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MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR COOPER KEY 
 
ADMIRAL SIR ASTLEY COOPER KEY 
 From a Photograph by the Stereoscopic Co. 
 
dHe 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 ADMIRAL THE RIGHT HONBLE. 
 
 Sir ASTLEY COOPER KEY 
 
 G.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S., Etc. 
 
 BV 
 
 Vice-Admiral P. H. COLOMB 
 
 > % 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ESSAYS ON NAVAL DEFENCE" "SLAVE CATCHING IN THE INDIAN OCEAN 
 
 "NAVAL WARFARE" ETC. 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1898 
 
I\ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 LOOKING back on the composition of this work, which has 
 been a long time in hand, I am made aware that, difficult 
 as I thought it when the task was undertaken, it proved 
 still more difficult in carrying out. Dear as Sir Cooper 
 Key's memory is to me, I should never have volunteered 
 to be the one to attempt its preservation. But it came 
 about that while he was recovering from his penultimate 
 illness, a biographical sketch of mine fell into his hands, 
 and he was so much struck by it that he made it a request 
 to his family, that if anything was to be written about him, 
 the writing should be committed to my care. The request 
 was conveyed to me under circumstances when it was im- 
 possible to refuse it; and my chief consolation has been, 
 that as I have honestly attempted to portray a character 
 which I feel to have been a very perfect one, I am not 
 called on to pass judgment on what I have done. 
 
 I hope that I have taken the right course in perpetually 
 mingling the natural character and the effect of environ- 
 ment upon it. Human nature, I take it, is ever made up 
 of these two elements ; but the interest of Sir Cooper Key's 
 life seems to be especially involved in the combination, as 
 so much of the material environment was of his own 
 creation. In this respect the story I have told is perhaps 
 almost unique as a story, though it is but a very full illus- 
 tration of the modern naval officer's life and being. 
 
 I think there is good reason for suggesting that though 
 
 V 
 
 M223780 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 the material progress of the navy and administrative change 
 came to be so mingled in the development of Sir Cooper 
 Key's personality, they were in a sense superposed upon it 
 by the circumstances of his day. That is, that though 
 from the very first we can trace in him an aptitude for 
 dealing with the material and the administrative sides of 
 the naval service, his conduct in command of the Fanny, 
 the Bulldog, the Amphion, and the Sans Pareil, to say 
 nothing of the share he took in the executive conduct 
 of the Board of Admiralty, which I have set out in the 
 eighteenth chapter of this book, show that under war con- 
 ditions his name might have stood on the roll of great 
 admirals. Evidently, he possessed all the courage, inde- 
 pendence, and decision which go to make a great naval 
 leader ; while his personal power of fascination and charm 
 would have ensured him enthusiastic followers. 
 
 Of all the prominent men who have led the navy in 
 my time, I was best acquainted with the subject of this 
 Memoir, and with Sir Geoffrey Hornby. I do not think it 
 is altogether fancy which has led me to see almost an 
 infinite number of parallelisms in character between Sir 
 Cooper Key and Nelson, and between Sir Geoffrey Hornby 
 and Jervis. Each of these men had a warm admiration for 
 the other, though Sir Geoffrey Hornby cooled somewhat 
 towards his friend in the way that is common — Nelson 
 setting the example — when the latter became a member 
 of the Board of Admiralty. Yet Sir Geoffrey Hornby put 
 on record the highest and the truest appreciation of his 
 brother admiral. " If," wrote Sir Geoffrey, in advocating 
 the maintenance of the Britannia as a training school, " she 
 could once in twenty years produce a Cooper Key, she 
 would be well worth the country's maintaining her." 
 
 I could not have written the book had it not been for 
 the kindness of the Admiralty in giving me a very free 
 access to documents ; for, as will be observed, the private 
 
PREFACE 
 
 vu 
 
 sources of information on which to build the later life 
 were few. 
 
 My thanks are especially due to the Earl of North- 
 brook, without whose aid it would have been difficult to 
 write Chapters XVII. and XVIII. He kindly gave me 
 access to all the papers in his possession that related to Sir 
 Cooper Key's action in the time during which he held the 
 office of First Lord of the Admiralty ; and he did me the 
 further kindness of advising me as to omitting such parts 
 of the original of Chapter XVIII. as could not properly 
 appear with advantage to the public service. 
 
 I also have to thank members of Sir Cooper Key's 
 family and others who helped me with material, and in 
 clearing up doubtful points. The late admiral's brother, 
 Commander B. K. Key, undertook the wearisome task of 
 wading through the columns of the Times for several years, 
 and extracting everything likely to be of use to me. 
 
 July 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. School and College— 1827- 1835 . . . . 1 
 
 II. Russell— 1835-1839 ...... 10 
 
 III. Cleopatra— 1 839-1 841 ...... 44 
 
 IV. Excellent and College— 1841-1843 . .64 
 V. Curacoa— 1 843- 1 844 ...... 73 
 
 VI. Gorgon— 1844-1845 ...... 91 
 
 VII. Fanny and Gorgon— 1845- 1846 . . . .107 
 
 VIII. Bulldog— 1847 . . . . . 117 
 
 IX. Bulldog— 1848 ....... 147 
 
 X. Bulldog— 1849- 1850 . . . . . .184 
 
 XI. Amphion— 1 853- 1 854 . . . . .221 
 
 XII. Amphion— 1855- 1856 ... . 252 
 
 XIII. Sans Pareil—i8s6-i8$8 . . . . .267 
 
 XIV. A Royal Commissioner — Captain of the Devonport 
 
 Steam Ordinary — 1859- 1863 .... 288 
 
 XV. Excellent— 1863- 1866 ...... 324 
 
 XVI. Between the Excellent and the Admiralty— 1866-1879 377 
 
 XVII. At the Admiralty as an Administrator— 1879-1886 
 XVIII. At the Admiralty as an Executive — 1882-1885 . 
 XIX. Last Days— 1885- 1888 ..... 
 Index ....... 
 
 410 
 456 
 
 478 
 497 
 
MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE — 1827-1835 
 
 THE public life of the late Astley Cooper Key, who 
 entered the navy with little of what is called 
 " interest " of any kind, and who died an Admiral, 
 a Privy Councillor, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, 
 is a complete exposition of what is, or may be, before the 
 candidate for honour in our own day. A main thread in 
 this life, and traceable at every turn of it, is the environ- 
 ment of change by which it was accompanied. 
 
 Astley Cooper Key, coming afloat for the first time 
 during the last days of William IV., found himself surrounded 
 by all the concomitants, or nearly all, of the great naval 
 war which had terminated twenty years earlier. He and 
 his contemporaries looked back on the battle of Trafalgar 
 through nominally a rather shorter vista of time than that 
 which dims, to the boy completing his last term in the 
 Britannia (1897), the incidents of the American Civil War. 
 The battle of the 1st of June was to him, in backward 
 regard, where the battle of Inkerman stands to the Britannia 
 cadet. 
 
 But the American Civil War would be to the cadet far 
 more distant in the historical past than Trafalgar could have 
 appeared to Cooper Key and his first shipmates. For the 
 gigantic changes, moral and material, which had set in 
 upon the navy before the Crimean War, and which, driven 
 by that spur, have overleaped all visible boundaries, had 
 hardly wakened in Key's boyhood. The material surround- 
 
2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ings of his first ship were essentially those of the last 
 century, and the moral school was one hundred years old 
 at the least. Collingwood's system of discipline had then 
 taken little or no hold on the ordinary naval mind, — he 
 had been dead only twenty-five years, — and a thought- 
 less terrorism was the engine of order in most common 
 employment. 
 
 It was Cooper Key's lot to see from the very first 
 beyond these surroundings ; to be attracted, while still in 
 the jungle, to the mountain ranges only occasionally visible 
 over the tree-tops, and to press onward to points abreast 
 of the changes, and then to control them. 
 
 Astley Cooper Key was the second of nine children. 
 He was born on the 18th of January 1821, at St. Thomas' 
 Street, in the City of London, his father being at that time 
 demonstrator at Guy's Hospital. His father was the eldest 
 son of Dr. Key, a well-known physician, and his mother 
 the daughter of the late Samuel Cooper, of Yarmouth, and 
 niece of the great surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper. 
 
 Young Key had not much voice — boys sent to sea 
 seldom can have much real voice — in the choice of his pro- 
 fession. Dr. Key had no family connection with the navy, 
 and apparently no special friendships amongst naval officers ; 
 but he had acquaintances, and so had naturally Sir Astley 
 Cooper, amongst some of the leading naval men, and prob- 
 ably some of these acquaintanceships determined the 
 father's choice. 
 
 School life for the boy began unusually early, as he was 
 initiated into what was outside home life at Mrs. Sargeant's 
 school at Brighton before he was six years old. Thence he 
 was transferred to Mr. Westcombe's at Winchester, and spent 
 a few months before joining the Naval College at Portsmouth 
 at a school at Hampton managed by Mr. Mills. 
 
