Thus expired Sir Gervaise Oakes, full of years and of honours; one of the bravest and most successful of England's sea-captains. He had lived his time, and supplied an instance of the insufficiency of worldly success to complete the destiny of man; having, in a degree, survived his faculties, and the consciousness of all he had done, and all he merited. As a small offset to this failing of nature, he had regained a glimmering view of one of the most striking scenes, and of much the most enduring sentiment, of a long life, which God, in mercy, permitted to be terminated in the act of humble submission to his own greatness and glory.
[1] Suffren, though one of the best sea-captains France ever possessed, was a man of extreme severity and great roughness of manner. Still he must have been a man of family, as his title of Bailli de Suffren, was derived from his being a Knight of Malta. It is a singular circumstance connected with the death of this distinguished officer, which occurred not long before the French revolution, that he disappeared in an extraordinary manner, and is buried no one knows where. It is supposed that he was killed by one of his own officers, in a rencontre in the streets of Paris, at night, and that the influence of the friends of the victor was sufficiently great to suppress inquiry. The cause of the quarrel is attributed to harsh treatment on service.
[2] The writer believes this noble-minded sailor to have been the late Admiral Sir Benjamin Caldwell. It is scarcely necessary to say that the invitation could not be accepted, though quite seriously given.
[3] In the action of the Nile, many of the French ships, under the impression that the enemy must engage on the outside, put their lumber, bags, &c., into the ports, and between the guns, in the larboard, or inshore batteries; and when the British anchored inshore of them, these batteries could not be used.