It was a critical moment. Irish resource supplied the answer.
I said, "Only sometimes, sir."
The examiner smiled grimly. But he passed me. It was my first narrow escape in the Navy.
I have the faded blue paper before me as I write. The signature, laboriously written in a round hand, is "Charles Wiliam Delapoer Beresford."
The qualifying examination was not very formidable in those easy days. The knowledge required consisted of a little "English," less French or Latin (with the "aid of a dictionary"), a "satisfactory knowledge of the leading facts of Scripture and English History," a certain amount of geography, and an elementary knowledge of arithmetic, algebra and Euclid. The preliminary course of education afforded to "Volunteers," as the naval cadets used to be called, at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, had been abolished in 1837, and for the next twenty years cadets were sent straight to sea. In 1857, cadets were entered for training in the Illustrious, Captain Robert Harris. The number of cadets exceeding the accommodation in the ship, the Britannia was commissioned on 1st January, 1859, by Captain Harris. But not for many years did the entrance examination become the competitive ordeal for which cramming is the only preparation, known to the present generation. But I remember Admiral William Bowles, commander-in-chief of Portsmouth, taking me kindly by the shoulder and saying, "Well, my little man, you are very small for your age. Why are you being sent to sea?"
I said that I wanted to go to sea.
"Are you good at your books?" asked the admiral. "Bless me, I know many an admiral who could not pass the examination you have passed. Good Heavens, what they expect boys to do nowadays!"
The Britannia was then moored at the entrance to Haslar Creek in Portsmouth Harbour, where the depot ships of the submarines are moored to-day. Alongside her, in the following year, lay the training frigate Eurydice, which was afterwards capsized off the Isle of Wight on 24th March, 1878, when 318 lives were lost out of a complement of 320. I learned to heave the lead from the chains of the Eurydice.