 The muscular energy, lightness of limb, and necessity 
 for bodily exertion which characterised the admiral's later 
 years seem to have been present in the child. For the 
 family recollection is that the child was more remarkable 
 for mischief and fun-creation than for anything else, unless 
 it were for sweetness of temper and warmth of affection, 
 
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE— 1827-1835 3 
 
 which grew with his growth and ended but with his life. 
 It is said that the " minding of his book," which formed the 
 staple advice to the children of his day, was but little 
 attended to at first. The natural ability and God-given 
 clearness of thought which were the boy's heritage, having 
 proved sufficient to gain a prize, even in the absence of 
 exertion, it is said that the result was the opposite of what 
 might have been expected. The good thing which had so 
 unexpectedly come to him seemed worthy of being secured 
 by more certain methods, and the family tradition has it, that 
 so long as the spirit of mischief could be kept under, the 
 boy threw himself on to whatever was to be done, with 
 the whole of his not inconsiderable might. That passion 
 for work which distinguished the First Sea Lord of the 
 Admiralty, which was the lament of his friends who knew 
 of the bundles of papers brought away from the office to be 
 dealt with after dinner, and the complaint of some who 
 objected to so much absorption into one hand, had broken 
 out certainly at the Naval College, which he joined in the 
 year 1833. 1 
 
 1 At this time youngsters entered the navy by two separate doors. Through 
 one the boy entered as a volunteer on board some man-of-war, often by the nomina- 
 tion of the captain, who was his friend or relative, and who took him as a sort of 
 apprentice to learn the trade of naval war under his immediate supervision. The 
 other method was as follows. In the year 1729 there was founded at Portsmouth 
 an establishment termed the Royal Naval Academy, which was approved and 
 extended under George III. in the year 1773. By an Order in Council, the 
 Academy was placed in Portsmouth Dockyard, with a view to the training con- 
 stantly forty young gentlemen in the principles and practice of navigation, 
 marine surveying, gunnery, fortification, mechanics, drawing, and various other 
 studies preparatory to their entrance into actual sea service ; of which number 
 fifteen were proposed to be sons of commissioned officers of the Royal Navy. 
 
 In February 1806 the buildings in the dockyard were ordered to be altered and 
 enlarged ; the title of the establishment was changed to " Royal Naval College," 
 and the number to be admitted was raised from forty to seventy, of which forty 
 were to be the sons of commissioned officers. The staff of the College was to con- 
 sist of a governor, lieutenant-governor, and inspector ; a professor, preceptor, 
 mathematical master, and housekeeper; a writing, drawing, French, fencing, 
 dancing master ; a surgeon, and a gunner of Marine Artillery. 
 
 The First Lord of the Admiralty for the time being was the governor, and 
 the captain of the Excellent was the lieutenant-governor, and real executive head 
 of the College. 
 
 The qualifications for entry were good moral conduct, of which a certificate 
 was required from the master under whom the boy had been instructed, "or if he 
 
4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 A passion for work, even in the young, is not un- 
 common ; but a passion for whatever work ought to be 
 done at the time that it ought to be done, is perhaps less 
 frequently met with. There is the passion, and the con- 
 trolled passion; and Key, the boy, at the age of thirteen, 
 seems to have possessed the latter. 
 
 To me, boys' letters have an inexpressible charm. It 
 may be held that they disclose nothing of the mind that pro- 
 duces them, or it may be thought that there is no mind to 
 disclose at an early age. Colour is given to either pro- 
 position by the similarity of boys' letters in form. A boy 
 is, in the face of a letter, like an apprentice at the lathe. 
 There is the engine of language for the shaping of thought, 
 and there is the mechanical tool to record and mark the 
 idea in the form of words. Both are still somewhat strange 
 to the apprentice, and, whatever the design in the mind may 
 be, the skill arising from use is wanting both in the 
 managing the language and the pen in recording it. So 
 the design can only be intelligible when it is of a simple 
 character. The ideal is not and cannot be there, though it 
 may be latent in the mind of the writer. Yet the tendency 
 
 had used the sea, from the captain under whom he last served." He was expected 
 to know the first four rules of arithmetic, reduction, and the rule of three ; to write 
 English from dictation, and to construct English sentences. It was recommended 
 that the candidate should know the definitions, axioms, and postulates of Euclid. 
 The age for entry was not below thirteen, and not above sixteen ; and it was 
 considered that a service at sea of from one to three years before entry in the 
 College was so important that a preference for entry in the College was given 
 to those candidates who had so served. It was supposed that a boy entering, 
 properly qualified, would complete the education in two years, and the whole stay 
 at College was limited to three years. The time passed at the College was 
 allowed to count as service up to the limit of two years, and then at least four 
 years must be passed in a sea-going ship before the midshipman could present 
 himself for examination touching his qualifications for the rank of lieutenant. The 
 parents of the collegian were called upon to lodge security to the amount of ,£200, 
 as pledge that the boy would continue to serve in the navy after leaving the 
 College until he should have completed the time necessary to qualify him for the 
 rank of lieutenant. But this was not required if the boy had served two years at 
 sea before entry at the College. 
 
 The vacations at the College were but two — four weeks at Christmas and five 
 weeks at Midsummer. Government paid to the credit of each student at College 
 four shillings per day, which went to defray expenses. The boys were allowed 
 one shilling a week pocket-money, and on return from vacation they might have 
 one guinea in their pockets as a present from their friends, but no more. 
 
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE— 1827-1835 5 
 
 towards the ideal may be seen even in the simple and 
 possibly clumsy forms which the apprentice — for want of 
 use — is alone capable of presenting. And the charm of a 
 boy's letters consists apparently in the almost unconscious 
 mental effort towards forming the hidden ideal. I trace 
 Key's passion for work, and the reasoned determination 
 that the passion shall be utilised in the direction where duty 
 and the fitness and order of things point, in a letter 
 written from the Naval College when the boy was nearly 
 thirteen years old — 
 
 "This last month I have second merit ticket, instead of first, which I got last 
 time. I am what they call here, five months before my time ; that is, I have been 
 here three months, and learnt in that time as much as I ought to have done in 
 eight months. I am, in trigonometry again, which is very easy, particularly for 
 me, because I have done it before. I mean to try for a prize at the end of the 
 half, for there is a prize for French, English, drawing, geography, and mathe- 
 matics. I don't think I have much chance of the French prize, or of the drawing 
 prize, for in our division (the College is divided into three divisions who do 
 different things at the same time, so that, while one division is doing drawing, 
 another is doing French, and the other English) there are two or three fellows 
 who have been in French four or five years, while I have been in it not quite a 
 year. So you must not expect me to get that prize. The drawing prize : as I 
 do not draw one of the best, you know ; but I think I have some chance (though 
 not much) of the English, geography, and mathematical prize. But nothing can 
 be done without trying, so I will see what I can do. I am going on in drawing 
 very well ; I am now doing sepia, and I will soon begin painting. I like drawing 
 very much indeed ; I would sooner do it than go out to play, and I am quite 
 sorry when the time comes to put up our books." 
 
 There is one difference between Key's and the usual 
 boys' letters which is very marked. His careful remem- 
 brances of all the various members of his family, the 
 thoughtfulness for, and of, each of them, and the tender- 
 ness of his expressions of affection towards them, are all 
 signs of stronger emotional being than we usually meet in 
 young boyhood. Not only so, but there is a removal of 
 the mind from view of the things seen to the contempla- 
 tion and picturing of the things not seen, which is perhaps 
 rare at the age of thirteen. 
 
 But what little things note the lapse of time! The spring 
 of change which was about to burst forth had not shown 
 itself. Key's letters from College are on square letter-paper, 
 sealed ; and their postage from Portsmouth to London was 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 eight times the present rate. Nor would the letters at first 
 glance appear to be only sixty-three years old ; they might 
 quite as readily be credited with an additional century of 
 age, for the form and appearance of letters had undergone 
 no marked alteration in all that time. There is in the hand- 
 writing, perhaps, more of the formalism of the fashion than 
 of the want of practice of the writer. Needless to say that 
 there is hardly a shadow of connection between the writing 
 of the College cadet and the admiral, and that even the 
 formation of the letters making up the signature, as well as 
 the signature itself, have wholly changed. A little of the 
 formalism of the past also finds expression in the " Believe 
 me to be, Your most affectionate son," which precedes the 
 signature. 
 
 Lieutenant Rouse was in charge of the College cadets at 
 this time, and we get a glimpse of the rough-and-ready 
 methods of discipline, as then administered, in the following 
 boy's narrative — 
 
 " Yesterday in school I was out of my place. I went to show a fellow how to 
 do his sum, when Mr. Rouse saw me, and said he must cane me to make me an 
 example to the rest. So he called the sergeant in, who had just lifted up his cane 
 to cane me, when Mr. Jeans, the mathematical master, said, 'Certainly, he 
 ought not to have been out of his place.' Then Mr. Rouse said ' Stop ! ' to the 
 sergeant, and said to Mr. Jeans, ' Have you anything to say in favour of him ? ' 
 and Mr* Jeans said, ' Yes, sir ; he is ahead of the rest of his class, and he is not 
 one of those idle ones who go out of their seats on purpose to chatter.' So Mr. 
 Rouse waved his hand, and the sergeant went away and there was an end of it. 
 Was not that lucky?" 
 
 Key very early found how the old order changes, though 
 doubtless with but little consciousness of what it meant, 
 and that the material was so greatly to govern the moral — 
 
 "The Boyne, one of H.M. ships, sunk near Spithead a long while ago, and 
 there is a man who has invented a sort of india-rubber dress with two glass eyes, 
 and he goes down by a ladder and sends up things by a rope. The other day 
 some of us (who were lucky enough to get into the boat, among whom I was one) 
 went to see her blown up under water, but we were too late ; but we heard the 
 noise — it was like a distant gun. We did not go back then ; we went on to the 
 place, and there saw the man go down. He sent up some copper and a large 
 piece of wood. He looked such an ugly fellow, because he had a thing like a 
 large helmet over his head with two large glass eyes." 
 
 As time went on, the really fine talent of the boy, and 
 
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE— 1827-1835 7 
 
 his powers of self-control, were making their mark in the 
 little group of about sixty youngsters which then formed the 
 Naval College at Portsmouth — 
 
 "The fellows say," he writes in May 1834, "lam sure of the first medal if 
 I try for it — so won't I try ! " 
 
 He talks philosophically about his conduct, as we often 
 meet boys doing now, as if it was something apart from 
 themselves, like the weather, or anything else involving 
 personal consequences, but beyond human control — 
 
 " But, about my conduct, I do get more marks lately than I used to do ; but I 
 am glad to say I am not very backward in learning. I have begun astronomy 
 long ago, and am going on with it very well now. I hope my numbers are not 
 worse this half than they were last half. Will you compare them together and 
 tell me in your next letter which are the best ; and tell me if I have ' good ' 
 written against my name? I know I was short in drawing, but not quite so 
 much as last time." 
 
