This was instantly done! The Goliath shot ahead, and Captain Foley had the glory of leading the British fleet into action. By some accident, however, he failed to place the Goliath in opposition to the headmost ship of the enemy's line. The experienced eye of Hood instantly saw the consequences, and while the Goliath passed on to the second in the line, Sir Samuel placed his own ship, the Zealous, alongside the first, exclaiming in the joy of his heart, "Thank God! my friend Foley has left me the van ship!"
The indifference to danger and fatigue which was habitual to this great captain cost him, I believe, his life when travelling in the interior of India, near Seringapatam. He reached a station at which a fresh set of palanquin bearers were to have met him, but had been prevented by some accident. "It matters not," he cried, "let us walk." And sure enough he set off to perform on foot a stage which might have been dangerous on horseback; for the sun had nearly risen to the meridian, and there was hardly a breath of wind. Possibly no mischief might have followed this march, but he had been spending some days in the island of Seringapatam, the most unhealthy spot in Mysore; and it is a curious circumstance connected with the malaria of the noxious districts, that its effects frequently lie dormant long after it has been breathed. Sir Samuel Hood did not escape; but he felt no inconvenience till after he descended from, and entered the Carnatic at Madras. The jungle fever, of which the fatal seeds had been sown at Seringapatam, attacked him after a few days. When, unfortunately for the profession and for his country, he fell sick at Madras, and knew that his last moments were fast approaching, he called his faithful friend and old follower in many ships and many actions, Lieutenant, afterwards Captain Walcott to his bedside, and said to him,—
"It will be very hard, Walcott, to die in this cursed place; but should I go off, let nothing deter you from going home and accounting to the Admiralty for my command of the East India station."
These were nearly the last intelligible words he uttered; and they serve to show how strong, even in the hour of death, was his sense of professional duty. As Lieutenant Walcott had served during the whole of Sir Samuel's India command in the double capacity of flag-lieutenant and secretary, and had enjoyed the Admiral's entire confidence, he, and he alone, possessed the means of "accounting to the Admiralty" for the measures completed, or in progress, for the good of the service, and therefore the Admiral suggested to him the propriety of his going home to report matters in person.
The senior officer, who succeeded to the command in the Indian seas, felt so desirous of following up the friendly intentions of his lamented predecessor, that knowing the late Admiral's attachment to Lieutenant Walcott, he offered to promote him into a death vacancy, which had either actually taken place, or was certain to fall within a week or two. Moreover, he assured him, that after the necessary time had been served, he should have the first vacancy for post promotion. These were indeed tempting offers to a young officer, devotedly attached to his profession; but they had no influence over a man bred in the "Sam Hood School." The Admiral's dying injunction appeared to this right-minded officer fully as binding, or, if possible, more so, than a written command must have been in his lifetime.
To England Walcott went accordingly; and the difference in professional standing which it made to him was this:—had he remained in India, as Sir Samuel Hood's successor proposed, he would undoubtedly have become a post-captain of 1816, instead of which, his name stood in 1822, six years later on the list! Had it been sixty times six, however, it would have made no difference in his conduct.
When the army returned from Spain, after the battle of Corunna, in 1809, there were between twenty and thirty officers accommodated in Sir Samuel's cabin. Among them was a young officer, a connection of Lady Hood's, whose father and mother called to thank him, conceiving that he had been indebted by this connection for the attention he had received, but Sir Samuel did not even know of the connection or the name. "Indeed," said he, "I hardly knew the names of half my guests. But who," he continued, "would make any distinctions amongst such war-worn and brave fellows."
The fact is, such was his general kindness, that each of these military officers, his passengers, fancied the Admiral was more civil to him than to any one else. He suspended on this occasion all the usual strait-laced etiquettes of the quarter-deck discipline, and permitted the harassed soldiers to lie down and read between the guns, or wherever they pleased. His great delight was to coddle them up, and recompense them, as far as he could, for the severe privations they had undergone during the retreat, and nothing entertained him so much as seeing the relish with which these hungry campaigners partook of his hospitality. On the day after the battle of Corunna, when these gentlemen came on board, he ordered a cock to be driven into a hogshead of prime old sherry; and his satisfaction was perfect, when his steward, with a rueful countenance, communicated to him, on arriving at Spithead, that "his very best cask of wine had been drunk dry on the passage by the soldier officers!"
