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NAVAL REMINISCENCES. 



THE LATE LORD SPENCER. His Lordship was a great ornitho- 

 logist, and his collection is described as numerous arid interesting ; he 

 was also a prodigious buyer of old and scarce books ; and, what is 

 better than either, he bore the character, I believe very justly, of 

 being a singularly benevolent and well-meaning old man. He was 

 not often nor long in office I suppose from his love of literary ease; 

 for a man so generally liked, and possessed of so large possessions 

 and influence, might have taken office, and held it, when, and for 

 what time he liked. He was first Lord of the Admiralty for a consi- 

 derable time, and, in that capacity, contrived to win golden opinions 

 from all the humbler class of petitioners that approached him I 

 don't know if he was equally acceptable to the aristocrats. He was, 

 indeed, the most popular First Lord that I remember : or, perhaps, I 

 should rather say, the most popular of those to whose conduct I have 

 been at the trouble of attending, for there are many that I remember 

 of whose popularity or unpopularity I never heard anything at all, 

 or, if I did, it has passed from my memory. 



The next to him in point of estimation was, I think, LORD MEL- 

 VILLE. I mean the first Lord Melville " Old Harry," as the Edin- 

 burgh people used to call him not the present Lord. He, when in of- 

 fice, was a proud, cold-blooded, pompous old gentleman, one, forsooth, 

 who could not condescend to see any one below the rank of a captain ! 

 " Old Harry" was terribly ridiculed for a scheme which he patronized 

 or originated, I forget which, for shutting up Cherbourg harbour by 

 sinking old ships filled with stones at the mouth of it ; but, in the 

 main, he was a good-hearted fellow, and, politics apart, very much 

 disposed to give fair play to all men I mean as head of the naval 

 service, in which capacity alone I speak of him. 



ST. VINCENT was excessively disliked. He promoted nobody, if he 

 could help it, unless those who had sailed with himself ; he was se- 

 vere, tyrannical, and worse. I remember his sending some forty or 

 fifty midshipmen to the West-Indies in one frigate, where commis- 

 sions awaited their arrival, and where the yellow fever was certain 

 to carry off the half of them in a twelvemonth ; he did this rather 

 than promote the midshipmen already there, and who had got, to a 

 certain degree, accustomed to the climate. It was reported, at that 

 time, in the service, that it was his rule, in promoting young men 

 (unfriended ones of course), to send them to foreign and unhealthy 

 stations in the first instance. There might be some exaggeration in 

 the general charge. I well know that it was current, and that Sir 

 John Jervis was very cordially hated in consequence. 



Of BARHAM, who was also a First Lord in my time, I recollect 

 nothing whatever, for good or for evil. I have seen in some of the 

 journals, and, I think, read in Parliamentary speeches, that he was a 

 great man, as all men holding high office are to those they befriend 