 The date of these letters seems thrown very far back 
 when we meet sentences such as : "If you write to the 
 governor to say what coach I am to come home by, say 
 the Night Rocket, please, as I think it is the best." 
 
 The boy continues to make progress, and writes on 
 13th September 1834 — 
 
 "At the last exam. I took four places, and am now the eighteenth in the 
 College/' 
 
 Again, on 27th October — 
 
 " Last examination I took one place, so I am now first in my class ; and, four 
 fellows going away, I am now thirteenth in the College. I am getting on very 
 well now. I expect to go into gunnery soon, and after that into fortification, 
 which is the last thing. ... I get first and second merit very often now. . . . 
 I keep my journal regularly, except when I was in the infirmary ; then I could 
 not, and besides, I had nothing to say. ... I am in the first division in English, 
 and the last examination in English I took six places. Next Friday is examina- 
 tion ; I expect to keep my place in mathematics." 
 
 Writing on 1 9th November again, the boy says — 
 
 " I kept my place in the first class. We have passed into gunnery. I like it 
 very much. I have got my College boat, and it is a very nice one. All my 
 money is spent now, but it is not all consumed-, there is a College boat and a gig 
 left of it, which I am sure is better than grubbing it." 
 
 Boys always have some adjective applicable to all things 
 and to all conditions, as expressive of the extreme of 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 satisfaction. The word at the College in Key's time was 
 " dapper," and there was nothing satisfactory either in esse 
 or posse which to the boy, in writing home, was not 
 " dapper." 
 
 The hours were early at the College at this time, as 
 Key says : " In the morning at a quarter before six, when 
 we get up, it is quite dark." 
 
 "I will try all I can for a prize," he writes on 19th November, "but we 
 have joined the class above us. We joined directly we went into gunnery. 
 I have some chance of it, and that chance shall not be lost. . . . The other 
 day, as we went out in the boats, Mr. Rowe thought he would take us to 
 see the three guns which were taken up from the Royal George. They were 
 beautiful ones, made of brass, and very large. They have been under water for 
 fifty-two years, yet when the mud was rubbed off them they were quite bright. 
 They had the motto ' Honi soit qui mal y pense ' on them. And also the fellow 
 who went down after the guns showed us a rope which was taken up after it had 
 been under water thirty-seven years, and he was using it for his main halyards. 
 Could you believe it ? . . . Last Monday week was midshipman's examination, 
 and the senior fellows — of which I was one — had to stay in from nine to three to 
 do sums, and I did all my sums right except one ; that is as well as any fellow 
 in the College." 
 
 So the months passed in continued progress on the 
 part of the boy, until August 1835. Then his time was 
 up at the College, and it was arranged that he should join 
 the Russell, a ship recently commissioned at Sheerness and 
 shortly expected to make her appearance at Spithead. His 
 return to College on 7th August, after the vacation, was but 
 preliminary to his embarkation. He had won the great 
 prize at the College, the silver medal, and was to take with 
 him to sea the full sea-time which was then allowed for 
 collegians, namely, one year. That was to say, that after 
 five years' service in men-of-war, making, with the year 
 allowed for College work, six years, he would be entitled 
 to offer himself to pass the qualifying examination for 
 lieutenant, and to receive his order as mate. Key was 
 discharged from the College, and entered as a College 
 volunteer of the first class on the books of the Russell 
 on the 1 3th August. Next day he was taken on 
 board his ship by Captain Dickens, who was launching 
 his own son, S. T. Dickens, from the College at the 
 same time. 
 
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE— 1827-1835 9 
 
 Key had been a favourite with all at the College, and, 
 writing on the 8th of August, details how, 
 
 "On Saturday, Inman 1 took me up to the observatory and showed me a new 
 invented instrument. He likes me better than ever. All the masters and 
 lieutenants, directly they saw me, came and shook hands with me, and asked me 
 how I was." 
 
 Thus early had the boy begun to create for himself 
 those friendships which go to build up what in the navy is 
 called service interest, which determine almost surely the 
 rate of advancement, and have at all times been of more 
 importance than any family or political connection — without 
 which, indeed, family or political connection is often power- 
 less. 
 
 1 The Rev. Dr. Inman, Professor at the College. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RUSSELL — 1835 — 1839 
 
 TO all intents and purposes the Russell, the ship in 
 which Key first made acquaintance with the actual 
 naval service, was a ship of the old war time. She 
 had been laid down at Chatham before 181 5, but was not 
 launched until 1822. After this she lay at Sheerness until 
 she was commissioned, on 13th July 1835, by Captain Sir 
 William H. Dillon, K.C.H. There was little, indeed, about 
 her which was not of the old fashion. Invention had moved 
 too slowly in the twenty years which had elapsed since the 
 close of the great war, so that the changes introduced into 
 the Russell might be counted on the fingers of one hand. 1 
 
 Chain cables, earnestly prayed for by reformers in 1 8 1 1 , 2 
 had so far made their way that the Russell's bower-cables 
 were chain, while her two sheet-cables were of the old type, 
 hempen. 3 No doubt the chain cables were looked on with 
 the greatest distrust by most of those surrounding Key at 
 his entrance into naval life, for certainly twenty years later 
 naval men were found to debate the rival merits of chain 
 
 1 The Russell had but the one commission as a sailing ship, namely, that 
 throughout which Key served on board her. After she was paid off in January 
 1839 she lay at Sheerness till the strain of the Crimean War caused her conver- 
 sion into one of five high-pressure steam "block ships," as they were called, 
 fitted with reduced masts, and 200 horse-power auxiliary engines. In this form 
 she served the campaign of 1855 in the Baltic; was paid off in 1856. In 1858 
 she was recommissioned as depot ship for the coast-guard at Falmouth, and 
 served a series of commissions there till paid off early in 1864. She disappeared 
 from the Navy LJst early in 1865. 
 
 2 See a curious tract of that year, "Naval Economy exemplified in Conver- 
 sations between a Member of Parliament and the Officers of a Man-of-War." 
 
 3 The ship's log says, 10th August 1835: "Employed splicing cables and 
 cleaning tiers" ; and " Coiling hemp cables afresh." 
 
 10 
 
THE XC7SSELL—iS 3S -.iS 39 „ 
 
 and hemp, and it was generally held that hemp bore away 
 the palm so far as regarded the safety of the ship in riding 
 out a gale of wind, though the greater convenience of chain, 
 both for working and stowing, as well as its greater cleanli- 
 ness, might be admitted. The full convenience was not 
 reaped in the Russell, however. Invention had not reached 
 the institution of a chain " messenger " even, and the idea 
 of so arranging the capstan that the cable might be brought 
 directly to it, did not take practical form till ten years 
 later. The capstan of the Russell was, in fact, near about 
 the same pattern as that which Raleigh left behind him, 
 and all the inconveniences of the " Voyol " and " Voyol 
 block " (names of the messenger and its leading block still 
 in use), for the removal of which the Society of Arts had 
 offered and awarded its gold medal, still survived. 1 
 
 The stowage of water had, in the Russell, improved, 
 like the cables, by way of compromise. Of the 255 tons 
 of water which she was capable of taking on board, 204 
 tons were stowed in iron tanks, according to the present 
 practice, but 5 1 tons were still stowed in wooden casks, 
 and watering the ship by means of these casks was carried 
 on in precisely the same way as it would have been a 
 century earlier. All through the Russell's commission the 
 watering was the same prominently troublesome operation 
 which the letters of all the seamen during the wars dis- 
 close it to have been. The simplicity and speed of the 
 system of " watering in bulk," that is, pumping the water 
 from the shore directly into the boat, and then pumping 
 directly from the boat into the tanks on board the ship 
 — due, I believe, to the organising genius of Admiral Sir 
 William Martin — was not in the days of the Russell possible, 
 for lack of the necessary pumps. The little portable fire- 
 engine, originally introduced some ten years later under the 
 now almost forgotten name of " Hurles Engine," was the 
 agent of a great convenience unknown to the Russell. 2 
 
 1 See Chapter XIV. 
 
 2 As early as 181 3, however, Mr. Mark Noble had taken out a patent for 
 what he called "a fire-extinguishing chest engine," and successful trials had been 
 made of it for watering ships directly from the shore by means of hose. 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 She may be said to have been always watering, and when 
 she was not watering herself she was watering some other 
 ship with her boats; and very commonly, when there was 
 any pressure of time, other ships' boats were employed in 
 watering her. 
 
