The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Sailors, by W.H.G. Kingston

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Title: Our Sailors
Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign

Author: W.H.G. Kingston

Illustrator: Charles Adrian (last name not clear)

Release Date: May 9, 2007 [EBook #21402]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR SAILORS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Our Sailors; Gallant deeds of the British Navy during Queen Victoria's
reign, by W.H.G. Kingston.

________________________________________________________________________

This book was originally written by Kingston quite early on in his
career as a writer. As he died in 1880 he predeceased the Queen by
quite a few years. The book was bought up to date, including, we
believe, some input by George Henty, the writer of numerous books for
boys, who had been a friend of Kingston's. So this edition presses on a
quarter of a century beyond Kingston's death.

Much the same can be said about the parallel book "Our Soldiers" which
is also to be found on the Athelstane website.

Most of the stories are, surprisingly enough, actually military ones.
It is surprising how often naval forces were engaged in direct support
of military actions. It was not just the Relief of Mafeking in which
they were involved, though of course through the writings of
Baden-Powell most of us have heard of that event.

The book is laid out in a way that is slightly different from the usual
Kingston book is presented, but we hope we have followed the book fairly
faithfully.

________________________________________________________________________

OUR SAILORS; GALLANT DEEDS OF THE BRITISH NAVY DURING QUEEN VICTORIA'S
REIGN, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

CHAPTER ONE.

OUR SAILORS.

"Let fall the topsails, hoist away--up anchor, round goes the capstan--
sheet home--haul taut the braces! and away we glide, to prove to our
countrymen that British sailors have not been sleeping on beds of roses
for the last quarter of a century since her gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria came to the throne." So wrote our author some forty years ago.
"Up anchor, full speed ahead,"