"All right, sir—obey orders."
I held on, and we cleared the jib-boom of the ironclad by an inch.
Sir Harry had an old friend of his to stay with him, Captain Clifton, a most remarkable and interesting man. In the old days, the passage for the opium trade existing between China and India was taken only once a year—the opium ships running up to China with one monsoon and down to India with the other. Clifton went to the Government of India and undertook, if the Government would permit him to build vessels to his own design, to build clippers to thrash up against the monsoon as well as run before it, and so double the income accruing from the opium trade. The Government consenting, Clifton designed the Blue Jacket and the Red Jacket and vessels of that class, which were the famous opium clippers of the "roaring forties" and fifties.
The Indian Government gave Captain Clifton a lakh of rupees. On his way home, Clifton, touching at what is now the city of Melbourne in Australia, but which was then a small assemblage of wooden shanties, noticed the possibilities of the magnificent harbour. He told me that he could have bought the whole site of Melbourne for a lakh; but on consideration, he decided against the project.
One of my great friends, Sir Allan Young, a brilliant seaman of the old school, commanded, at the age of twenty-four, one of Clifton's opium clippers.
Upon the occasion of the Prince of Wales's opening the new breakwater at Holyhead, in 1873, his Royal Highness was entertained together with a large party at a country house in the neighbourhood. The Prince called to me, and said:
"This is very slow. You really must do something to enliven the proceedings."
"Well, sir," said I, "I will run a hundred yards race with Lord ——. As he is Irish, he is sure to take me up if I challenge him."
Sure enough, Lord —— accepted the challenge, but on conditions. These were: that I should race in full uniform, excepting my sword, while himself should "take his wardrobe from off himself." Lord —— then proceeded to divest himself there and then of his Patrick ribbon, coat, waistcoat, and boots, which he confided to the care of the wife of a certain distinguished Liberal statesman. He dropped his Patrick ribbon into her lap, saying:
"Madam, will ye have a care now of me Jewel, for glory be to God there's no saying what twist this mad one might give me!"