On the 1st of July H.M.S. Iris, the avant courier of the Squadron, arrived. The Squadron itself arrived on the 7th. Richard and I went on board an hour later, to every ship—there were eleven all told—to invite the Captains and officers to a night fête-champêtre and ball at Opçina, as we wanted, as early as possible in the beginning of their visit, to put them on cordial terms with our friends in the City.
We issued eight hundred invitations to the Captains and officers of our Squadron, the Captains and officers of the Austrian Navy and other Men-of-war anchored there, the Colonels and officers of the Austrian regiments stationed there, the Governor and family and Staff, all the Austrian authorities, the Consular corps, the chief English and Americans, the private friends, who numbered about a hundred and fifty of the cream of Trieste, the Press, Austrian-Lloyd's, and the Police.
We created a kind of Vauxhall in the grounds surrounding the Inn at Opçina. In a large field at the back of the Inn we had eight tables fifty feet long; a hut for tea, coffee, and refreshments, one of barrels of wine and beer, to be drawn off and served at the tables, a large wooden ball-room, three tents for toilettes, or for resting, and seats and benches all round, raised like an amphitheatre, for those who wanted to watch. These were adorned with five hundred and fifty large bouquets of flowers, several thousand coloured lamps, and two hundred flags of all nations. There were four entrances, each with transparencies exhibiting illuminated sentences, such as "Welcome!" "Ave!" "Austria and England" crossed. The English Admiral and the Austrian Commander-in-Chief each lent us their bands. We had no end of fireworks, and Catherine wheels, and Bengal lights. Austrian-Lloyd's lent us forty stewards; the Chief of Police lent us a cordon of police to keep the ground. Every omnibus and carriage in the place was engaged to bring up such guests as had not their own private carriages, and I chose twelve aide-de-camps to help me to make the affair go off; in short, we looked forward to having a regular good time.
Everything was in high gala, and the first waltz had begun, when the weather, which had been as dry as a bone all the summer till that moment, suddenly opened out; and it did not rain, but it poured in buckets, with tremendous thunder and lightning. It just lasted two hours, putting out all our lamps, damping our fireworks, reducing our transparencies to pulp; there was a regular sauve qui peut to the inn. The police went for the drinking-booth, and were soon incapable; the mob broke in; they seized all the best things to eat and drink, they jumped on the plates and dishes and broke them. Richard looked up to the sky and ejaculated, "So like Provy!" I cried with rage and mortification for a few minutes, and then, rallying round, Richard and I got a party of young men to the rescue, who went and cleared the grounds, already over ankle-deep in mud; they rescued all that was left of food and drink. I got another party to clear away the furniture of the lower part of the Inn, set the two bands to work in different parts, and my friends to dancing, whilst my aide-de-camps and I rigged up several supper-rooms. I had forty waiters from Lloyd's, but half of them had followed the example of the police. Our friends, quite unconscious of the havoc behind the scenes, danced right merrily the whole night, and supped, and were good-natured enough to enjoy themselves thoroughly with the greatest good humour; and the party did not break up until five.
I went out into the back scenes, where I found that my own things were being sold at the bar of the inn, to our own Squadron's bandsmen, at a big price. I soon put a stop to that, and obliged the vendors to restore them their money, and gave them their suppers and wine. It was a pandemonium. The natives were all too far gone to know me, so that I could hardly get any order obeyed; they were breaking bottles of wine, two together, like clashing cymbals. The tipsy coachmen were dancing with the tipsy villagers, and every now and then they jumped on a dish, or destroyed property in other ways. It was not encouraging, but it was useless to struggle against the inevitable, so I only saw that the Squadron bandsmen got all they wanted without paying for it. (Such is the wild animal when it can do what it likes without restraint.)
Meanwhile we managed to do a lot of fireworks, and everything went off beautifully. After all our guests were departed, Everard Primrose and Mr. Welby, the well-known popular attaché, finding their coachman helplessly drunk, put him inside the carriage, and got on the box and drove themselves down; and the very last thing of all was seeing our staggering, hiccoughing policemen into omnibuses to go down to Trieste. Thus ended our first fête for the Squadron. The damage the natives did us was immense, as we borrowed all our plates and dishes from a Company, and any one can imagine what that would be, to give a sit-down supper to eight hundred people.
The Emperor, who always honours the English fleet—the only one he notices—ordered entertainments to be given, one at the castle at Miramar, and the other by the Austrian Admiral; so on the 11th came off the dinner at Miramar, and on the 13th the Austrian Admiral's dinner. Then the English Admiral gave us a dinner, and then a ball was given by H.M.S. Alexandra, where the officers kindly asked me to help them to receive the Trieste guests. On the 14th we had "teas" on board the Invincible and the Alexandra, and Admiral Beauchamp Seymour's (now Lord Alcester) dinner; the 15th, a tea-party on board the Falcon, and a ball on the Superb. On the 16th we organized a monster picnic to the Caves of Adelsberg, which were illuminated expressly. On the 17th Baron Morpurgo gave a banquet with music, and then followed our dinner to the Captains of the Men-of-war. The fleet departed on the 18th, and we went round to say good-bye. Baron Marco Morpurgo kindly gave us a steamer to see the fleet off; he provided refreshments and music, and we asked our best friends to join. The flagship Alexandra moved first, the ships forming two lines behind her. We steamed in our little vessel alongside the flagship, at a proper distance, till we escorted them out of our Gulf for about a couple of hours; then, shooting ahead, we stopped our engines, dipped our flag thrice, cheered, and turned back, cheering every ship as we passed. They all played "Auld Lang Syne" and "Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye." It was the prettiest sight in the world on a summer evening in the Gulf of Trieste, to see that "going out," and we were awfully sorry to lose them. Captain Selby, of H.M.S. Falcon, was left behind to pick up deserters. We dined with him after parting with the Squadron, and some of his men did a very pretty hornpipe in the moonlight to amuse us.
It is wonderful how popular our sailors became at Trieste; they did such fresh, innocent, playful sort of jokes, and withal so manly and so generous, that they cannot but fail to attract foreigners, whose soldiers and sailors are much more like a patent machine. Most respectable families of the middle classes made great friendships with them, and received them into their families in intimacy, and I am told that they say that the men save up all their money for coming to Trieste. When they fraternized with the Austrian soldiers and sailors, who had not much money in their pockets, they always treated them, which won all hearts.