But “Peace and Plenty crown the toils of war!”
At this point we may fitly end the story of “Old Ironsides” at Trafalgar—and this book.
FOOTNOTES
[2] Our West India possessions, except Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Lucia, and Antigua were lost; and the four named were about to be attacked when Rodney’s victory saved them. Demerara, our West African settlements, Trincomalee and Ceylon, Minorca, and the American Colonies went also—all because the Ministry of the day refused to keep the Fleet up to the “Two Power standard” of those times, “superior to the combined forces of the House of Bourbon,” i.e. France and Spain, who had the two next powerful fleets after Great Britain. In cash, the war cost England £200,000,000.
[3] I am indebted to the courtesy of the proprietors of the Graphic for permission to reproduce the diagrams here given.
[4] The Kent Trophy Challenge Shield, of which an illustration is given, is of silver. In the centre chief point appears a representation of H.M.S. Kent, taken from a drawing supplied by the Admiralty. This is embossed and oxydized. It is surmounted by an enamelled shield, bearing the Arms of the Association of “Men of Kent and Kentish Men.” Underneath the ship, entwined with branches of laurel, are scrolls to take the names of the Officers Commanding. The lower part of shield shows the arms and motto of the County of Kent, while turrets with protruding guns form an artistic background. Below is a large ornamental tablet displaying the presentation inscription, and round the edge of the shield flows a beautifully modelled pattern of Kentish Hops, Cherries, Oakleaves, and Cob-nuts, each spray of which is separately modelled and bent into position, forming an excellent contrast with the white and burnished groundwork shield. The whole is mounted on a stout polished-oak shield, size 2 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft., and surrounded by thirty silver wreath-medallions, to be inscribed each year with the name of the winning gun-crew’s captain. The total weight of silver used is 146 ozs.
[5] A Kent should have been with the two Kentish admirals Rooke and Byng at the taking of Gibraltar. She was with the fleet, but during the bombardment was stationed to keep watch off Cape de Gata, for the possible appearance on the scene of the French Toulon Fleet, which Rooke fought at Malaga, a month later. From on board the Kent, as the officers’ journals describe, they heard the sound of Rooke’s guns attacking Gibraltar, and uncertain whether the Toulon Fleet might not have got round by hugging the African coast, and the firing be that of the fleet in action with them, the Kent turned back to Gibraltar, arriving in time to witness the first hoisting of the British flag on the fortress.
[6] The usual term with Europeans in the East at that time for the “natives,” as we say nowadays.