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Updated: May 25, 2025
We'd picked up our tramp, an' was about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might say, was manoeuvrin' en masse, an' then come the order to cockbill the yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack.
After commanding the Weasel sloop, he was promoted to the rank of post-captain in 1724. After commanding numerous ships, and conducting himself with much ability and discretion, he was selected to command that expedition to the South Seas which made his name famous.
We had a fast run across the Atlantic. The news of my supposed loss had reached the frigate, and the kind way in which my uncle and the gun-room officers, as well as my messmates, received me, showed me that I had been regretted of course a midshipman cannot expect to create any very great sorrow when he loses the number of his mess, as an admiral or a post-captain would.
The 'ancien marin' and present Ambassador had been so used to miracles since the loss of that lock of hair, that he did not think it supernatural, having during the last few days been in turn a Fantaisian nobleman, a post-captain, a fish, a goddess, and, above all, an author, he should now be transformed into a plenipotentiary.
When the latter, in December, 1778, was made commander into the brig "Badger," the other was transferred to the vacant room in the "Bristol;" and when Nelson, on the 11th of June, 1779, became post-captain in the "Hinchinbrook" frigate, Collingwood again followed him as commander of the "Badger."
The fire left his eye, the grin his countenance; and he stood beside his lordship in a moment, the quiet and gentlemanly post-captain, deferentially polite in the presence of his superior. I understood the thing in a moment it was the keeper and his patient.
Beyond that, advancement went by seniority; a post-captain might be "yellowed," retired as a rear admiral, but while in active service he kept the advantage of his early promotion.
It proved, in fact, the keen military sense of the demands of an occasion which constitutes the born corps or division commander. This was Saumarez's third general action, at a time when Nelson, although three years a post-captain, had commanded only frigates, and had never seen a battle between fleets.
"Well, father, that's a good story to the point, but I do not see that I ever have any chance of being a post-captain." "Don't seem much like it, certainly; but you've a good chance of being a pilot." "Yes, that I certainly have; and a pilot is always respected, go on board what ship he may." "To be sure he is, because he is supposed to have more knowledge than any one on board."
The "dreadful accident in high life" found its way into the papers of the day, and before dinner time a pile of visiting cards was poured in, which covered the table. The next day a letter arrived from the First Lord, announcing that he had made out my commission as post-captain, and trusted that I would allow him the pleasure of presenting it himself at his dinner hour, at half-past seven.
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