see you as much at home under its roof, as
you could be in the cabin of the Plantagenet.”
“If anything could make me as much at home in a
house as in a ship, it would be so hearty a welcome; and I
intend to accept your hospitality in the very spirit in which
it is offered. Atwood and I have landed to send off some
important despatches to the First Lord, and we will thank
you for putting us in the way of doing it, in the safest
and most expeditious manner. Curiosity and surprise have
already occasioned the loss of half an hour; while a soldier,
or a sailor, should never lose half a minute.”
“Is a courier who knows the country well, needed, Sir
Gervaise?” the lieutenant demanded, modestly, though with
an interest that showed he was influenced only by zeal for
the service.
The admiral looked at him, intently, for a moment, and
seemed pleased with the hint implied in the question.
“Can you ride?” asked Sir Gervaise, smiling. “I could
have brought half-a-dozen youngsters ashore with me; but,
besides the doubts about getting a horse—a chaise I take it
is out of the question here—I was afraid the lads might disgrace
themselves on horseback.”
“This must be said in pleasantry, Sir Gervaise,” returned
Wychecombe; “he would be a strange Virginian at least,
who does not know how to ride!”
“And a strange Englishman, too, Bluewater would say;
and yet I never see the fellow straddle a horse that I do not
wish it were a studding-sail-boom run out to leeward! We
sailors fancy we ride, Mr. Wychecombe, but it is some such
fancy as a marine has for the fore-topmast-cross-trees. Can
a horse be had, to go as far as the nearest post-office that
sends off a daily mail?”
“That can it, Sir Gervaise,” put in Sir Wycherly.
“Here is Dick mounted on as good a hunter as is to be
found in England; and I'll answer for my young namesake's
Our little mail has just left Wychecombe for the next twenty-four
hours, but, by pushing the beast, there will be time to
reach the high road in season for the great London mail,
which passes the nearest market-town at noon. It is but a
gallop of ten miles and back, and that I 'll answer for Mr.
Wychecombe's ability to do, and to join us at dinner by
four.”
Young Wychecombe expressing his readiness to perform
all this, and even more at need, the arrangement was soon
made. Dick was dismounted, the lieutenant got his despatches
and his instructions, took his leave, and had galloped
out of sight, in the next five minutes. The admiral
then declared himself at liberty for the day, accepting the
invitation of Sir Wycherly to breakfast and dine at the
Hall, in the same spirit of frankness as that in which it
had been given. Sir Wycherly was so spirited as to refuse
the aid of his pony, but insisted on walking through the village
and park to his dwelling, though the distance was more
than a mile. Just as they were quitting the signal-station,
the old man took the admiral aside, and in an earnest, but
respectful manner, disburthened his mind to the following
effect.
“Sir Gervaise,” he said, “I am no sailor, as you know,
and least of all do I bear His Majesty's commission in the
navy, though I am in the county commission as a justice
of the peace; so, if I make any little mistake you will have
the goodness to overlook it, for I know that the etiquette of
the quarter-deck is a very serious matter, and is not to be
trifled with;—but here is Dutton, as good a fellow in his
way as lives—his father was a sort of a gentleman too, having
been the attorney of the neighbourhood, and the old man
was accustomed to dine with me forty years ago—”
“I believe I understand you, Sir Wycherly,” interrupted
the admiral; “and I thank you for the attention you wish
to pay my prejudices; but, you are master of Wychecombe,
and I should feel myself a troublesome intruder, indeed, did
you not ask whom you please to dine at your own table.”
“That's not quite it, Sir Gervaise, though you have not
gone far wide of the mark. Dutton is only a master, you
know; and it seems that a master on board ship is a very
has often told me.”
“Ay, Dutton is right enough as regards a king's ship,
though the two offices are pretty much the same, when other
craft are alluded to. But, my dear Sir Wycherly, an admiral
is not disgraced by keeping company with a boatswain,
if the latter is an honest man. It is true we have
our customs, and what we call our quarter-deck and forward
officers; which is court end and city, on board ship; but a
master belongs to the first, and the master of the Plantagenet,
Sandy McYarn, dines with me once a month, as regularly
as he enters a new word at the top of his log-book. I
beg, therefore, you will extend your hospitality to whom you
please—or—” the admiral hesitated, as he cast a good-natured
glance at the master, who stood still uncovered, waiting
for his superior to move away; “or, perhaps, Sir Wycherly,
you would permit me to ask a friend to make one of
our party.”
