The Two Admirals (73 page)

"Is this Bowldero, or Glamorgan House, my Lord Duke," he asked, in a
whisper.

"It is neither, Admiral Oakes, but Westminster Abbey; and this is the
tomb of your friend, rear-admiral Richard Bluewater."

"Galleygo, help me to kneel," the old man added in the manner of a
corrected school-boy. "The stoutest of us all, should kneel to God, in
his own temple. I beg pardon, gentlemen; I wish to pray."

The Duke of Glamorgan and Sir Wycherly Wychecombe helped the admiral to
his knees, and Galleygo, as was his practice, knelt beside his master,
who bowed his head on his man's shoulders. This touching spectacle
brought all the others into the same humble attitude. Wycherly, Mildred,
and their children, with the noble, kneeling and praying in company. One
by one, the latter arose; still Galleygo and his master continued on the
pavement. At length Geoffrey Cleveland stepped forward, and raised the
old man, placing him, with Wycherly's assistance, in the chair. Here he
sat, with a calm smile on his aged features, his open eyes riveted
seemingly on the name of his friend, perfectly dead. There had been a
reaction, which suddenly stopped the current of life, at the heart.

Thus expired Sir Gervaise Oakes, full of years and of honours; one of
the bravest and most successful of England's sea-captains. He had lived
his time, and supplied an instance of the insufficiency of worldly
success to complete the destiny of man; having, in a degree, survived
his faculties, and the consciousness of all he had done, and all he
merited. As a small offset to this failing of nature, he had regained a
glimmering view of one of the most striking scenes, and of much the most
enduring sentiment, of a long life, which God, in mercy, permitted to be
terminated in the act of humble submission to his own greatness and
glory.

[1]
Suffren, though one of the best sea-captains France ever
possessed, was a man of extreme severity and great roughness of manner.
Still he must have been a man of family, as his title of
Bailli
de
Suffren, was derived from his being a Knight of Malta. It is a singular
circumstance connected with the death of this distinguished officer,
which occurred not long before the French revolution, that he
disappeared in an extraordinary manner, and is buried no one knows
where. It is supposed that he was killed by one of his own officers, in
a rencontre in the streets of Paris, at night, and that the influence of
the friends of the victor was sufficiently great to suppress inquiry.
The cause of the quarrel is attributed to harsh treatment on service.

[2]
The writer believes this noble-minded sailor to have been the late Admiral Sir Benjamin Caldwell. It is scarcely necessary to say that the invitation could not be accepted, though quite seriously given.

[3]
In the action of the Nile, many of the French ships, under
the impression that the enemy
must
engage on the
outside
, put their
lumber, bags, &c., into the ports, and between the guns, in the
larboard, or
inshore
batteries; and when the British anchored
inshore
of them, these batteries could not be used.