“You don’t say that, Jack Brace!”
“Yes, I do, John Adams; an’ nine French line-o’-battle ships was took, two was burnt, two escaped, and the biggest o’ the lot, the great three-decker, the Orient, was blowed up, an’ sent to the bottom. It was a thorough-goin’ piece o’ business that, I tell you, an’ Nelson meant it to be, for w’en he gave the signal to go into close action, he shouted, ‘Victory or Westminster Abbey.’”
“What did he mean by that?” asked Adams.
“Why, don’t you see, Westminster Abbey is the old church in London where they bury the great nobs o’ the nation in; there’s none but great nobs there, you know—snobs not allowed on no account whatever. So he meant, of coorse, victory or death, d’ye see? After which he’d be put into Westminster Abbey. An’ death it was to many a good man that day. Why, if you take even the Orient alone, w’en she was blowed up, Admiral Brueys himself an’ a thousand men went up along with her, an’ never came down again, so far as we know.”
“It must have bin bloody work,” said Adams.
“I believe you, my boy,” continued the sailor, “it was bloody work. There was some of our chaps that was always for reasonin’ about things, an’ would never take anything on trust, ’xcept their own inventions, who used to argufy that it was an awful waste o’ human life, to say nothin’ o’ treasure, (as they called it), all for nothin’. I used to wonder sometimes why them reasoners jined the sarvice at all, but to be sure most of ’em had been pressed. To my thinkin’, war wouldn’t be worth a brass farthin’ if there wasn’t a deal o’ blood and thunder about it; an’, of coorse, if we’re goin’ to have that sort o’ thing we must pay for it. Then, we didn’t do it for nothin’. Is it nothin’ to have the honour an’ glory of lickin’ the Mounseers an’ bein’ able to sing ‘Britannia rules the waves?’”
John Adams, who was not fond of argument, and did not agree with some of Jack’s reasoning, said, “P’r’aps;” and then, drawing closer to his new friend with deepening interest, said, “Well, Jack, what more has happened?”
“What more? Why, I’ll have to start a fresh pipe before I can answer that.”
Having started a fresh pipe he proceeded, and the group settled down again to devour his words, and watch and smell the smoke.
“Well, then, there was—but you know I ain’t a diction’ry, or a cyclopodia, or a gazinteer—let me see. After the battle o’ the Nile there came the Irish Rebellion.”