The Naval Chronicle Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PLATES IN VOLUME XXXVII: From Original Designs
- PREFACE TO THE THIRTY-SEVENTH VOLUME
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF ADMIRAL SIR JOHN HAWKINS
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MARTIN HAPPERTZ VAN TROMP, THE CELEBRATED DUTCH ADMIRAL
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN BARRETT, ESQ. CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE THOMAS LENOX FREDERICK, REAR-ADMIRAL OF THE RED
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE THOMAS LENOX FREDERICK, REAR-ADMIRAL OF THE RED
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM LAYMAN, OF THE ROYAL NAVY
- INDEX
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN BARRETT, ESQ. CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- PLATES IN VOLUME XXXVII: From Original Designs
- PREFACE TO THE THIRTY-SEVENTH VOLUME
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF ADMIRAL SIR JOHN HAWKINS
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MARTIN HAPPERTZ VAN TROMP, THE CELEBRATED DUTCH ADMIRAL
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN BARRETT, ESQ. CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE THOMAS LENOX FREDERICK, REAR-ADMIRAL OF THE RED
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE THOMAS LENOX FREDERICK, REAR-ADMIRAL OF THE RED
- BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM LAYMAN, OF THE ROYAL NAVY
- INDEX
Summary
Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock.
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak;
'Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn, her frame divides,
And crashing spreads in ruins o'er the tides.
Falconer.THE life of a Seaman is especially chequered with accidents. Fortune, who presides more or less in every profession, here rules with arbitrary sway. A concurrence of incidents sometimes elevates the unworthy; but in a seaman's life, replete with situations that call forth all the energies of man, there must be a relative degree of merit to acquire distinction. A desire of command is a natural ambition; but the candidate should possess the qualifications necessary to support it with dignity, in order to obtain respect. Frederick the Great used to say, that he never knew a great man whom fortune had not raised, and merit supported.
The biographical sketch we now present to our readers is of a man who, with a perfect knowledge of his profession, united in his character a real goodness of heart, with an enthusiastic courage; and whose whole life was a tissue of extraordinary embarrassments, terminated by a calamity borne with the cool fortitude of a Spartan.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Naval ChronicleContaining a General and Biographical History of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom with a Variety of Original Papers on Nautical Subjects, pp. 177 - 264Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1817