United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Pelagie, but not for the prisoners who were committed to it, for none of those illustrious victims of police machination displayed any weakness, with the exception of Bouvet de Lozier, who, being sensible of his weakness, wished to prevent its consequences by death. The public, however, kept their attention riveted on the prison in which Moreau was confined.
He concluded it, therefore, to be very probable, that what Bouvet took for land was nothing but mountains of ice, surrounded by loose or field ice. Our present navigators had naturally been led into a similar mistake. The conjecture, that such ice as had lately been seen was joined to land, was a very plausible one, though not founded on fact.
When the forts ceased firing the six battleships Ocean, Swiftsure, Majestic, Albion, Irresistible, and Vengeance came in and tried to carry the attack further. While the French squadron maneuvered to allow freedom of action for this newer British squadron the Turkish guns resumed fire. Then came the first of a series of disasters. Three shells struck the Bouvet, and she soon began to keel over.
Day after day the ship sailed on among icebergs, exposed to storms of rain and sleet and constant storms, although it was the middle of summer. Captain Cook now steered to the west, hoping to get round the ice and reach the highest position of Cape Circumcision; but he finally came to the conclusion that Captain Bouvet had mistaken some lofty icebergs surrounded by field ice for land.
Three or four days they lay dormant and idle, waiting for the General and Admiral; Bouvet, the Vice-Admiral, was opposed to moving in the absence of his chief; Grouchy was irresolute and nervous; but at length, on Christmas day, the council of war decided in favour of debarkation.
They appeared composed and collected, and resignation was depicted on the countenances of all except Bouvet de Lozier, who did not dare to raise his eyes to his companions in misfortune, whom his weakness, rather than his will, had betrayed.
During an attack on the Dardanelles the British battleship "Irresistible" struck a Turkish mine and sank in a few minutes. As the French squadron, which had engaged the forts in a most brilliant fashion, was passing out the Bouvet was blown up by a drifting mine and sank in less than three minutes, carrying with her most of her crew.
"You forget that I am in love with a miniature," I said. In half an hour we were packed and ready, the horses had arrived, we bade good-by to Madame Bouvet and rode down the miry street until we reached the road behind the levee.
The sinking of the battle cruisers Irresistible, Ocean and Bouvet was the heaviest loss sustained by the Allies since the war began. The British crews were rescued, almost to a man, and the loss of the French crew was due mainly to the internal explosion following that of the mine. All the ships sunk were of the earlier pre-dreadnought type.
Chambertin, Graves, Alicant, white wine and red, sparkling and still, they lay in pyramids peeping coyly out of sawdust. Old Bouvet stood with his candle looking here and peeping there, purring in his throat like a cat before a milk-pail.
Word Of The Day