 The march of invention had been in nothing slower 
 than in this vital necessity of water for ships. As is well 
 known, Sir Richard Hawkins had on board his ship a 
 distilling apparatus during his voyage to the South Sea 
 in l 593) of which he thus writes — 
 
 "And although our fresh water had fayled us many dayes before we saw the 
 shore [the coast of Brazil], by reason of our long navigation without touching 
 any land, and the excessive drinking of the sick and diseased, which could not be 
 excused, yet with an invention I had in my shippe I easily drew out of the water 
 of the sea sufficient quantitie of fresh water to sustaine my people with little 
 expence of fewell ; for with foure billets I stilled a hogshead of water, and there- 
 with dressed the meat for the sick and whole. The water so distilled we found 
 to be wholesome and nourishing." 1 
 
 But notwithstanding this testimony, the knowledge 
 that fresh water could be obtained by the direct and simple 
 distillation of sea water seems to have been lost. In 
 Charles Il.'s reign it was proposed to use lime in order to 
 improve distilled sea water, and later other mixtures were 
 recommended as additions. Plans then existed for distilla- 
 tion through the media of growing sea plants, condensing 
 the vapours given off by them. It was not until 1761 
 that Dr. Lind re-discovered Hawkins' fact that distilled 
 sea water was fit for drinking without any ingredients 
 whatever in addition. Dr. Irving, in 1770, received 
 £5000 reward from Government for introducing distilla- 
 tion experimentally on board ship. In 1 8 1 1 seven line-of- 
 battle ships, ten East Indiamen, and many merchant ships 
 were fitted with the new " fire-hearths " for distilling fresh 
 water. Yet it all fell through, and the boy Key found 
 himself face to face with nearly the exact conditions as 
 to watering ships which had obtained generally through- 
 out the previous century. 2 
 
 1 The Hawkins" Voyages. Hakluyt Society. Edited by Clements R. Mark- 
 ham, p. 163. 
 
 2 See the article " Salt Water" in Burney's-Fa/coner's Dictionary, 1830. 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 13 
 
 The masts, yards, sails, and rigging of the Russell 
 were just those of ships which had fought under Lord 
 Howe on the 1st June had been. Students of naval lore 
 of this kind will understand what it all came to when 
 they are told that her futtock shrouds were secured and 
 set up to catharpin legs, and that as late as 1830 the 
 word " necklace " does not appear in the nautical vocabu- 
 lary. As a consequence, young Key had experience of 
 seeing topmasts go over the side to an extent not common 
 to later knowledge. This minor fact is again a marvellous 
 illustration of the slowness of change in things naval before 
 Key's time, and is a curious foil to the rapidity of change 
 which was to come. D'Arcy Lever — the authority par 
 excellence on seamanship in the early part of the century, 
 had, at latest in 1 8 1 9, pointed out the necessity of securing 
 the futtock shrouds to an iron strap round the mast itself. 
 Yet, sixteen years afterwards, topmasts still disappeared 
 and left the ship a wreck for the want of it. 
 
 The armament of the Russell was almost precisely 
 what it must have been during the war. She carried 
 on her lower-deck, of which the midship port was only 
 6 ft. \ in. out of water, twenty -eight 56 cwt. 32- 
 pounders, 9 ft. 6 in. long. On the main-deck, twenty-eight 
 42 cwt. 18-pounders, 9 ft. long. On the quarter-deck and 
 forecastle she had two 34 cwt. 12-pounders of 9 ft. long; 
 four 29 cwt. 12-pounders of 7 ft. 6 in. long; and eight 
 17.2 cwt. 32-pounder carronades of 4 ft. long. On the 
 poop was one 6 cwt. 6-pounder of 5 ft. long. 
 
 As far back as the year 1797 the Dutch ships 
 blockaded by Duncan in the Texel had, under the 
 auspices and at the suggestion of the unfortunate rebel 
 Wolfe Tone, successfully fired shell from their guns. At 
 the date we treat of, the common shell, as well as the 
 spherical case shot, or shrapnel shell, were both established 
 as patterns for use with guns. But the change through 
 all these years had not reached the Russell. She fired 
 only round shot, just as Duncan's ships had done 
 at Camperdown thirty-eight years before. The powder 
 was placed in the magazine in 460 barrels, most of 
 
i 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 it probably in loose form, and just as it had been for 
 centuries. 
 
 In sea-going qualities the Russell was an average ship, 
 easy, moderately stiff, but leewardly. She would heel 
 5° under royals, 8° when the royals came in, 9° under 
 double, 1 2° under treble reefs, and 15° with all reefs in. 
 As to her speed, when close hauled in smooth water with 
 royals in she would do 8 to 9 knots ; with double reefs 
 in they got 6 to 7 knots out of her; with wind abeam 
 and everything set, she would go from 10 to 10 \ ; and 
 before the wind in a moderate breeze she could make 8 to 9 
 knots. 
 
 In the personnel of the Russell, in the ranks, pay, and 
 status of all on board her, there were changes since the 
 war — a few, but the gap to be bridged over between the 
 Russell's condition in this respect and that which obtained 
 in a man-of-war fifty years earlier is not noticeable beside 
 the changes which have taken place since. The greatest 
 change which the Russell exhibited in this way was the 
 introduction of commanders, second in command. This 
 change was effected in June 1827, and commanders under 
 captains, taking the place of the old first - lieutenants, 
 appear in the July Navy Lists of 1827 for the first time. 
 The captain of the Russell — Sir William Dillon, K.C.H. — 
 must generally have been called " Sir Bill," for the very 
 first time that young Key writes of him he calls him so, 
 evidently under the impression that he gave his correct 
 title. The commander was Alfred Luckraft. There were 
 five lieutenants — Clark, Evans, Murray, Cumby, and 
 Harvey. The change since the war time here was that 
 Murray came from the Excellent as gunnery lieutenant. 
 Then we come on a group of titles which were all changed 
 during Key's service, and some of them at a period when 
 his opinions were competent to influence a decision. 
 
 There was the master, afterwards titled navigating 
 lieutenant, staff-commander or staff-captain, and passed 
 out of existence altogether under the burden of his 
 nominal rank. The representative of the title which had 
 connoted the office for centuries was, in the Russell, Mr. 
 
THE RC/SS£LL—iS 35 ~iS 39 I5 
 
 M'Lean. The purser added in a few years the title of 
 paymaster to the ancient one, and became paymaster and 
 purser; and then a few years later dropped the old title 
 and remained till now with the new one. The purser of 
 the Russell was Mr. Bowman. Dissatisfaction with the 
 title of surgeon did not perhaps exist in 1835, and Mr. 
 Johnston, in the Russell, would have remained incredulous 
 had he been told that a generation would arise which 
 drew satisfaction from the names of fleet-surgeon and 
 staff-surgeon, and which took comfort in discarding the 
 prefix " assistant " and calling its junior members surgeons 
 instead of assistant surgeons. Just in the same way, the 
 two mates of the Russell, Metcalf and Lindsay, had pro- 
 bably not reached the level of thought which felt that 
 there was something finer in the title "sub-lieutenant" 
 than in the more ancient one of " mate." 
 
 The second master, being the rank next below that of 
 master, had, some years before the Russell's time, taken 
 the place of the old " master's mate." Some obscurity 
 still hangs over the exact nature of the changes which 
 broke the mates and second masters into two separate 
 classes, as we find them in the Russell. Burney, in his 
 remodelling of Falconer's Marine Dictionary in 1 830, speaks 
 of "master's mates" where Falconer had spoken of "mates," 
 but both describe the officers — there were six in the com- 
 plement of a first rate — as not only specially under the 
 control of the master, and assisting him in his special 
 duties in looking after the navigation, rigging, and stowage 
 of the ship, but as generally appointed by the " choice " of 
 the master. This would place the mate where the second 
 master was in the Russell, and not where the mate was ; 
 for he was in 1835 filling a distinctly intermediate rank 
 between the midshipman and the lieutenant, just as the 
 sub-lieutenant does at the present day. However, the 
 spirit of change has, since the Russell's time, re-titled the 
 second master as the " navigating sub-lieutenant," and, 
 having fitted him with a name too long for ordinary 
 service, got rid of the name and the thing together and 
 abolished both. 
 
16 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 How great in all this the apparent change ; how little 
 the real change ! The roses of the Russell so far, in 1835, 
 are the roses, and nothing more or less than the roses, of 
 the Majestic to-day ; and, though knowing other names, 
 bear the aroma of a duty-loving service about with them 
 now as then. 
 
 How the levelling-up progresses, we are reminded by 
 the fact that in 1835 only the captain, commander, 
 and lieutenants of the Russell bore commissions. The 
 other officers were appointed " by warrant," except the 
 mates, who were " by appointment." The whole of 
 the officers of these ranks now serving are appointed by 
 commission, and yet the change is more nominal than 
 real, — not one of the officers then bore the " Queen's 
 commission " as officers in the army do ; the difference 
 between a naval commission, warrant, and appointment 
 is a difference in a form of words, and perhaps of the 
 substance on which the words are written. But even here 
 there is a difference betwixt then and now. No officer in 
 the Russell bore a commission from the Admiralty in 
 " Her Majesty's Fleet." It was more than a score of 
 years later before officers' commissions admitted on the 
 face of them that the navy was a permanent service. 
 Traditional custom, some centuries old, recognised no 
 navy that was not in commission afloat, and all the 
 commissions, warrants, and appointments of the officers 
 of the Russell were valid only as to the Russell, and 
 ceased to be valid when she ceased to bear the pendant. 
 Now the reasonable change is that one form of words, 
 and one substance — parchment, or an imitation — on which 
 the words are written, constitute the warranty for the 
 rank and position of the officers called commissioned 
 officers, and create its validity, not in any particular 
 ship, and limited to her as to a place and a time, but 
 generally, in " Her Majesty's Fleet." The order to serve 
 on board any particular ship is a simple letter, and for 
 all ranks the same in form. Out of the modern desire 
 for levelling up has therefore sprung a reasonable and 
 useful simplification of method, and a recognition in 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 jj 
 
 form, of the existence of a permanent naval force which 
 followed the fact, at the long interval which less bustling 
 times allowed. 
 
 The midshipmen were of two classes in the Russell 
 
 ordinary midshipmen, who had entered the service direct as 
 volunteers, first class, and had risen to the rank of midship- 
 men, of whom there were nine ; and two " extra College 
 midshipmen," boys who had left the College before Key, 
 and had probably served in some other ships. There were 
 two volunteers of the first class, and two College volunteers 
 of the first class — Key, the senior, and Dickens, who passed 
 out and joined the Russell with him. These volunteers of 
 the first class changed their titles to " naval cadets " before 
 ten years had elapsed, and they still remain as such. 
 
