raltar was the subject of one of them, it may be recalled.
It was to Gibraltar that Captain Warren and his good ship _Grafton_
were ordered. And when Sir. Charles Wager seized that historic bone of
contention, Peter was with the fleet that did the seizing.

From that moment he was in the thick of trouble wherever it was to be
found, like the dear, daredevil young Irishman that he was! Just a
moment let us pause to try to visualise this youthful adventurer of
ours, with the courtly manners, the irrepressible boyish recklessness
and the big heart. Our only authentic descriptions of him are of a
Peter Warren many years older; our only even probable likenesses are
the same. But let us take these, and reckoning backward see what a man
of such characteristics must have been like in his early twenties.

A delightful old print ostensibly representing him at forty, shows him
to have been a round-faced, more or less portly gentleman, with a
full, pleasant mouth and very big and bright eyes. His wig is
meticulously curled and powdered, and he is, plainly, a very fine
figure of a man indeed. Roubilliac's bust of him in Westminster makes
him much better looking and not nearly, so stout. Thomas Janvier, who
has written delightfully about our captain, disturbs me by insisting
that he was a little man,--nay, his insult goes deeper: he says a
little, _fat_ man! I simply will not accept such a distressing theory!

Edward de Lancey, descended from the family of the girl Peter married,
describes him as being "... Of attractive manners, quick in perception
and action, but clear-headed and calm in judgment." And the historian
Parkman declares that at forty-two he had "the ardour of youth still
burning within him." Reverse the figures. What do you suppose that
ardour was like when he was not forty-two but twenty-four?

At the time of our hero's first command and first naval engagement on
his own ship, things were quite exciting for his King and country,
though we have most of us forgotten that such excitements ever
existed. England had a host of enemies, some of them of her own
household. It was even whispered that the American possessions were
not entirely and whole-heartedly loyal! This seemed incredible, to be
sure, but the men in high places kept an eye on them just the same.
Captain Warren's first official post was the station of New York, and
in 1728 he made his first appearance in this harbour.

He was then just twenty-five, and gl