THE feelings of a poet inspired Horace with regret that many heroes of past times had fallen unrecorded in song, and were buried unlamented in the “long night” of oblivion. To the Consul Lollius, therefore, he declares that it shall be his care to avert a similar fate from the labours and the virtues of that magistrate; which shall be emblazoned in his pages, and through them receive the plaudits of posterity. The verse has, indeed, lived to our times, and will live through all ages: but the verdict of History has not, in this instance, ratified the flattery of the Bard.

Far from us be any flattery: but, in honest prose, the Biography of the Naval Chronicle shall endeavour to preserve the memory of those of our heroes, who, on “the natural element” of Britons, have devoted their lives to the service of the state. It is more particularly our duty and our desire to attempt this object, when “the pitiless storm” has prematurely engulphed one who, to the high deeds of the warrior, united the mild virtues of social man; and who, not falling in the hour of battle, obtains from his country no testimony to his worth and memorial of his fate.