 There was then no rank corresponding to the present 
 one of " assistant paymaster," the rank immediately below 
 that of paymaster. Later on, the rank of " passed clerk " 
 was established, and this afterwards took the present title. 
 The rank was analogous to that of mate, the latter consist- 
 ing of officers who were qualified, without further service or 
 examination, for the rank of lieutenant, as the former were 
 in the same way for the rank of paymaster and purser. In 
 the Russell were two clerks ; and, as another example of 
 the slightness of the change which the course of time had 
 wrought, the clerk's assistant (the title is now transposed 
 and has become " assistant clerk ") of the Russell was rated 
 an A.B., and his name appears amongst the ship's company. 
 
 The rank of " master's assistant " and of " volunteer of 
 the second class " had been established by an Order in 
 Council of July 1824. The ranks corresponded, in the line 
 of the master's duties, to those of volunteer of the first 
 class, and midshipman, in the line of the lieutenant's duties. 
 There were two master's assistants in the Russell, but no 
 volunteers of the second class. The titles were in later 
 years converted into " navigating midshipman " and " navi- 
 gating cadet," after which entries ceased in 1872 and the 
 ranks and titles gradually disappeared. The title of 
 " schoolmaster," which had been borne for a long course of 
 years by the officer appointed to instruct the midshipmen 
 
18 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and other junior officers, was still borne by that officer in 
 the Russell. Following the analogous changes in the 
 title of " purser," the " schoolmasters " became " naval in- 
 structors and schoolmasters " in 1 840, and two years later 
 dropped the " schoolmaster " altogether and took up their 
 present title of " naval instructors " only. The list of 
 officers is concluded by the names of a captain and two 
 second-lieutenants of marines, titles which have remained 
 without change till to-day. 
 
 The whole complement of the Russell was 520 souls; 
 and beside the 39 officers already enumerated, there 
 was, when young Key joined, a ship's company comprising 
 3 3 seamen petty officers, 1 3 civil petty officers — as they 
 might be called — 154 able and 76 ordinary seamen, with 
 3 landsmen. The rating of landsman was a survival of 
 the practice of entering a certain proportion of grown 
 men in the complement of the ship, who represented 
 seamen in no sense, but added so much muscular power 
 for the working of the sails and guns. There were 45 
 boys, divided into the two divisions of first and second 
 class, which latter disappeared from sea-going ships when 
 the boys' training system was first introduced in 1853. 
 The function of the second-class boy in the Russell, and 
 till the change above noticed was made, was to act as 
 servants to officers of wardroom rank, and to warrant 
 officers, while in battle they assisted in the supply of 
 powder to the guns. It resulted from this system that 
 there were only six domestics proper on board the Russell) 
 and one of the greatest, as well perhaps one of the gravest, 
 changes made in the navy, followed the training system, 
 in introducing quite an army of domestics who were not 
 disciplined to the art of war, and are now superseded by 
 marines. How marked the change is in other ways we 
 may note by recording that there were only twelve artificers 
 of all classes on board the Russell. The detachment of 
 marines was a large one — 124 men beside the officers. 
 
 In the uniform worn by young Key and his shipmates, 
 and in comparing it with that of the present day, we have 
 another curious instance of a modern fallacious belief. We 
 
THE RC7SSELL—iS 35 -i8 39 lg 
 
 have already noticed the fulfilled desire of levelling up by 
 the creation of new titles, under the erroneous impression 
 that a name has some signification apart from that which 
 it connotes, and that a new title will carry with it some 
 special honour though the actual relative place and duty 
 are unchanged. In the uniform of the different ranks of 
 officers, and its changes during Key's naval life, we have 
 the action of the erroneous belief that in an organisation 
 where gradations of rank or command must be marked 
 by dress, rank may be raised by clothing it afresh. The 
 uniform worn by the RusselFs officers and by the rest of 
 the navy had been settled in June 1833 ; and it is amusing, 
 if not a little humbling too, to observe how pressure from 
 rank below, which is modern, has been continually adding 
 decoration to itself, which has necessitated further decora- 
 tion to the ranks above. Distinctive rows of lace on the 
 cuffs is an old method of exhibiting outwards the place 
 of the wearer in the naval catena. When young Key 
 joined the Russell^ the admiral of the fleet wore the four 
 rows of lace on the cuff which have now descended to mark 
 the place of the captain, and the rear-admiral wore the 
 single stripe which now marks the chief boatswain. It 
 has been the same throughout. The captain of the Russell 
 wore on his epaulettes the devices of crown and anchor 
 which are now the distinctive badges of the commander. 
 The commander of the Russell wore no badges on his 
 epaulettes, neither did the lieutenants, but the latter officers 
 wore only a single epaulette on the right shoulder. 
 
 Key's own dress differed hardly at all from that of 
 the naval cadet in the Britannia of to-day. The great 
 feature of difference was the wearing on all State occasions 
 of a plain round or sort of chimney-pot hat with a cockade 
 in it, and a gold twist down the side. Naturally, the 
 volunteer's hat was a difficulty to him, for it was not very 
 easy to preserve it intact where confined head space, con- 
 fined stowage room, and boisterous company combined in a 
 sort of conspiracy of damage. And the young aspirant's 
 letters are sometimes occupied with details as to the woes 
 and adventures of the hat. All ranks wore it on board 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ship as an alternative to the gold-banded, peaked, and flat- 
 topped cap. Before ten years had fully passed, con- 
 venience had beaten custom ; and though the round hat 
 and the " lightning conductor " were still authorised articles 
 of uniform, it was rare indeed to see it worn. But, as a 
 midshipman, Key wore a sword instead of a dirk, and in 
 December 1838 he thanks his sister for sending him "the 
 prettiest cocked hat " he had ever seen, which he wore on 
 State occasions, such as the levees of the Queen of Portugal. 
 
 The rules about wearing plain clothes or uniform, the 
 source of chronic disputes and of cycles of fashion, were 
 not in 1838 much apart from present custom. Key writes 
 in November of that year : " The next time I come to sea, 
 by your leave, I will take a suit of plain clothes to sea, as 
 I would have found them very useful, as nearly everybody 
 goes on shore in plain clothes, and, in going out to parties, 
 etc., it looks odd being the only person in uniform in the 
 room." 
 
 It was on these lines that the sea- world to which young 
 Key was introduced on the 14th of August 1835, and of 
 which a fortnight's experience led him to pronounce, as the 
 first thought of his heart in his first letter home from the 
 first foreign port he had seen the anchor let go in, that " he 
 never was so happy in all his life." 
 
 The Russell had had a somewhat momentous and ex- 
 citing existence during the month which she had passed in 
 commission before Key joined her, and she was not with- 
 out a very early hint that she and her like were to pass 
 away before a new race of warships, destined to upset and 
 alter everything that then seemed most permanent. Though 
 the Russell sailed out of Sheerness harbour when she was 
 complete for sea, she was accompanied and attended on 
 by His Majesty's steamer Firebrand. And she had no 
 sooner cleared the harbour than her officers and ship's com- 
 pany were solaced with the entertainment which in the then 
 state of moral tone was a necessity. The gratings were 
 " r igg ea V' and a marine received two dozen lashes for leave- 
 breaking. The proceeding was a sort of overture to a long 
 series of performances of a similar but fuller and more satis- 
 
THE Rt/SSELL—iS 35 -iS 39 21 
 
 fying character. " Spare the cat, and spoil the seaman or 
 marine — but especially the marine," might have been run 
 round the Russell's wheel, after the manner of the ship's 
 motto, with singular appropriateness, for very few marines 
 spent the commission in the ship without thoroughly under- 
 standing what it all meant, and what the sensation was 
 like. The ship was very often in and out of harbour 
 during her term of service, and the practice was to clear 
 off scores, and shake off the lethargy of smooth harbour 
 residence by a good flogging match the first time after 
 clearing the land. And while there were generally blue- 
 jackets in a condition for the exercise, it was certain there 
 would be a large batch of marines. It was then the 
 custom of the service, and no one minded it much. There 
 was a certain art in being flogged which was taught on the 
 lower-deck, and a fine marine in good practice would take 
 four dozen with a calmness of demeanour which dissociated 
 the operation of the lash from the idea of the infliction of 
 pain by way of punishment and warning, and connected it 
 up in people's minds with any of the ordinary and routine 
 — or inevitable — operations necessary to be carried out on 
 board ship, such as scrubbing decks or loosing sails to dry. 
 Key must have fallen into this view of it very early, for he 
 had certainly seen twenty-two men flogged before he had 
 spent many days over six months afloat. 
 
 Not many hours after this first exhibition of the 
 machinery of discipline, the hook of the leading block of 
 the fish-fall gave way when all the men were on the fall. 
 Two men were killed outright, two mortally wounded died 
 in a few hours, and five others were badly hurt, so that 
 what with flogging and funerals the Russell could not have 
 been, when Key joined her, thought to be on the high road 
 to pose as " a happy ship." But a beat down channel, and 
 the ascertainment that their ship was not a sluggard when 
 she was pressed; and all that wonderful elation which 
 comes, God knows how ! to the sailor when he has done 
 sighing as sinks his native shore, and knows for certain 
 that it will not rise again for a year or two, no doubt pro- 
 duced the usual effects ; and when the ship, after looking in 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 at Santander, anchored in Corunna harbour on the 27th of 
 August, no doubt there were many beside young Key who 
 " never were so happy in all their lives." 
 
 The Russell was attached to the Lisbon command, then 
 held by Admiral Gage, who had his flag flying in the 
 Hastings, just such another ship as the Russell was herself, 
 and destined like her to be converted into a feeble steamer 
 in her old age, and to serve beside her in the Baltic. 
 These were the days of the great Carlist rising in Spain, 
 and of the Spanish Legion under De Lacy Evans ; and a 
 considerable force of British ships was continually on the 
 Spanish and Portuguese coasts, passing from port to port 
 protecting British interests, and not infrequently offering a 
 safe asylum to loyalists who had been driven from their 
 posts and fled with their lives in their hands from their 
 political enemies. 
 
 These were the duties of the Russell for about a year, 
 and it was in assisting to carry them out that he received 
 his first actual naval training. 
 
