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But we plain people ashore might very willingly be content to leave these commodores in the unmolested possession of their gilded penny whistles, rattles, and gewgaws, since they seem to take so much pleasure in them, were it not that all this is attended by consequences to their subordinates in the last degree to be deplored.
And as for old Charles the Fifth, again, the gay-pranked, coloured suits of cards were invented, to while away his dotage, even so, doubtless, must these pretty little signals of blue and red spotted bunting have been devised to cheer the old age of all Commodores.
To see just how the vital energy has been toned down, you must contrast one of this section with a specimen of Section A of the same class, say, for instance, one of the old-fashioned, full-whiskered, red-faced, roaring, big Commodores of the last generation, whom you remember, at least by their portraits, in ruffled shirts, looking as hearty as butchers and as plucky as bull-terriers, with their hair combed straight up from their foreheads, which were not commonly very high or broad.
Fell asleep last night thinking of Admirals, Commodores and men-o'-war and of how they might, within the next forty-eight hours, put another complexion upon our prospects. So it seemed quite natural when, the first thing in the morning, a cable came in with the tea asking me whether I have been consulting de Robeck as to "the future operations that will be necessary."
They looked like the gloomy entrances to family vaults of buried dead; and when I chanced to see some unknown functionary insert his key, and enter these inexplicable apartments with a battle-lantern, as if on solemn official business, I almost quaked to dive in with him, and satisfy myself whether these vaults indeed contained the mouldering relics of by-gone old Commodores and Post-captains.
Like a hole broken in the side of some ancient subterranean dungeon, straight ahead of him, larger than natural life, he saw the yawning blackness of the Commodores' cave. Only once before, as an adolescent, had he observed it, from the high western wall. His more recent encounter had only galvanized his fears.
Though neither Fleet, nor Traffic, nor Commodores pleased thee, still was it not a Fleet, sailing in prescribed track, for fixed objects; above all, in combination, wherein, by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each could manifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas; and for thyself find that shorter Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-country of a Nowhere?
These officers, together with Captain Worcester, a North American, got up a cabal, the object of which was to bring about a divided command between myself and Admiral Blanco, or, as they expressed it "two commodores and no Cochrane."
Yet these qualifications are not only required, but demanded; and no one has a right to be a naval captain unless he possesses them. Regarding Lieutenants, there are not a few Selvagees and Paper Jacks in the American navy. Many Commodores know that they have seldom taken a line-of-battle ship to sea, without feeling more or less nervousness when some of the Lieutenants have the deck at night.
This gentleman was one of the old fashioned commodores, a capital sailor, an intrepid warrior, and a thorough going patriot. He was born in Baltimore, in 1759. He entered the marine early in life. At the age of sixteen he served in the expedition of Commodore Hopkins to the Bahama Islands, and continued in active service through the whole revolutionary war.
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