mpathies of Samuel Pellew, whose habit was to
make his children, every Sunday, drink King George's health upon their
knees.

In 1765, when the future admiral was only eight years old, his father
died, and the mother making an imprudent marriage three years later, the
children were thrown upon the world with small provision and scanty
care. The resolute, active, and courageous character of the lads,
however, brought them well forward among their equals in age. At school
Edward was especially distinguished for fearlessness. Of this he gave a
marked instance, when not yet twelve, by entering a burning house where
gunpowder was stored, which no other of the bystanders would approach.
Alone and with his own hands the lad brought out the powder. A less
commendable but very natural result of the same energetic spirit was
shown in the numerous fighting matches in which he was engaged. Being
threatened with a flogging for one of these, the circumstance became the
immediate occasion of his going to sea. If flogged, he declared, he
would run away; and as a decided taste for seafaring life had already
manifested itself, his guardian thought better to embrace at once the
more favorable alternative and enter him regularly in the navy. He thus
went afloat towards the end of 1770, the date at which Nelson, also,
though one year younger, began his career.

His first cruise was in the Mediterranean. It came to a premature end
through a quarrel between the commander of the ship and one of the
midshipmen. In this the captain was clearly and grossly in the wrong;
yet nevertheless carried his resentment, and the power of oppression in
his hands, then little restrained by law, so far as to expel the
youngster from the ship and set him on shore in Marseilles. Pellew
insisted upon accompanying his messmate, and the two lads of fourteen,
aided by some of the lieutenants, secured a passage home. It shows a
pleasing trait in our hero's character that, some years afterwards, he
advanced materially the professional fortunes of the son of the officer
who had thus abused his authority.

He next passed under the command of a Captain Pownoll, between whom and
himself were established such warm relations, of affectionate interest
on the one side and reverential regard on the other, that Pownoll became
a family name among the descendants of the admiral. He himself gave it
to his first-born, and it still appears in the present generation. Under
him, als