 He suffered under certain apparent disadvantages, 
 which it is quite possible to conceive were really just the 
 opposite. Those natures which start in life with everything 
 their own way, to whom conscious effort is hardly known, 
 whose environment exactly suits them, and who find 
 neither insuperable difficulties before them, nor. wearing 
 drags behind them, are not best placed in this world for 
 the achievement of distinction. I recollect an old and very 
 amusing medical skit called " The Autobiography of a 
 Stomach," wherein the philosophy of eating cheese after 
 dinner was explained. The author asserted that cheese 
 was highly indigestible, and the stomach, telling its own 
 story, confirmed the fact, and declared that when the cheese 
 came down it was at once assured that it must exert all 
 its powers to get through the digestive duty. In exerting 
 this extra power on the cheese, it finished the less difficult 
 work on the dinner with hardly consciousness of exertion. 
 The moral would seem to be, that a nature contending with 
 a difficulty inherent in itself, or immediately present in its 
 surroundings, is strengthened by the efforts which are forced 
 
THE jRUSS£LL—iS 35 -iS 39 23 
 
 on it ; and, in the necessary exertion of will and determina- 
 tion to overcome certain specific enemies, masters its whole 
 position and dominates all its circumstances in such a way 
 as to mark its position much above the average. 
 
 Key suffered from a very bad stutter, which he sub- 
 dued, but never wholly overcame ; and he was troubled, as 
 a boy, with persistent complaints which ought in ordinary 
 course to have passed away with his childhood. But I 
 strongly suspect that he was not the worse of these things, 
 though all his friends must have regretted them. 
 
 It appears that the collegians did not wear uniform, for 
 young Key, in his first letter from abroad, describes with 
 frankness how glad he was to get his " uniform on to walk 
 about in." He tells how kind the midshipmen were to him 
 and his brother College volunteer, Dickens, when they got 
 on board. He has not much time, he says (was there ever 
 a boy known who had much time ?), 
 
 " Having to keep watch twelve hours out of twenty-four [he had not quite 
 mastered his actual watch hours], besides school three hours, writing logs, 
 watch-bills, station and quarter-bills ; nevertheless, I pick up a few minutes to 
 write this. We have excellent messmates and a beautiful mess. We have twice 
 as good a mess as I have ever had at any school or college. Well, to return to 
 where I left off. Papa and Henry went down into the gunroom, our messroom, 
 and after jawing with the captain he went away. I forgot to tell you, the night 
 before this I slept on the deck down below, not having my hammock yet ; and, as 
 I had left my key on shore, I was obliged to sleep without sheets, i.e. between 
 two blankets — rather uncomfortable, you may fancy. When papa, etc., went on 
 shore, he took away my old hat and said he would bring me a new one in the 
 afternoon, saying that we should not sail that day ; but he was out in his reckon- 
 ing for once, for we sailed that afternoon, so I have no hat. Well, we sailed, 
 and I was not half so unhappy as I was at going to college, school, etc., and I 
 know the reason why. Because I did not bid you good-bye, so I do not think 
 about it so much. In a few days we saw Ushant, then went through the Bay of 
 Biscay till we came to Santander, where we communicated with the Castor, 
 which was lying there, and we saw a brig sailing somewhere near there, and we 
 showed our colours, but they would not show theirs, so we fired a shot at them 
 (a ball, mind you) and sent up her colours pretty quick, you may fancy. They 
 were Spaniards from Santander. We came to Corunna. On our way the captain 
 asked me to breakfast with him in the cabin ; and the commander, seeing me 
 keep my watch so well, asked me to dine in the wardroom. I like the com- 
 mander very much, and I think he likes me. ... I have been sick only once, 
 and then all the fellows were very kind to me." 
 
 After a short stay at Corunna the Russell went on to 
 Vigo, and then joined the admiral's flag in the Tagus on 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 1 2th September. She was back to Vigo and Corunna, and 
 finally returned to Lisbon on I ith October. Here we are 
 reminded of the accidents to which the warship is heir, 
 whether she be of wood, iron, or steel, and whether she be 
 dependent on wind or coals. According to the master's 
 orthography, the RusseWs mizzenmast was found to be 
 " rotton," and the only cure was to get it out and put in a 
 new one. The whole process was an example of the sea- 
 manship and method of the war time which had passed and 
 gone, and was never to return. But to the young Key, and 
 to all in the ship, the coming days were hidden, and the 
 Egging of sheers on board, the unrigging of the old mast, the 
 lifting and hoisting out ; the hoisting in, placing, staying, and 
 rigg m g of the new mast, represented a series of operations 
 which underlay all our naval glories and prepared for them. 
 The defect in the mast was discovered on the 16th of 
 October ; the new mast was made on shore by the artificers 
 of the ship, and was in its place on board on 6th November. 
 
 An almost forgotten feature of the naval service comes 
 into prominence during the Russell's stay at Lisbon, in 
 the constant arrivals and sailings of the packet-brigs. 
 In those days the foreign mail service was conducted 
 by the Admiralty. Falmouth was the English port of 
 arrival and departure, and a bustling useful school of sea- 
 manship was there developed. The irregularity of the 
 arrivals at Lisbon was no doubt a thing to be calculated on, 
 but young Key moans sometimes over the delay of his 
 home letters in consequence. Lisbon, however, was a sort 
 of postal paradise for men-of-war at that time, compared 
 with other ports. Key, writing from Ferrol in March 1836, 
 declares that the ship has had no outside news of any kind 
 for two months, and letters from England have taken eleven 
 weeks to reach him. Ferrol was in time, in those days, 
 nearly twice as far from England as Hong-Kong is now. 
 
 Whether the Russell was at all an exceptional ship it 
 may be difficult to say, but it is not easy to avoid being 
 struck with the floggings, discharges, and escapes of men 
 from her boats when on shore. Men ran in this way singly 
 and in groups, and often seem not to have been discovered, 
 
THE RC/SSELL—iS 3S -iS 39 25 
 
 though sometimes they were, as in the following instance, 
 which young Key describes — 
 
 "Four of our men deserted at Lisbon, and a midshipman and the master-at- 
 arms were sent after them. They found three, and as they were returning to the 
 boat the mid. saw the other fellow, who scudded directly. The midshipman ran 
 after him, and came up with him ; drew his sword, and declared he would stick 
 him if he resisted him. So the man came down to the boat very quietly. They 
 were all flogged." 
 
 The number of deaths, too, taking place on board strikes 
 the modern eye as remarkable : there were nine deaths on 
 board in her first year's commission. 
 
 The vessels of the Lisbon command were all kept pretty 
 well on the move, and the Russell spent her first year in 
 passing continually from port to port between Cadiz and 
 Ferrol. But amongst the constant arrivals and sailings of 
 the Malabar, Talavera, Endymion, Pearly and others, the 
 rare appearance of " His Majesty's Steamer African " — a 
 despised innovation — indicated what was coming to minds 
 not at all ready to consider the indication. 
 
 Key's life all this year was one of almost unbroken 
 happiness. The genial temper, and bright appreciation of 
 all that was pleasant in his surroundings, added to his 
 steady attention to all his immediate duties and his con- 
 sciousness of the necessity of learning, stood him in good 
 stead. He had been placed in charge of the captain's 
 galley, and was consequently much with Sir William Dillon, 
 who showed his appreciation of him by various kindnesses. 
 Now it was a trip to Seville, with which Key was delighted, 
 and seems to have been especially struck by many of 
 Murillo's pictures which he saw there. At Seville there 
 was a bull-fight, which hardly pleases the tender-hearted 
 English boy, whose only remark upon it is a sentence of 
 commiseration for a wounded horse, " poor thing." 
 
 At another time his captain, during carnival at Ferrol, 
 takes his galley's midshipman to the Consul's, has him 
 dressed up as a girl, and takes him to a masquerade, 
 the captain himself in a domino. Some of the officers of 
 the Russell who were there in uniform, paid considerable 
 attention to the supposed English lady, and one lieutenant 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 in particular was pressing in his desire for a dance. " But 
 I refused," says Key, " because my dancing would show 
 that I was not a girl." 
 
 Key was very active, and spent much time aloft by pre- 
 ference. He could easily beat most of his messmates in a 
 race over the masthead. But still he was not strong, and 
 suffered badly from what he calls " the old thing — a sick 
 headache." So badly that he spent some time formally 
 laid up in the " sick bay." 
 
 He was much struck with the departed naval glories of 
 Spain, as evidenced by the ruin of Ferrol — 
 
 " I wish that you could come to Ferrol and see the dockyard, harbour, and 
 everything. The harbour has such a small entrance [the small entrance, the 
 remembrance of which, according to Alison, threw Napoleon into one of 
 his paroxysms when he supposed that Villeneuve had passed within it], it 
 seems as if a line-of-battle ship could hardly get in, and besides, the entrance is 
 four miles long, and then widens, like a bottle, to a very large harbour, and very 
 deep, for if we chose we might lie close alongside the town. The basin is an 
 enormously large one, but it is all going to ruin, and so are the docks, none of 
 them having gates. There is a rope-walk longer than ours at Portsmouth, but 
 the roof is all falling in, and no one at work there. Then there is a beautiful 
 large sail-loft built of stone, and the boat-slips are all falling to ruins — everything 
 being built of granite ; and in the walls round the basin, and all the jetties, are 
 enormously large copper ring-bolts ; beautiful they are." 
 
