oisted the memorable signal, 'England expects
every man to do his duty.' He was well aware that the men who could
patiently and calmly face the toil and danger of a blockading fleet,
day and night, on the stormy waves of the Bay of Biscay, or on the lee
shores of the Mediterranean, such as his fleet had had to encounter,
wanted no other stimulus, in the presence of the enemy, than that
which he so confidently applied. Napoleon found to his cost, on the
field of Waterloo, that the word _Glory_ had no longer any power to
launch his battalions successfully against troops, who had learnt in
the British school of duty and obedience to confront death, not only
in the impetuous battle-charge, but in the more trying season of long
endurance in the Lines of Torres Vedras. Men who can wait, and bear
and forbear, and remain steadily at their post under every provocation
to leave it, are invincible opponents. The cool determination which
resisted the onset, and withstood the furious rush of the French
Guards, was part and parcel of the same character which made heroes of
the comrades of Nelson. To obey implicitly, and to feel that no
quality is superior to that of obedience,--to wait for your
commander's word,--to keep order,--to preserve presence of mind,--to
consider yourself one of many, who are to follow the same rule, and to
act in unison with each other,--to regulate your movements according
to the demands of the common safety,--to consider your honour to be as
much at stake in submitting to a command to remain stationary and not
to stir, as to dash forward,--these are the peculiarities, which
constitute the substantial excellence of the national character; and
the shipwrecks of the Royal Navy illustrate this national character
even more than the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar. The perils of
a shipwreck are so much beyond those of a battle, that the loss of
life, when the St. George, the Defence, and the Hero, were wrecked in
the North Seas, in 1811, was far greater than that on the part of the
English in any naval action of late years. In order to place the
qualities of obedience and endurance--so characteristic of the British
seaman--in the strongest light, and to show by contrast that the
possession of them is the greatest security in danger, whilst the want
of them ensures destruction, I commend the following statement to the
attention of all who shall read this volume.

In the year 1816 two stately vessels were sai