United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Among Hawke's memoranda occur the words, "Not to undertake anything without good pilots."
Arriving at Delhi, Major Alan Hawke's first visit was to Ram Lal Singh, as he prepared to "report forthwith," in "full rig," to the local Commander. There was a strange preoccupation in the old jeweler which baffled Hawke. Ram Lal only humbly begged to have all his lengthened accounts with Madame Berthe Louison arranged, and Alan Hawke, with a few words, calmed the Mussulman's fears.
In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and glass. A sullen discontent had settled down on Hawke's brow when Berthe Louison publicly departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence. "Wait for my return, and only watch the marble house," said the Madame.
This spiriting away of Nadine!" cried Alixe, grasping Hawke's wrist with a nervous clasp, which made the strong man wince. "This juggling in my absence?" Her eyes were sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions. "Madame," calmly said Alan Hawke, "if you had trusted to me, this would not have happened. But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself, from the first.
And there, in the family vault at Greenwich, near the school he had left for his first war, half his short life ago, he was laid to rest on November 20 at the very time when his own great victory before Quebec was being confirmed by Hawke's magnificently daring attack on the French fleet amid all the dangers of that wild night in Quiberon Bay. Canada has none of his mortality.
"There is not in Hawke's correspondence," says his biographer, "the slightest indication that he himself doubted for a moment that it was not only possible, but his duty, to keep the sea, even through the storms of winter, and that he should soon be able to 'make downright work of it." If it be urged that the condition of the French navy was better, the character and training of its officers higher, than in the days of Hawke and Nelson, the fact must be admitted; nevertheless, the admiralty could not long have been ignorant that the number of such officers was still so deficient as seriously to affect the quality of the deck service, and the lack of seamen so great as to necessitate filling up the complements with soldiers.
Hawke's squadron might have been spared for the relief of Minorca; that, instead of attending to this important object, the admiralty, on the eighth day of March, sent two ships of the line and three frigates to intercept a coasting convoy off Cape Barfleur: on the eleventh of the same month they detached two ships of the line to the West Indies, and on the nineteenth two more to North America, where they could be of little immediate service; on the twenty-third, two of the line and three frigates a convoy-hunting off Cherbourg; and on the first of April five ships of the line, including three returned from this last service, to reinforce sir Edward Hawke, already too strong for the French fleet bound to Canada; that all these ships might have been added to Mr.
Madame Delavigne was pleased to be cheerfully buoyant. She had silently listened to Hawke's recital of the probable causes of General Abercromby's visit. "I could see that Johnstone evidently wished to occupy us both at Allahabad. Your conduct was discretion itself! Have you seen him yet? Or the ladies?" She eyed her listener keenly. "No, Madame," frankly said Hawke.
The recruits in Vanity Fair easily pick up the tricks of society, and old Hugh's money and prospective elevation will surely draw suitors around like flies swarming near the honey." The boat gracefully glided in to the port of Ouchy before Major Hawke's day dream faded away. A flattering dream which led him on to a future gilded by Sir Hugh Johnstone's money.
Senator Hanway was given his share in the picture as the paid traitor who had furnished that feather from the American Eagle's wing which so fatally aided the enemy in his archery. To one unacquainted with the tinderous quality of political popularities, what ensued would be hard to imagine. Mr. Hawke's interview was as a torch to tow.
Word Of The Day