“That's just it, Sir Gervaise,” returned the kind-hearted
baronet; “and Dutton will be one of the happiest fellows in
Devonshire. I wish we could have Mrs. Dutton and Milly,
and then the table would look what my poor brother James
—St. James I used to call him — what the Rev. James
Wychecombe was accustomed to term, mathematical. He
said a table should have all its sides and angles duly filled.
James was a most agreeable companion, Sir Gervaise, and,
in divinity, he would not have turned his back on one of the
apostles, I do verily believe!”
The admiral bowed, and turning to the master, he invited
him to be of the party at the Hall, in the manner which one
long accustomed to render his civilities agreeable by a sort
of professional off-handed way, well knew how to assume.
“Sir Wycherly has insisted that I shall consider his table
as set in my own cabin,” he continued; “and I know of no
better manner of proving my gratitude, than by taking him
at his word, and filling it with guests that will be agreeable
to us both. I believe there is a Mrs. Dutton, and a Miss—
a—a—a—”
“Milly,” put in the baronet, eagerly; “Miss Mildred
Dutton—the daughter of our good friend Dutton, here, and a
in London.”
“You perceive, sir, that our kind host anticipates the
wishes of an old bachelor, as it might be by instinct, and
desires the company of the ladies, also. Miss Mildred will,
at least, have two young men to do homage to her beauty,
and three old ones to sigh in the distance—hey! Atwood?”
“Mildred, as Sir Wycherly knows, sir, has been a little
disturbed this morning,” returned Dutton, putting on his
best manner for the occasion; “but, I feel no doubt, will
be too grateful for this honour, not to exert herself to make
a suitable return. As for my wife, gentlemen—”
“And what is to prevent Mrs. Dutton from being one of
the party,” interrupted Sir Wycherly, as he observed the
husband to hesitate; “she sometimes favours me with her
company.”
“I rather think she will to-day, Sir Wycherly, if Mildred
is well enough to go; the good woman seldom lets her
daughter stray far from her apron-strings. She keeps her,
as I tell her, within the sweep of her own hawse, Sir Gervaise.”
“So much the wiser she, Master Dutton,” returned the
admiral, pointedly. “The best pilot for a young woman is
a good mother; and now you have a fleet in your road-stead,
I need not tell a seaman of your experience that you
are on pilot-ground;—hey! Atwood?”
Here the parties separated, Dutton remaining uncovered
until his superior had turned the corner of his little cottage,
and was fairly out of sight. Then the master entered his
dwelling to prepare his wife and daughter for the honours
they had in perspective. Before he executed this duty, however,
the unfortunate man opened what he called a locker—
what a housewife would term a cupboard—and fortified his
nerves with a strong draught of pure Nantes; a liquor that
no hostilities, custom-house duties, or national antipathies,
has ever been able to bring into general disrepute in the
British Islands. In the mean time the party of the two baronets
pursued its way towards the Hall.
The village, or hamlet of Wychecombe, lay about halfway
between the station and the residence of the lord of the
manor. It was an exceedingly rural and retired collection
nor attorney, to give it importance. A small inn, two or
three shops of the humblest kind, and some twenty cottages
of labourers and mechanics, composed the place, which, at
that early day, had not even a chapel, or a conventicle;
dissent not having made much progress then in England.
The parish church, one of the old edifices of the time of
the Henrys, stood quite alone, in a field, more than a mile
from the place; and the vicarage, a respectable abode,
was just on the edge of the park, fully half a mile more distant.
In short, Wychecombe was one of those places which
was so far on the decline, that few or no traces of any little
importance it may have once possessed, were any longer to
be discovered; and it had sunk entirely into a hamlet that
owed its allowed claims to be marked on the maps, and to
be noted in the gazetteers, altogether to its antiquity, and
the name it had given to one of the oldest knightly families
in England.