 Incidentally, Key mentions occurrences which show 
 how loosely " The Queen's Regulations and Admiralty 
 Instructions" then sat upon the shoulders of officers in 
 command of ships — 
 
 " I told you before that about two months ago Maitland and Forster went to 
 Lisbon for the purpose of going on leave to England, — on the captain's leave, — 
 and a short time after Alston and Kynaston went to Lisbon on the same purpose. 
 Now the captain cannot properly give leave to midshipmen without the admiral's 
 leave ; when they got to Lisbon, the admiral somehow or other found it out, and 
 he sent them all four on board the Pearl, with orders for Captain Nurse to take 
 them to Ferrol the first opportunity. Captain Nurse gave them leave to go 
 ashore every day, and one night Alston and Kynaston had leave to stay ashore 
 till 1 1 o'clock. Well, 1 1 o'clock came ; and they did not come on board 
 that night. The next day Captain Nurse received a letter from a Spanish officer 
 to say that he had these two midshipmen in jail, and we afterwards heard that 
 these two, along with a Yankee midshipman, had come down to the landing- 
 place to get a boat to go on board, and there was a sentry there. So they (up to 
 any lark) agreed that Kynaston should kneel down on his hands and knees 
 behind the sentry, and Alston should shove him over him, and then all three 
 scud. But Alston shoved too soon, and the sentry sang out for the guard. 
 
THE R USSELL— 1 835-1 839 27 
 
 Kynaston jumped off the jetty into a boat. Alston and the Yankee ran. Some 
 of the guard declared they would fire into the boat ; so Kynaston was obliged 
 to surrender, and the others were caught, and all three turned into jail. The 
 next morning the admiral released them, and the Pearl sailed with orders to 
 touch off Ferrol and send those four and the mail bags in to us, and proceed 
 to Santander with stores for the Castor. She touched off here, and only sent 
 Maitland and the mail in to us, and the other three went on to Santander, but 
 will come back here after they have given the Castor her stores." 
 
 The Russell, in her first year, was not without those 
 startling accidents so infrequent of later years, but which, 
 in their suddenness and unexpectedness, made up some of 
 the romance of service in the days gone by. She started 
 with that bad accident which I have described, and went 
 through a succession of minor ones inseparable from navi- 
 gation under sail ; and these Key relates as follows — 
 
 "One night, a long while ago [at Ferrol in January 1836], it was thunder- 
 ing and lightening tremendously ; it was my six to eight watch, 1 and I was 
 standing abaft under the poop awning, and I happened to be looking at the 
 mainmast, when it lightened, and I heard a tremendous noise, and I saw several 
 sparks of fire on the mast about six feet above the deck ; the noise brought every 
 officer and man on the ship on deck, and a great many sang out, ' The ship is 
 on fire ! ' The next morning the only thing we could see was a little black 
 mark, and the carpenters examined the mast, but there was nothing the matter 
 with it." 
 
 One July night, just outside Vigo, a heavy squall 
 taking the ship aback, left her a wreck in a couple of 
 minutes, with loss of all her topgallant masts, her main and 
 mizzen topmasts, her main topsail and topgallant-yards, and 
 many of her principal sails. 
 
 But before this, the indications we have seen in the 
 "rotton" mast began to culminate in the general dis- 
 covery that the ship was unfit for sea, and must go home 
 for new masts and rigging and a thorough refit. She accord- 
 ingly found herself cleared out, dismasted, stripped, and in 
 dock at Devonport in August, not being again complete 
 for sea till 12th October. They evidently took things 
 more easily than we do now ; it would be a long time 
 before we heard the end of a ship in her first commission 
 coming home from her station and passing into dockyard 
 hands for four months, while the work was done on her 
 which ought to have been done before she left England. 
 
 1 The " last dog-watch," 6 to 8 p.m. 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 It is not possible to avoid being struck with the extra- 
 ordinary amount of flogging that went on at this time. 
 We have a seaman flogged on 30th July, five seamen and 
 one marine on 12th August, one seaman on 17th August, 
 three seamen and one marine on 23rd August ;. and then, 
 the ship getting to sea in company with the Maiden and 
 Partridge, the arrears were cleared up on the 17 th 
 October by the flogging of five seamen and seven marines. 
 And yet it may quite have been that the discipline was 
 not worse then than it is now. The offences for which 
 men were then flogged, and so finished with in ten minutes, 
 are the same which are now met with the more prolonged 
 but not less severe punishment of from three to fourteen 
 days' confinement in a cell on board, or the prolonged and 
 wearying, if less severe, confinement in a prison on shore. 
 The sentiment of the age has turned against corporal 
 punishment as an engine of discipline; but where severe 
 punishment is necessary it must ever remain a question 
 whether, apart from the sentiment which has made it 
 impossible, the ten minutes' severe bodily pain applied 
 outwardly has not much to recommend it as an alternative 
 to a system of pain applied inwardly by means of partial 
 starvation and incarceration. It may quite be that the 
 outrage on sentiment, had it continued, might have hindered 
 progress upwards towards a moral condition amongst the 
 private men of military services, which has been long found 
 amongst officers, and which rests on devotion to duty and 
 on the spirit of honour, loyalty, and truth. But neither 
 the boy Key, nor the seniors by whom he was surrounded, 
 could possibly have given voice to thoughts of this kind, 
 in familiar and almost daily contact with a practice which 
 then stirred no sentiment whatever. 1 
 
 The Russell first went back to the Lisbon station, where 
 in the continued revolutionary and Carlist times she found 
 occupation in landing armed parties for the protection of 
 the Queen of Portugal and of her palace from the attempts 
 of her dissatisfied subjects. Key characterises the Lisbon 
 
 1 Key, as we shall see, lived to be a principal agent in abolishing corporal 
 punishment. 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 2g 
 
 station as " the horrible coast of Spain again," when learning 
 at Devonport of their probable return thither. He had 
 made some endeavours through his father towards passing 
 into a smaller ship, — the Conway, — under the impression 
 familiar to all youngsters, perhaps in all times, that a 
 " small craft " is the only ship to learn the profession of a 
 sailor in. He also had a short leave, his father being in 
 London, and the rest of the family being at Hemel 
 Hempstead in Herts. A coming change is noted in the 
 journey of Key's captain, Sir William Dillon, voyaging 
 from Plymouth to London by the Brunswick steamer, in 
 preference to the coaching journey which young Key him- 
 self had just performed. 
 
 Staying at a friend's house — the Soltau's, about seven 
 miles from Devonport — young Key describes with intelli- 
 gence and interest some electrical experiments which were 
 exhibited, especially one showing how cannon could be 
 fired by that means. It is a striking reflection that nearly 
 half a century later the man should have found himself 
 putting into practical use that which the boy had admired 
 as a toy. Just at this time we get an indication of the 
 manner in which one side of Key's character was develop- 
 ing. In requesting his mother to send him Paley's 
 Evidences of Christianity, the midshipman was showing 
 how, through all the light and boyish thoughts which 
 thronged his mind, the solid and the serious were gaining 
 a place which they were destined to hold. 
 
 At the close of 1836, the Russell being still at Lisbon, 
 young Key was getting most useful training as signal mid- 
 shipman, a sort of training more calculated perhaps than 
 any other to sharpen the wits and impress the habit of 
 presence of mind. He writes in December — 
 
 "The people ashore here are very quiet now, but we expect them every 
 minute to take up arms against the queen, therefore we are obliged to be in readi- 
 ness for anything of the sort. The queen, it is said, has behaved shamefully to 
 us. She declared afterwards that we had landed our marines without her consent. 
 As I am in the signals now, I am obliged to be on deck all day from daylight to 
 sunset, and except I can get leave I cannot get down below to draw, write, etc.; 
 and I have lately taken a great liking for drawing. But it is very seldom that I 
 can get down. I am looking out for the packet very anxiously. She has been 
 
3 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 a fortnight out, and I expect a letter by her. Just before sunset this evening we 
 saw a brig outside, which we expect is the packet. To-morrow morning will 
 show us what it is. . . . We expect to leave this place for the coast of Spain 
 before long. I hope not, because I like this place much better. I have not 
 been to the opera once since we have been in here. I hear that William Tell 
 and Nor7?ia are both performed very well indeed. I have seen Norma per- 
 formed the last time that we were here, but I should like to see William Tell. 
 ... I have taken a great passion for drawing, and I hope it will continue. I 
 can find very little time for it. . . . The commander is in an excellent humour 
 with me to-day, because I made out the packet last night, as we were the only 
 ship in the squadron that saw her, and I was the only one on board this ship that 
 saw her; therefore the old commander gave me great credit (which, between 
 ourselves, was due more to my glass than myself). I have not made much use of 
 my sextant since I have been out, but I keep it in good order and examine it 
 very often. ... I am taking sketches of all the different sorts of boats here, as 
 there are a great quantity, and some of them very pretty. ... I think our ship 
 is a beauty. She gets handsomer and handsomer every day. We are the pride 
 oftheTagus." 
 
 Key's health began to give way a good deal at the 
 beginning of 1837. He suffered badly from rheumatism 
 and cough, and was bled according to the medical view of 
 those days, " which he did not mind much." " The com- 
 mander," he writes, " is very kind to me. He will not allow 
 me to turn out early of a morning, or to go away in boats 
 late at night." He was a careful reader of James's Naval 
 History at this time, and sends his volumes home to be 
 bound, as in their paper covers he is afraid to subject them 
 to the rough usage of the gunroom. Always his pride in 
 the ship, and his happiness in her, shines out of his letters. 
 It does not seem that he was ever in the usual troubles of 
 midshipmen with the commander. Though he evidently 
 says in his letters all that comes uppermost in his mind, 
 there are no recitals of the injustice of his superiors, and 
 the miseries of " watch and watch," stopped leave, and the 
 masthead. Meanwhile the minuteness of his inquiries 
 about every member of the home circle, and the constant 
 flow of expressions of endearment, reveal a nature of 
 extreme affection and warmth of remembrance. But he is 
 very sharp also. The Linnet brig, one of the packets, he 
 had seen in Lisbon sixteen months before, and not since 
 anywhere ; but when she reappears on the distant horizon 
 he recognises her at once, and against the verdict of all round 
 him proclaims her identity, which is confirmed on her arrival. 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 3I 
 
 As an incidental light on the state of the navy in 1837, 
 we have Key writing thus on the 4th February 
 
 " The promotion is come out at last, and our senior mate (C. W. Lindsay) is 
 made ; he deserves it ; he has been nearly twenty years in the service, and only 
 just made lieutenant." 
 
