[110]. A shirt in the rigging was the recognised signal from a merchantman for a man of war boat to be sent on board.
[111]. The Dunciad, ii. 105. A reference to the original—of which only the tense is here altered—will show the strict appositeness of the quotation.
[112]. At this time peas were issued whole. Split peas were not issued till about 1856—after the Russian war.
[113]. Rear-Admiral Trogoff, with his flag in the Commerce de Marseille, left Toulon in company, with the English but he died within a few months.—Chevalier, op. cit. pp. [90], 91.
[114]. A recognised form of encouragement. In the court martial on the officers of the Ambuscade, captured by the French on the 14th December, 1798 (James, ii. 273 seq.), the boatswain was asked, ‘Did you hear Lieut. Briggs call to the people to encourage them to come aft and fight?’ and the answer was, ‘He called down to the waist to come up and assist. I believe it was “Damn your eyes, come up.”‘—Minutes of the Court Martial. Cf. Byron’s Don Juan, xi. 12.
[115]. It is only by the aid of such occasional and incidental notices that we can now realise what a very real thing the Test Act of 1673 was, and continued to be, till its repeal in 1828. It required ‘all persons holding any office of profit or trust, civil or military, under the crown, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Church of England, and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation.’
[116]. As was the case in January, 1855.
[117]. Richard Poulden. Died, a rear-admiral, 1845.
[118]. Mr. Marriott, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Meteorological Society, has kindly supplied the following note:—The frost began about the middle of December 1794, was excessively severe in January, and continued till the end of March. There were large falls of snow, and the consequent floods were so great that nearly all the bridges in England were injured. The greatest cold recorded was at Maidstone on January 25, when a thermometer laid on the snow showed –14° F., and another, five feet above the surface, –10° F. There was a thaw on January 26–7, but on the 28th the frost returned and continued. Mr. A. Rollin, secretary to the captain superintendent at Sheerness, has also been so good as to send the following note, at the instance of Rear-Admiral C. H. Adair: ‘In January 1795 King’s Ferry was frozen and also Sheerness Harbour. People walked from ships in the harbour and from the Little Nore to Sheerness on the ice for provisions.’ Mr. Rollin mentions similar frosts in January 1776, and January 1789; but has no record of the frost of January 1855, when the harbour, and seaward as far as the eye could reach, was frozen over, forcibly recalling Arctic memories.
[119]. Two very well-known singers. There are probably many still with us who have heard Braham—he did not retire finally till 1852—if only in ‘The Bay of Biscay.’ Incledon, who died in 1826, served, when a very young man, as an ordinary seaman on board the Formidable, Rodney’s flagship in the West Indies. According to the tradition still living 50 or 60 years ago, his talent was found out, and he used to be sent for, first to the ward room and afterwards to the admiral’s cabin, to sing after dinner; and when the ship paid off, he came on shore provided with letters of introduction which made the rest of his way easy. The details of his service in the navy, as given in the D.N.B., are certainly erroneous. The Formidable did not go to the West Indies till 1782; and Cleland did not then command her.