No wonder then, that the arrival of a fleet under the head,
produced a great excitement in the little village. The anchorage
was excellent, so far as the bottom was concerned,
but it could scarcely be called a roadstead in any other point
of view, since there was shelter against no wind but that
which blew directly off shore, which happened to be a wind
that did not prevail in that part of the island. Occasionally,
a small cruiser would come-to, in the offing, and a few frigates
had lain at single anchors in the roads, for a tide or
so, in waiting for a change of weather; but this was the first
fleet that had been known to moor under the cliffs within
the memory of man. The fog had prevented the honest villagers
from ascertaining the unexpected honour that had
been done them, until the reports of the two guns reached
their ears, when the important intelligence spread with due
rapidity over the entire adjacent country. Although Wychecombe
did not lie in actual view of the sea, by the time the
party of Sir Wycherly entered the hamlet, its little street
was already crowded with visiters from the fleet; every vessel
having sent at least one boat ashore, and many of them
some three or four. Captain's and gun-room stewards, midshipmen's
foragers, loblolly boys, and other similar harpies,
were out in scores; for this was a part of the world in which
come to Mahomet, Mahomet must fain go to the mountain.
Half an hour had sufficed to exhaust all the unsophisticated
simplicity of the hamlet; and milk, eggs, fresh butter, soft-tommy,
vegetables, and such fruits as were ripe, had already
risen quite one hundred per cent. in the market.
Sir Gervaise had called his force the southern squadron,
from the circumstance of its having been cruising in the Bay
of Biscay, for the last six months. This was a wild winter-station,
the danger from the elements greatly surpassing
any that could well be anticipated from the enemy. The
duty notwithstanding had been well and closely performed;
several West India, and one valuable East India convoy
having been effectually protected, as well as a few straggling
frigates of the enemy picked up; but the service had been
excessively laborious to all engaged in it, and replete with
privations. Most of those who now landed, had not trod
terra firma for half a year, and it was not wonderful that all
the officers whose duties did not confine them to the vessels,
gladly seized the occasion to feast their senses with the
verdure and odours of their native island. Quite a hundred
guests of this character were also pouring into the street
of Wychecombe, or spreading themselves among the surrounding
farm-houses; flirting with the awkward and blushing
girls, and keeping an eye at the same time to the main
chance of the mess-table.
“Our boys have already found out your village, Sir Wycherly,
in spite of the fog,” the vice-admiral remarked, good-humouredly,
as he cast his eyes around at the movement of
the street; “and the locusts of Egypt will not come nearer
to breeding a famine. One would think there was a great
dinner in petto, in every cabin of the fleet, by the number
of the captain's stewards that are ashore, hey! Atwood? I
have seen nine of the harpies, myself, and the other seven
can't be far off.”
“Here is Galleygo, Sir Gervaise,” returned the secretary,
smiling; “though he can scarcely be called a captain's
steward, having the honour to serve a vice-admiral and a
commander-in-chief.”
“Ay, but we feed the whole fleet at times, and have some
excuse for being a little exacting—harkee, Galleygo—get a
into the country; you might as well expect to find real
pearls in fishes' eyes, as hope to pick up anything nice
among so many gun-room and cock-pit boys. I dine ashore
to-day, but Captain Greenly is fond of mutton-chops, you 'll
remember.”
This was said kindly, and in the manner of a man accustomed
to treat his domestics with the familiarity of humble
friends. Galleygo was as unpromising a looking butler as
any gentleman ashore would be at all likely to tolerate; but
he had been with his present master, and in his present capacity,
ever since the latter had commanded a sloop of war.
All his youth had been passed as a top-man, and he was
really a prime seaman; but accident having temporarily
placed him in his present station, Captain Oakes was so
much pleased with his attention to his duty, and particularly
with his order, that he ever afterwards retained him in his
cabin, notwithstanding the strong desire the honest fellow
himself had felt to remain aloft. Time and familiarity, at
length reconciled the steward to his station, though he did
not formally accept it, until a clear agreement had been
made that he was not to be considered an idler on any occasion
that called for the services of the best men. In this
manner David, for such was his Christian name, had become
a sort of nondescript on board of a man-of-war; being
foremost in all the cuttings out, a captain of a gun, and was
frequently seen on a yard in moments of difficulty, just to
keep his hand in, as he expressed it, while he descended to
the duties of the cabin in peaceable times and good weather.
