THE *' SUPERB" 111 



when navigation in those boisterous seas becomes doubly 

 perilous. But the only sacrifice made to the public voice, 

 which was loud in its denouncement of such an error in 

 judgment, if it was not an act of palpable incapacity, 

 was the resignation of the first lord of the Admiralty/ 



At this time my friend was a lieutenant of the 

 Siqjerh, seventy-four — commanded by Sir Richard 

 G. Keats — ^just then returned from foreign service to be 

 paid off. It being the time of the jubilee, when old King 

 George entered the fiftieth anniversary of his ascending 

 the throne of these realms, the officers gave a grand ball 

 and supper to others of their own rank then in port. I 

 received an invitation from my old shipmate, and was, 

 I believe, with a few exceptions from the dockyard 

 officials, the only civilian there. 



I had dined at my friend's house at an early hour, and 

 had acquainted him with my engagements. x^LCCordingly 

 I left him early, and proceeded to the Point, intending to 

 hire a wherry to take me up the harbour, where the 

 Sujjerb lay dismantled. 



On my reaching the beach — which is generally lined 

 with boats — to my great dismay, not a wherry was 

 to be seen — nothing but a man-of-war's gig, with six 

 men dressed alike in blue, apparently waiting for their 

 captain ; when, by sudden impulse, without halting, 

 I walked directly down to the boat, stepped into 

 her, and said to the coxswain, " Pull me on board the 

 Sujperh." 



Not a word more was spoken ; each man at his thwart 

 poised his oar in the air. Taking my seat and the yoke 



^ The Hon. Charles Yorke. 



