“That’s true, John; that’s true,” said the seaman, slowly, as if endeavouring to obtain some comprehension of what depths of ignorance the fact implied. “So, I suppose you’ve never heerd tell of—hold on; let me rake up my brain-pan a bit.”
He tilted his straw hat, and scratched his head for a few minutes, puffing the while immense clouds of smoke, to the inexpressible delight of the open-mouthed youngsters around him.
“You—you’ve never heerd tell of Lord Howe, who licked the French off Ushant, somewheres about sixteen years gone by?”
“Never.”
“Nor of the great victories gained in the ’95 by Sir Edward Pellew, an’ Admiral Hotham, an’ Admiral Cornwallis, an’ Lord Bridgeport?”
“No, of coorse ye couldn’t; nor yet of Admiral Duncan, who, in the ’97, (I think it was), beat the Dutch fleet near Camperdown all to sticks. Nor yet of that tremendous fight off Cape Saint Vincent in the same year, when Sir John Jervis, with nothin’ more than fifteen sail o’ the Mediterranean fleet, attacked the Spaniards wi’ their twenty-seven ships o’ the line—line-o’-battle ships, you’ll observe, John Adams—an’ took four of ’em, knocked half of the remainder into universal smash, an’ sunk all the rest?”
“That was splendid!” exclaimed Adams, his martial spirit rising, while the eyes of the young listeners around kept pace with their mouths in dilating.
“Splendid? Pooh!” said Jack Brace, delivering puffs between sentences that resembled the shots of miniature seventy-fours, “that was nothin’ to what followed. Nelson was in that fight, he was, an’ Nelson began to shove out his horns a bit soon after that, I tell you. Well, well,” continued the British tar with a resigned look, “to think of meetin’ a man out of Bedlam who hasn’t heerd of Nelson and the Nile, w’ich, of coorse, ye haven’t. It’s worth while comin’ all this way to see you.”
Adams smiled and said, “Let’s hear all about it.”
“All about it, John? Why, it would take me all night to tell you all about it,” (there was an audible gasp of delight among the listeners), “and I haven’t time for that; but you must know that Lord Nelson, bein’ Sir Horatio Nelson at that time, chased the French fleet, under Admiral Brueys, into Aboukir Bay, (that’s on the coast of Egypt), sailed in after ’em, anchored alongside of ’em, opened on ’em wi’ both broadsides at once, an’ blew them all to bits.”