Near thirty years had he thus been half-steward, half-seaman
when afloat, while on land he was rather a counsellor
and minister of the closet, than a servant; for out of a ship he
was utterly useless, though he never left his master for a
week at a time, ashore or afloat. The name of Galleygo
was a sobriquet conferred by his brother top-men, but had
been so generally used, that for the last twenty years most
of his shipmates believed it to be his patronymic. When
this compound of cabin and forecastle received the order
just related, he touched the lock of hair on his forehead, a
ceremony he always used before he spoke to Sir Gervaise,
and made his customary answer of—
“Ay-ay-sir—your honour has been a young gentleman
yourself, and knows what a young gentleman's stomach gets
to be, a'ter a six months' fast in the Bay of Biscay; and a
young gentleman's boy's stomach, too. I always thinks
there 's but a small chance for us, sir, when I sees six or
eight of them light cruisers in my neighbourhood. They 're
som'mat like the sloops and cutters of a fleet, which picks
up all the prizes.”
“Quite true, Master Galleygo; but if the light cruisers
get the prizes, you should recollect that the admiral always
has his share of the prize-money.”
“Yes sir, I knows we has our share, but that 's accordin'
to law, and because the commanders of the light craft can't
help it. Let 'em once get the law on their side, and not a
ha'pence would bless our pockets! No, sir, what we gets,
we gets by the law; and as there is no law to fetch up young
gentlemen or their boys, that pays as they goes, we never
gets anything they or their boys puts hands on.”
“I dare say you are right, David, as you always are. It
wouldn't be a bad thing to have an Act of Parliament to give
an admiral his twentieth in the reefers' foragings. The old
fellows would sometimes get back some of their own poultry
and fruit in that way, hey! Atwood?”
The secretary smiled his assent, and then Sir Gervaise
apologized to his host, repeated the order to the steward, and
the party proceeded.
“This fellow of mine, Sir Wycherly, is no respecter of
persons, beyond the etiquette of a man-of-war,” the admiral
continued, by way of further excuse. “I believe His
Majesty himself would be favoured with an essay on some
part of the economy of the cabin, were Galleygo to get an
opportunity of speaking his mind to him. Nor is the fool
without his expectations of some day enjoying this privilege;
for the last time I went to court, I found honest David rigged,
from stem to stern, in a full suit of claret and steel,
under the idea that he was `to sail in company with me,'
as he called it, `with or without signal!”'
“There was nothing surprising in that, Sir Gervaise,”
observed the secretary. “Galleygo has sailed in company
through so many dangers at your side, and has got so completely
to consider himself as part of the family, that it was
the most natural thing in the world he should expect to go
to court with you.”
“True enough. The fellow would face the devil, at my
side, and I don't see why he should hesitate to face the king.
I sometimes call him Lady Oakes, Sir Wycherly, for he
appears to think he has a right of dower, or some other lawyer-like
claim on my estate; and as for the fleet, he always
speaks of that, as if we commanded it in common. I wonder
how Bluewater tolerates the blackguard; for he never scruples
to allude to him as under our orders! If anything
should befal me, Dick and David would have a civil war for
the succession, hey! Atwood?”
“I think military subordination would bring Galleygo to
his senses, Sir Gervaise, should such an unfortunate accident
occur—which Heaven avert for many years to come!
There is Admiral Bluewater coming up the street, at this
very moment, sir.”
At this sudden announcement, the whole party turned to
look in the direction intimated by the secretary. It was by
this time at one end of the short street, and all saw a man
just entering the other, who, in his walk, air, attire, and
manner, formed a striking contrast to the active, merry,
bustling, youthful young sailors who thronged the hamlet.
In person, Admiral Bluewater was exceedingly tall and exceedingly
thin. Like most seamen who have that physical
formation, he stooped; a circumstance that gave his years
a greater apparent command over his frame, than they possessed
in reality. While this bend in his figure deprived it,
in a great measure, of the sturdy martial air that his superior
presented to the observer, it lent to his carriage a quiet
and dignity that it might otherwise have wanted. Certainly,
were this officer attired like an ordinary civilian, no one
would have taken him for one of England's bravest and
most efficient sea-captains; he would have passed rather as
some thoughtful, well-educated, and refined gentleman, of
retired habits, diffident of himself, and a stranger to ambition.
