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Sir Gervaise Oakes' foot had not been on the deck of the Plantagenet five minutes, before a signal for all commanders was flying at that vessel's mast-head. In ten minutes more every captain of the fleet, with the exception of those belonging to the vessels in the offing, were in the flag-ship's cabin, listening to the intentions and instructions of the vice-admiral.
A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were leaving Kobé, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain, still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said, "Which way shall I lay her head, sir?" It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China.
They had a private conversation of fully half an hour, pacing the poop the whole time, and then Cornet was summoned back, again, to his usual station. The latter immediately received an order to acquaint Captain Stowel the rear-admiral desired that the Cæsar might be hove-to, and to make a signal for the Druid 36, to come under the flag-ship's lee, and back her main-top-sail.
The flag-ship had now received orders to leave for England as soon as the 'Blake' should arrive. One morning it was reported that the flag-ship's relief was coming up the Narrows. We had heard of this wonderful ship, of her heavy armament, and the electric lighting system on all her decks. What wonder, then, that we were anxious to behold her?
Accordingly, the Leander having first been ordered to cease firing, the flag-ship's barge, directed by Lieutenant Peter Richards, with Major Gossett, of the Miners, Lieutenant Wolrige, of the Marines, and Mr.
This business settled, the council broke up, and the members of it went on deck. The flag-ship's boats were then manned, and the officers of the fleet went on board the schooner. Orders had meanwhile been given, on board the vessels of the squadron, that their crews should turn up to witness the execution.
Time moved altogether too slowly for the impatient young officer, but at length he heard the flag-ship's bell strike half-past seven, and as it had begun to grow dark, he walked toward the house, and took his station in the shadow of some trees on the opposite side of the street.
Stirred by a movement of compassion, Lord Exmouth, from the flag-ship's poop, seeing the Moorish soldiery clustered thick upon the parapets to watch the ships, waved to them with his hand to get down. At the first hostile gun he gave the order "Stand by!" at the second, "Fire!" and simultaneously with the third the Queen Charlotte's broadside rang out, and the battle began.
Had the Admiral fired one of the flag-ship's thirty-two pounders, double-shotted, down my throat, he could not have demolished more completely my bodily framework than this fatal announcement shattered to pieces the gilded crockeryware of my fondest hopes.
As soon as Lunalilo reached the California, the yards of the three ships were manned, and amidst cheering which rent the air, and the deafening thunder of a royal salute from sixty-three guns of heavy calibre, the popular descendant of seventy generations of sceptred savages stepped on board the flag-ship's deck. No higher honours could have been paid to the Emperor "of all the Russias."
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