never again found him. Many a
quaint incident passed, recorded or unrecorded, under that sulphurous
canopy. A British ship, wholly dismasted, lay between two enemies, her
captain desperately wounded. A murmur of surrender was somewhere heard;
but as the first lieutenant checked it with firm authority, a cock flew
upon the stump of a mast and crowed lustily. The exultant note found
quick response in hearts not given to despair, and a burst of merriment,
accompanied with three cheers, replied to the bird's triumphant scream.
On board the _Brunswick_, in her struggle with the _Vengeur_, one of the
longest and fiercest fights the sea has ever seen, the cocked hat was
shot off the effigy of the Duke of Brunswick, which she bore as a
figure-head. A deputation from the crew gravely requested the captain to
allow the use of his spare chapeau, which was securely nailed on, and
protected his grace's wig during the rest of the action. After this
battle with the ships of the new republic, the partisans of monarchy
noted with satisfaction that, among the many royal figures that
surmounted the stems of the British fleet, not one lost his crown. Of a
harum-scarum Irish captain are told two droll stories. After being
hotly engaged for some time with a French ship, the fire of the latter
slackened, and then ceased. He called to know if she had surrendered.
The reply was, "No." "Then," shouted he, "d----n you, why don't you
fire?" Having disposed of his special antagonist without losing his own
spars, the same man kept along in search of new adventures, until he
came to a British ship totally dismasted and otherwise badly damaged.
She was commanded by a captain of rigidly devout piety. "Well, Jemmy,"
hailed the Irishman, "you are pretty well mauled; but never mind, Jemmy,
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."

The French have transmitted to us less of anecdote, nor is it easy to
connect the thought of humor with those grimly earnest republicans and
the days of the Terror. There is, indeed, something unintentionally
funny in the remark of the commander of one of the captured ships to his
captors. They had, it was true, dismasted half the French fleet, and had
taken over a fourth; yet he assured them it could not be considered a
victory, "but merely a butchery, in which the British had shown neither
science nor tactics." The one story, noble and enduring, that will ever
be associated with the French on the 1st of June is in full keeping with