He wore an undress rear-admiral's uniform, as a
matter of course; but he wore it carelessly, as if from a
give him a military air. Still all about his person was faultlessly
neat, and perfectly respectable. In a word, no one
but a man accustomed to the sea, were it not for his uniform,
would suspect the rear-admiral of being a sailor; and even
the seaman himself might be often puzzled to detect any
other signs of the profession about him, than were to be
found in a face, which, fair, gentlemanly, handsome, and
even courtly as it was, in expression and outline, wore the
tint that exposure invariably stamps on the mariner's countenance.
Here, however, his unseaman-like character
ceased. Admiral Oakes had often declared that “Dick
Bluewater knew more about a ship than any man in England;”
and as for a fleet, his mode of manœuvring one had
got to be standard in the service.
As soon as Sir Gervaise recognised his friend, he expressed
a wish to wait for him, which was courteously converted by
Sir Wycherly into a proposition to return and meet him.
So abstracted was Admiral Bluewater, however, that he did
not see the party that was approaching him, until he was
fairly accosted by Sir Gervaise, who led the advance by a
few yards.
“Good-day to you, Bluewater,” commenced the latter, in
his familiar, off-hand way; “I 'm glad you have torn yourself
away from your ship; though I must say the manner
in which you came-to, in that fog, was more like instinct,
than anything human! I determined to tell you as much,
the moment we met; for I don't think there is a ship, half
her length out of mathematical order, notwithstanding the
tide runs, here, like a race-horse.”
“That is owing to your captains, Sir Gervaise,” returned
the other, observing the respect of manner, that the inferior
never loses with his superior, on service, and in a navy; let
their relative rank and intimacy be what they may on all
other occasions; “good captains make handy ships. Our
gentlemen have now been together so long, that they understand
each other's movements; and every vessel in the
fleet has her character as well as her commander!”
“Very true, Admiral Bluewater, and yet there is not another
officer in His Majesty's service, that could have brought
a fleet to anchor, in so much order, and in such a fog; and
lesson you have given, not only to the captains, but to the
commander-in-chief. I presume I may admire that which I
cannot exactly imitate.”
The rear-admiral merely smiled and touched his hat in
acknowledgment of the compliment, but he made no direct
answer in words. By this time Sir Wycherly and the others
had approached, and the customary introductions took place.
Sir Wycherly now pressed his new acquaintance to join his
guests, with so much heartiness, that there was no such
thing as refusing.
“Since you and Sir Gervaise both insist on it so earnestly,
Sir Wycherly,” returned the rear-admiral, “I must consent;
but as it is contrary to our practice, when on foreign
service—and I call this roadstead a foreign station, as to anything
we know about it—as it is contrary to our practice for
both flag-officers to sleep out of the fleet, I shall claim the
privilege to be allowed to go off to my ship before midnight.
I think the weather looks settled, Sir Gervaise, and we may
trust that many hours, without apprehension.”
“Pooh—pooh—Bluewater, you are always fancying the
ships in a gale, and clawing off a lee-shore. Put your heart
at rest, and let us go and take a comfortable dinner with Sir
Wycherly, who has a London paper, I dare to say, that may
let us into some of the secrets of state. Are there any tidings
from our people in Flanders?”
“Things remain pretty much as they have been,” returned
Sir Wycherly, “since that last terrible affair, in
which the Duke got the better of the French at — I never
can remember an outlandish name; but it sounds something
like a Christian baptism. If my poor brother, St. James,
were living, now, he could tell us all about it.”
“Christian baptism! That 's an odd allusion for a field
of battle. The armies can't have got to Jerusalem; hey!
Atwood?”
“I rather think, Sir Gervaise,” the secretary coolly remarked,
“that Sir Wycherly Wychecombe refers to the battle that
took place last spring — it was fought at Font-something;
and a font certainly has something to do with Christian baptism.”
