“You have not heard all yet, boys; twice did he leap overboard to save a drowning sailor from the waves; and when no pilot would venture out in the storm that blew the Dutton, East Indiaman, on shore, full of troops, he magnanimously reached the wreck in a boat, and made such judicious arrangements, that the whole of the crew were saved.”
“Say what you will, but that action was ten times better than a victory!”
“Lord Exmouth was sent to bombard Algiers; for the cruel pirates there would listen to no terms, but continued to infest the ocean, and to keep in cruel captivity their Christian slaves. So well did he perform this service, setting all the slaves at liberty, and doing away with slavery for ever, that his grateful country made him a viscount.”
“He was a kind-hearted man, and well deserved to be rewarded.”
“I have no time to speak of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, because I intend to read you his epitaph. Here it is: it will speak better for him than I can. It was written by the pen of Sir James Mackintosh.”
Sacred to the memory of
SIR SAMUEL HOOD, Bart.
Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and nominated
Grand Cross thereof;
Knight of St. Ferdinand and of Merit,