CHAPTER V. "Ira, furor brevis est. The truth of which we oft must test, And mildly all their wrath endure, And thus, in madness, harden them." I AM just approaching the first catastrophe. Indignation is a feeling that now seldom trembles along my nerves. I can feel pity, and contempt, and regret, yet, with me, they are no longer passions, but sensations. And yet, when I remember the said falling off of my respectable and very redoubtable hero, the fires of youth blaze up fitfully in my bosom, and I shudder whilst I record. Ten days after the Commodore had crammed the chaplain with excellent advice, on the twenty seventh of March-yes, it was the twentyseventh, after four-and-twenty hours of deep fog, not far from the Race of Alderney, the long-pursued French squadron was discovered close in shore, on the Norman coast, with Cherbourg under its lee-SAFE. As the mist slowly folded up its fleecy curtains, and ship after ship appeared with the hated tricolor streaming to the wind, the surgeon was sent for on the poop, for it was thought that Sir Octavius had been struck with an apoplectic fit, his features were so fixed, his position so motionless, his single eye so bloodshot, and the veins in his temples and forehead so turgid. When the surgeon approached him, and endeavoured to possess himself of his wrist, in order to feel his pulse, he flung him from him with violence, and exclaimed, "I am not ill, but mad." And of a verity he was so. Master, pilot, signal officers, and men, all fell under his rage. The sight before him was certainly sufficient to try the philosophy of a much calmer and better regulated mind than that of the old Commodore. As the enemy's force, now increased by another line of battle ship, stood in under easy sail, between them and the shore, was crowded together a perfect fleet of captured English WestIndiamen. As the French ships-of-war ran along shore, they hauled more and more to the wind, approaching in idle bravado within gunshot of the English squadron, well knowing that it would have been insanity on the part of the Commodore to have engaged them with half a gale of wind blowing dead on the shore, lined with ranges of terrible batteries. When the French men-of-war had got directly opposite the harbour's mouth, they hove to, and the English had the mortification of seeing merchant ship after merchant ship, the French colours flying over the English, file into Cherbourg, gradually disappearing behind that enormous fort, Peleé. These operations seemed lengthened out purposely, in order to prolong It was the torture of the old Commodore. dangerous to approach him; he raved, he swore-how terrible he swore! Certainly, at that hour, he should have been relieved from his command. He was in that state in which Henry the Eighth has been described to have been in by his historians during his last illness, and before any one had dared to tell him that it was his last. Evening was coming on, and both fleets were drawing into the harbour's mouth; and, as the flood-tide would soon set in strongly, it became a matter of absolute necessity for the English squadron to make sail and get a good offing before dark. At the time, when it was already dusk, and the numerous fishing-boats were running in unnoticed between the two threatening fleets, orders were given to make sail, and the carpenter ordered to rig the gratings at the same time. The Commodore, not knowing how to contain his wrath, chose to work the ship himself. Never was the duty performed more in stantaneously, never more accurately. But Sir Octavius saw in everything disobedience of orders, mutiny, and rebellion. No sooner were the weather-braces hauled taut, and the ropes coiled down, than he put three of his lieutenants and his master under arrest, broke halfa-dozen of his petty officers, and then sending for his boatswain, went into his cabin, and flogged two of his midshipmen. From thence, he repaired to the gangway and flogged every man on the black list, and every man against whom a fault could be imagined. Am I relating an extravagant fiction? Am I even drawing an overcharged picture? Alas! for poor human nature! Go read the records of the times. What my hero did under the worst of exasperations, in comparative moderation, other gallant officers have done in sport and mockery; for who does not know, that is at all acquainted with naval matters, of the boast of a gallant captain, who, when he went on shore, used to say that he had left his |