“That 's it — that 's it,” cried Sir Wycherly, with some
Duke would have carried all before him, and brought Marshal
Saxe, and all his frog-eaters prisoners to England, had
our Dutch and German allies behaved better than they did.
So it is with poor old England, gentlemen; whatever she
gains, her allies always lose for her — the Germans, or the
colonists, are constantly getting us into trouble!”
Both Sir Gervaise and his friend were practical men, and
well knew that they never fought the Dutch or the French,
without meeting with something that was pretty nearly their
match. They had no faith in general national superiority.
The courts-martial that so often succeeded general actions,
had taught them that there were all degrees of spirit, as well
as all degrees of a want of spirit; and they knew too much,
to be the dupes of flourishes of the pen, or of vapid declamation
at dinner-speeches, and in the House of Commons.
Men, well led and commanded, they had ascertained by experience,
were worth twice as much as the same men when
ill led and ill commanded; and they were not to be told
that the moral tone of an army or a fleet, from which all its
success was derived, depended more on the conventional
feeling that had been got up through moral agencies, than
on birth-place, origin, or colour. Each glanced his eye significantly
at the other, and a sarcastic smile passed over the
face of Sir Gervaise, though his friend maintained his customary
appearance of gravity.
“I believe le Grand Monarque and Marshal Saxe give a
different account of that matter, Sir Wycherly,” drily observed
the former; “and it may be well to remember that
there are two sides to every story. Whatever may be said
of Dettingen, I fancy history will set down Fontenoï as
anything but a feather in His Royal Highness' cap.”
“You surely do not consider it possible for the French
arms to overthrow a British army, Sir Gervaise Oakes!”
exclaimed the simple-minded provincial—for such was Sir
Wycherly Wychecombe, though he had sat in parliament,
had four thousand a year, and was of one of the oldest families
in England—“It sounds like treason to admit the possibility
of such a thing.”
“God bless us, my dear sir, I am as far from supposing
any such thing, as the Duke of Cumberland himself; who,
Baltic may have of the water of the Mediterranean—hey!
Atwood? By the way, Sir Wycherly, I must ask a little
tenderness of you in behalf of my friend the secretary, here,
who has a national weakness in favour of the Pretender, and
all of the clan Stuart.”
“I hope not — I sincerely hope not, Sir Gervaise!” exclaimed
Sir Wycherly, with a warmth that was not entirely
free from alarm; his own loyalty to the new house being
altogether without reproach. “Mr. Atwood has the air of a
gentleman of too good principles not to see on which side
real religious and political liberty lie. I am sure you are
pleased to be jocular, Sir Gervaise; the very circumstance
that he is in your company is a pledge of his loyalty.”
“Well, well, Sir Wycherly, I would not give you a false
idea of my friend Atwood, if possible; and so I may as well
confess, that, while his Scotch blood inclines him to toryism,
his English reason makes him a whig. If Charles
Stuart never gets the throne until Stephen Atwood helps him
to a seat on it, he may take leave of ambition for ever.”
“I thought as much, Sir Gervaise—I thought your secretary
could never lean to the doctrine of `passive obedience
and non-resistance.' That 's a principle which would hardly
suit sailors, Admiral Bluewater.”
Admiral Bluewater's fine, full, blue eye lighted with an
expression approaching irony; but he made no other answer
than a slight inclination of the head. In point of fact, he
was a Jacobite; though no one was acquainted with the circumstance
but his immediate commanding officer. As a
seaman, he was called on only to serve his country; and,
as often happens to military men, he was willing to do this
under any superior whom circumstances might place over
his head, let his private sentiments be what they might.
