138

LAUNCH OF THE ST. GEORGE.

distinguished by genius and spirit. She survived the admiral forty years, and had the honour of being ranked among the particular friends of George the Third and Queen Charlotte.

When the metropolis blazed with illuminations on the acquittal of Admiral Keppel, in 1779, the mob, in perambulating the streets, laid siege to Mrs. Boscawen's house in St. James's Square, bawling, "Put up your lights!" The little old lady opened the window, and said, “Get about your business: my husband beat the French; and I shall not put up any lights for a man who ran away from them."

This address had such an effect upon the populace, that, instead of smashing the windows, they gave three cheers, and departed.

On the tenth of September, the Hebe came to an anchor at Spithead, when Captain Euston gave up the command to Prince William; who then sailed on a cruise in the channel, but still under the instruction of Commodore Gower, assisted by Captain Thornborough.

On the fourth of October, the frigate was at Portsmouth, where the Prince took part in a grand naval ceremony; which, in a letter from thence, is thus described :-" Yesterday, agreeably to the orders of the Admiralty Board, his Majesty's ship, the St. George, of ninety guns, was launched at this port. His Royal Highness Prince William-Henry, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and many of the nobility, were present upon the occasion. By nine in the morning, the yard was crowded with spectators from the different parts of the country; and at half after eleven she was put into the water, amidst the acclamations of the multitude; the ceremony of naming her being first performed

by the young Prince. After the launch was over, his Royal Highness, the nobility, and the officers of different ranks of the navy and marines, attended a public breakfast, given by the commissioners. The Prince afterwards dined on board the Queen, with Admiral Montague, and was saluted with twenty-one guns."

It would not be easy to select any object calculated to raise nobler ideas in the mind of the beholder, than that of a first rate man-of-war entering, from the stocks, into the bosom of the ocean. An elegant writer says, "Those who have ever witnessed the spectacle of the launching of a ship of the line, will, perhaps, forgive me for adding this to the examples of the sublime objects of artificial life. Of that spectacle, I can never forget the impression. When the vast bulwark sprung from her cradle, the calm water, on which she swung majestically round, gave the imagination a contrast of the stormy element in which she was soon to ride. All the days of battle, and nights of danger, she had to encounter; all the ends of the earth which she had to visit; and all that she had to do and suffer for her country, rose in awful presentiment before the mind; and when the heart gave her a benediction, it was like one pronounced on a living being."

The sentiments of the ancients were not less elevated; and it is evident, that the ceremonies now practised at the launching of a ship, are derived from the customs of the Greeks upon the like occasion; with this difference, that they blended religious rites with those of a festive nature. Before the vessel entered her destined element, a priest performed various lustrations, by way of consecrating her to the deity whose name he gave her, and whose image she bore on her prow. The Spaniards and

140

ON THE NAMES OF SHIPS.

Portuguese, to this day, never launch any ship without a priestly benediction, and a profuse sprinkling of holy water at the giving of the name, which is usually that of a tutelary saint. However ridiculous this practice may be, our own naval nomenclature is little better, in exhibiting a complete index to the pantheon; by which sailors, who are far from being read in poetical and mythological history, make, without design, as strange transformations of the names of classic antiquity, as Swift did in jest. Now, a name conveys, or ought to convey, some idea worthy of it; but what just conception can any man, much less an uneducated mariner, have of a Bellerophon, commonly pronounced, "Billy Ruffian ;" an Arachne; a Gorgon; or an Hamadryad ; with a number of other puzzling appellatives, hard to understand, and still harder to utter?

But the navy-list, besides these fabulous names, abounds with many so undignified and inappropriate, that it would almost seem as if they had been selected on purpose to throw ridicule upon the service. How else can we account for such elegant discriminatives as the Bull-dog, and the Mastiff; the Sparrow-hawk, and the Squirrel; the Juniper, and the Bramble; the Swaggerer, and the Swinger; the Surly, and the Growler; the Plumper, and the Pincher-all of which, and a hundred more of the same sort, grace the nautical catalogue of Great Britain; with his Majesty's good ship the Belzebub, to bring up the rear.

THE PRINCE A FREE-MASON.

141

CHAPTER VI.

A. D. 1786 TO 1788.

PRINCE William-Henry, after serving some time in the Hebe frigate, as second-lieutenant, was removed to the Pegasus, of twenty-eight guns; and, on the 10th of April, 1786, received his commission as post-captain of that ship, then lying at Plymouth.

On his Royal Highness's appointment to this command, the captains, then in harbour, expressed their wish, by the port-admiral, to be introduced to him in form. Prince William accordingly appointed the following day, when he held his levee at the Commissioner's house. The captains were all introduced; but he expressed great surprise, that his late brother officers, the lieutenants, had not waited on him also, and expressed a wish that they should the next day attend his levee. The lieutenants, in consequence, waited on the Prince, who immediately, with a good taste only to be equalled by its good feeling, invited himself to dine with them; named a day previous to the one for which he stood engaged to the captains; and added, with a frank kindness," Then, my boys, we will have a jolly day of it together."

During his stay at Plymouth, his Royal Highness became a member of the society of Free-masons; being initiated in due form in the Lodge, number eighty-six, then held at the Prince George Inn, in that town.

142

CAPTAIN OF THE PEGASUS.

About the same time, he was pleased to accept the freedom of the borough of Plymouth, which was presented to him in an elegant gold box, by the four senior aldermen, and as many common-councilmen, of that ancient and respectable corporation.

As the Pegasus was now under orders to prepare for a distant station, her commander, who had spent most of the winter at Plymouth, repaired to London to receive his instructions from the Admiralty-board, and to take leave of his family. His stay in town, however, was but short; and yet it must have been at this period that the following circumstance happened, if in truth it ever happened at all. But since the story has appeared in certain ephemeral memoirs of the Royal Family, and may probably have had some foundation in truth, the insertion of it in this publication is necessary.

At a masquerade, in which the Prince of Wales appeared in the character of a Spanish grandee, accompanied by four of his squires, he is said to have paid particular attention to a nun, who was under the protection of a sailor. The assiduities of the Don were evidently unwelcome to the fair Ursuline, and the gallant tar threatened instantaneous chastisement, if any further provocation were given the grandee, however, was not to be daunted; and he was very ably supported by his attendants, who, boasting of the high and noble descent of their master, declared it to be an act of the greatest condescension in him to hold any parley with a common English sailor. High words arose, and some taunting expressions were used, tending to imply that the fair devotee possessed no real pretensions to the character she had assumed. At length, allusion being made to the nymphs of Portsmouth Point, the choler of the sailor