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could endure to see waste in any shape. Two of his rules I can remember, which were written up in the servants' hall:

"The servants are welcome to eat and drink as much as they please, but nothing is to be wasted.

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No improper conversation is to be suffered." Of course, any deviation from temperance was punished with dismissal.

He was an economist, in the truest sense of the word. Whether in the palace or the cottage, whether an admiral and commander-inchief, or a midshipman, he ever held himself bound to inculcate these principles; and no one ever more fully proved their value, either nationally or individually. His mind was equal to cope with any subject, however great; and in serving his fellow-creatures, nothing was too minute for his attention.

When Sir Isaac Coffin went into Parliament, Lord St. Vincent said to him, "Now, be sure you never bring forward any motion but upon the most solid information, and a moral certainty of support."

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He once said to me, When you address a letter to the Admiralty, endeavour to get the whole matter compressed into the first page, for, if they do not see your name at the bottom,

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it is most likely you will not gain much attention it will be thrown into the waste basket."

This is a very important hint to all officers, especially as coming from a first lord. There are many who are notoriously prolix without knowing it, both in their writing and speaking, and yet are grievously offended if you hint it to them. An officer once kept me four hours, detailing his own exploits, and then asked me to give him four hours more, which I could not do. I have condensed the whole of his gallant actions thus related into ten minutes' reading!

In humanity to prisoners of war, and to all other prisoners, none, I may venture to say, ever exceeded Lord St. Vincent; and this is an example which I wish to see followed and established, as a lex non scripta-a known duty of every Briton. We have only to deplore, that the state of society at that period, the awfully demoralized condition of the officers and seamen, and the heavy responsibility which lay on Lord St. Vincent, as a commander-in-chief, and first lord of the Admiralty, rendered it imperative on his part to punish, with severity, any infraction of the law, or the slightest attempt at insubordination.

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CHAPTER XIII.

The mutiny at Cadiz - Mr. Pitt's motion in Parliament: the question not clearly understood, nor fairly stated Mr. Giffard's error on the subject of biscuit - The affair of the Kingsfisher in the TagusConduct of John Maitland-Remarks - The first symptoms of mutiny in the fleet before Cadiz Conduct of Captain Dacres, of the Barfleur- of Lord St. Vincent-- Affair of the St. George, Peard, and Hatley - Fidelity of the marines - Court-martial-Speech of Lord St. Vincent to the mutineers-His promptitude in carrying the sentence into effect - Divine service, execution, and action with the enemy Order to Sir William Parker-Letter to Lady Spencer -Origin of the dispute with Sir John Orde-Capture of the Prince George's launch - Skirmish with the Spanish gun-boats - Unfortunate results-General order - Ill-advised proceeding of Sir John Orde.

As I have given already, in the Naval History of Great Britain, a full account of the mutiny off Cadiz, I shall not have occasion to repeat much of that event in the present work; but there are a few supplemental observations, which will be necessary to show the harmony which existed between Mr. Pitt, at that time his Majesty's prime minister, and Sir John Jervis, whose fleet had, while cruizing before Cadiz, received the fatal contagion from home.

Mr. Pitt moved in Parliament, in June, 1797, for leave to bring in a bill for the better prevention and punishment of all traitorous attempts to excite sedition and mutiny in his Majesty's naval service. He entered into some details, in order to prove the existence of a settled design to spread disaffection and disorganization into our fleets and armies. In this he was fully borne out by the facts, as I shall have occasion to show very shortly. In the mean time, it will be right to repeat, not in vindication of mutiny, but as an act of substantial justice to the sailors, that they had not been fairly dealt by; if they had, sedition and rebellion would have found no countenance among them. The proof of this is to be found in their immediate and cheerful return to their duty, the moment the demands of the Channel fleet were complied with, and the feeling manner in which they behaved to their officers during the whole of the period of excitement.

It was an error common among many wellinformed men of that day, to suppose that the sailors had no real or just cause of complaint, inasmuch as, after they had obtained their demands of an increased allowance of provisions, biscuit was thrown overboard from the ships of war. It was thence inferred, that the

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sailors had more than they could eat. Mr. Giffard repeats this error, on the authority" of an old Post Captain." (See Life of Pitt, vol. v., p. 159). But the old Post Captain must have made little use of his eyes, if he had not seen biscuit going astern, when he was a little midshipman, watching the gulls from the tafrail. I can remember it, from the time I first remember salt water. The fact is, that one of the component parts of sea-biscuit, at that time, was meal ground from peas, and this formed a hard and flinty vein in the bread, which would yield to nothing short of Mr. M'Adam's hammer. The sailors, when they found these pieces of flint in their mouths, always consigned them to the deep; but the savings of their bread, which they did not consume, were carefully preserved, and exchanged with the market-people for vegetables. I never heard of their parting with their meat, or suet, or flour, or butter, or sugar, in the same manner, and I venture respectfully to differ with the highest authority on this subject. Nelson appears to have been of my opinion, and expressed the same to his late Majesty, King William IV., then Duke of Clarence.(Clarke and M'Arthur, 8vo. edit., p. 423). His Royal Highness says, in a letter to Nelson,