During the civil war of 1715, he was too young in years,
and too low in rank, to render his opinions of much importance;
and, kept on foreign stations, his services could
only affect the general interests of the nation, without producing
any influence on the contest at home. Since that
period, nothing had occurred to require one, whose duty
kept him on the ocean, to come to a very positive decision
between the two masters that claimed his allegiance. Sir
sustaining the honour and interests of his country, and that
ought to be sufficient to a patriot, let who would rule. Notwithstanding
this wide difference in political feeling between
the two admirals—Sir Gervaise being as decided a whig, as
his friend was a tory — their personal harmony had been
without a shade. As to confidence, the superior knew the
inferior so well, that he believed the surest way to prevent his
taking sides openly with the Jacobites, or of doing them secret
service, was to put it in his power to commit a great breach
of trust. So long as faith were put in his integrity, Sir Gervaise
felt certain his friend Bluewater might be relied on;
and he also knew that, should the moment ever come when
the other really intended to abandon the service of the house
of Hanover, he would frankly throw up his employments,
and join the hostile standard, without profiting, in any manner,
by the trusts he had previously enjoyed. It is also necessary
that the reader should understand that Admiral
Bluewater had never communicated his political opinions to
any person but his friend; the Pretender and his counsellors
being as ignorant of them, as George II. and his ministers.
The only practical effect, therefore, that they had ever produced
was to induce him to decline separate commands,
several of which had been offered to him; one, quite equal
to that enjoyed by Sir Gervaise Oakes, himself.
“No,” the latter answered to Sir Wycherly's remark;
though the grave, thoughtful expression of his face, showed
how little his feelings chimed in, at the moment, with the
ironical language of his tongue. “No—Sir Wycherly, a
man-of-war's man, in particular, has not the slightest idea
of `passive obedience and non-resistance,'—that is a doctrine
which is intelligible only to papists and tories. Bluewater
is in a brown study; thinking no doubt of the manner in
which he intends to lead down on Monsieur de Gravelin,
should we ever have the luck to meet that gentleman again;
so we will, if it's agreeable to all parties, change the subject.”
“With all my heart, Sir Gervaise,” answered the baronet,
cordially; “and, after all, there is little use in discussing
the affair of the Pretender any longer, for he appears to be
Louis XV.”
“Yes, Norris rather crushed the young viper in its shell,
and we may consider the thing at an end.”
“So my late brother, Baron Wychecombe, always treated
it, Sir Gervaise. He once assured me that the twelve
judges were clearly against the claim, and that the Stuarts
had nothing to expect from them.”
“Did he tell you, sir, on what ground these learned gentlemen
had come to this decision?” quietly asked Admiral
Bluewater.
“He did, indeed; for he knew my strong desire to make
out a good case against the tories so well, that he laid all
the law before me. I am a bad hand, however, to repeat
even what I hear; though my poor brother, the late Rev.
James Wychecombe — St. James as I used to call him —
could go over a discourse half an hour long, and not miss a
word. Thomas and James appear to have run away with
the memories of the rest of the family. Nevertheless, I recollect
it all depended on an act of Parliament, which is
supreme; and the house of Hanover reigning by an act of
Parliament, no court could set aside the claim.”
“Very clearly explained, sir,” continued Bluewater;
“and you will permit me to say that there was no necessity
for an apology on account of the memory. Your brother,
however, might not have exactly explained what an act of
Parliament is. King, Lords, and Commons, are all necessary
to an act of Parliament.”
“Certainly—we all know that, my dear admiral; we poor
fellows ashore here, as well as you mariners at sea. The
Hanoverian succession had all three to authorize it.”
“Had it a king?”
“A king! Out of dispute—or what we bachelors ought
to consider as much better, it had a queen. Queen Anne
approved of the act, and that made it an act of Parliament.
I assure you, I learned a good deal of law in the Baron's
visits to Wychecombe; and in the pleasant hours we used
to chat together in his chambers!”
“And who signed the act of Parliament that made Anne
a queen? or did she ascend the throne by regular succession?
Both Mary and Anne were sovereigns by acts of
of a prince who took the crown by legal descent.”
“Come—come, Bluewater,” put in Sir Gervaise, gravely;
“we may persuade Sir Wycherly, in this manner, that he
has a couple of furious Jacobites in company. The Stuarts
were dethroned by a revolution, which is a law of nature,
and enacted by God, and which of course overshadows all
other laws when it gets into the ascendant, as it clearly has
done in this case. I take it, Sir Wycherly, these are your
park-gates, and that yonder is the Hall.”
This remark changed the discourse, and the whole party
proceeded towards the house, discussing the beauty of its
position, its history, and its advantages, until they reached
its door.
| CHAPTER IV. The two admirals | |