 The fashion that comes round in disease, as well as in 
 everything else, is marked by such a note as this — the ship 
 lying in the Tagus in February — 
 
 "The influenza is very bad in the squadron ; the Pembroke has 220 on the 
 list [the sick list], and the other ships have each about 100, while we have 
 only 20." The boy is still sick himself with rheumatism, but says: "I 
 
 shall be off the list in a day or two, and then I shall write to A , but at 
 
 present I cannot — it tires me so. At one time my legs were so bad that if I 
 wanted to get out of my hammock I was obliged to be carried by two men ; and 
 one of my messmates who had come to see me said, * Oh ! if your father or 
 mother were to see you now, what would they say ? ' I have often thought the 
 same myself. Oh, mama ! you do not know what pleasure it gives me to hear 
 from you ! Because, out here, I have got nobody to talk to about home, and it 
 is so pleasant talking to you and hearing all about my dear brothers and sisters, 
 and also dear papa ; while you, at home, have got plenty to comfort you, I have 
 no one. ... I have just turned out of my hammock, and Dr. Johnston is come 
 up to see the sick men. I am confined to the sick bay, therefore it is very dull 
 for me all day, and you do not know how I enjoy writing this. ... I put any- 
 thing in it to fill it up, but I have no news to tell you, having been confined to 
 the sick bay for nearly three weeks. ... I am getting quite tired now, and my 
 hand shakes most horribly." 
 
 His hopes of speedy recovery were not realised, for on 
 March 4th (a month later) he writes — 
 
 11 Dr. Johnston has just told me that he is writing to papa about sending me 
 home on sick-leave for a month or two, and therefore I am writing for the same 
 reason. I am still confined to my hammock ; and while I am writing I have 
 got my desk on my knees, which makes them ache most horribly. Do not tell 
 anyone that there is any chance of my coming home, but you and papa keep it to 
 yourselves, and we will surprise them all. A short stay at home will make me 
 quite well, but I am sure that you will be surprised when you see me. I can 
 nearly span my legs all the way up, and my arms, I am sure, are not so stout as 
 
 M 's, and even my fat face has lost its flesh. I am treated so very kindly by 
 
 everybody, I have everything I want ; and even the old commander (Luckraft) 
 comes forward very often to see me, and he wants me to remain in his cabin 
 altogether. I have just taken my medicine, and I am so sick that I can hardly 
 write; but as the packet sails early to-morrow morning I must finish this 
 to-day. ... I forgot to tell you that since I have been sick I have begun to 
 study botany ; I like it exceedingly. I have collected and dried a few specimens. 
 One of the assistant surgeons is teaching me ; he goes ashore and brings off 
 flowers, and I find out the names and dry them. I think I shall be nearly a 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 match for A , and so I should advise her to look sharp. I have just had my 
 
 dinner, which consisted of one boiled potato, of which I ate half. . . . Oh, 
 dear! I am so tired." 
 
 As throwing light on the customs of the service then, 
 and of the cost of travelling when steam passenger-ships 
 were just beginning to put in an appearance, the following 
 is useful — 
 
 "I just write to you in haste to say that you may expect me home before 
 long. The way Dr. Johnston is going to do it is to get me sick-leave, and send 
 me home in one of the steamers, right up to London at once. That will save the 
 trouble of getting round from Falmouth, as I should be obliged to do going in 
 the packet. The passage money in the steamer is £15 up to London, provisions 
 included [it is now only £8] ; the passage that way will be much quicker and 
 much more comfortable." 
 
 But a few days later (15th March) the prospect wholly 
 changes — 
 
 "The last letter that I wrote was very hurried ; but since that the Talavera 
 arrived here with 12,000 stand of arms for us, and orders for us to proceed to 
 Cadiz, then up the coast of Spain to Gibraltar and Barcelona, and then proceed 
 direct to Malta for good. Directly I heard that, I decided on not going home 
 (although I have got sick-leave from the admiral), because going up the Medi- 
 terranean is a chance not to be lost. In health I am improving fast, and by the 
 time I get to Malta I shall be as well as ever I was. But if, after I have been 
 a short time at Cadiz and Gibraltar, I find myself getting no better, then I shall 
 go home ; but I am sure that I shall be quite well soon. ... I am so glad that 
 we are going up the Mediterranean ; it will be so pleasant." 
 
 As showing the bent of the character, the foregoing 
 letter is a sign-post. It is impossible but that, with the 
 warm home affections which all his letters disclose, young 
 Key's heart must have been bounding with delight at the 
 home prospect before him. But on the other side was the 
 desire to fulfil the role on which he had entered. Perhaps 
 it would be incorrect to say that he chose to give up the 
 delight of going to his home from a sense of duty, though 
 a sense of duty must have been part of the associated com- 
 plexities which determine action. Neither could it be said 
 that the prospective charm of new scenes alone swayed 
 him. An unconscious arrangement of the syllogism is 
 probably the explanation. The object of my going home 
 is that I should get well enough to continue the career in 
 which I have entered. The change of scene and climate 
 
THE £ USSELL— 1 835-1 839 
 
 33 
 
 may affect that object without withdrawing me even for a 
 time from the pursuit of my career. Therefore I give up 
 my home prospects and stay where I am. The choice was 
 that of a character of growing strength, already looking 
 beyond the moment, and wholly disinclined to sell its 
 birthright for a mess of pottage. 
 
 The Russell sailed for Cadiz with her cargo of arms for 
 the Spanish loyalists on 1 6th March, and sailed thence for 
 Malta on the 24th. Key's next letter is from Cadiz — 
 
 " Here we are, safely anchored in Cadiz. ... I write to let you know how 
 I am. At present I feel quite well, only rather weak of course, but still I am 
 stronger than I was when I wrote last. The Pique, Captain Rous, 1 is lying 
 here, and I believe is going home. She is a very fine frigate, and in crack 
 order. 2 As I am so much improved in health, I do not think that it would be 
 any use going to England, therefore I have decided in going to Malta along with 
 the ship. We have been two days on our passage round, and have had a very 
 pleasant one. Last night Metcalf, one of our mates, got his promotion. Every- 
 one is so glad of it. He was liked by everybody. I have written very often 
 lately, because I know that you would be very anxious about me. ... I hope that 
 we shall have a nice passage round to Malta ; I am not sure whether we touch at 
 Gibraltar or not ; I hope so. Anyhow, we pass within sight of it, and I shall 
 take a sketch of it if I possibly can. . . . When we were coming round from 
 Lisbon to Cadiz, the captain gave the men plenty of exercise reefing topsails, 
 etc., because we have plenty of that sort of work up the Straits. The signal 
 midshipman's berth will be no sinecure then, I am glad to say. We shall be 
 signalising all day and all night long ; that is just the sort of work I like, — plenty 
 to do, and I shall never get ill. It's only when I am idle and have nothing to 
 do that I get unwell. I must always be moving, — you know that." 
 
 The Russell passed straight on to Malta, only heaving- 
 to to communicate with Gibraltar, and arriving there on 
 the 8th of April. Sir Josias Rowley was then commander- 
 in-chief in the Mediterranean, with his flag flying in the 
 Caledonia. She was at Malta when the Russell arrived, 
 as were also the line-of-battle ships Vanguard, Revenge, 
 and Barham, with the smaller ships Carysfort, Sapphire, 
 Dido, and Rapid. 
 
 The increased part the steamers were beginning to 
 take in naval affairs was plainly indicated by their constant 
 appearances at Malta. The Medea and the Firefly, the 
 
 1 Afterwards the celebrated leader on the turf. 
 
 2 Entering the service as I did ten years after this date, the Pique's reputation 
 was still a standard topic of conversation amongst us. 
 
 3 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Volcano and Confiance, all well-known steam vessels for 
 years after this, were constantly putting in their appearance, 
 and taking part, and a predominating part even then, side 
 by side with the smaller classes of sailing vessels, which 
 they were destined to dispossess altogether in their pre- 
 liminary attack on a sailing navy. 
 
 I may let Key tell his story up to the 19th of May, 
 dating from Malta — 
 
 " I think the last time I wrote you a regular letter was at Cadiz, when I was 
 recovering from my illness. I told you the other day that I was quite well, 
 therefore I need not tell you again. We left Cadiz on the 24th of March, and 
 arrived at Gibraltar on the 25th. We did not anchor there, but merely hove- 
 to inside the bay to take on board Lord Dillon and family for a passage to 
 Malta. . . . After we had taken our passengers aboard we filled, made sail, 
 and stood out of the bay, and on 8th April we safely anchored in Valetta 
 harbour, Malta, where we have been lying ever since, and a very nice place it 
 is. I will give you one of my adventures, which very nearly terminated fatally. 
 One of our marine officers named Annesley asked me to go out riding with him 
 to Citta Vecchia, about eight or ten miles off. We got excellent horses ; I 'got 
 the celebrated chestnut horse. I daresay you have heard of him. We went out 
 to what we call ■ Sit-a-week,' and saw all the churches and everything worth 
 seeing ; at the top of one church I could see right round the whole island. 
 Well ! coming back we were having a race, but mine being the fastest sailing 
 craft I forereached on him, and then, hauling my wind, I was crossing his 
 bows when my craft shied and sent me over to starboard. I hauled down my 
 craft over me, and Annesley, coming up astern, tried to haul his horse up, but 
 instead of that he stumbled over me and my horse, and fell over us, Mr. 
 Annesley at top of all. But his horse did not fall before he had trod on my 
 head and chest. I was senseless for some time, but they soon brought me to, 
 and I found I had only been stunned ; but I had a great pain in my chest. I 
 went on board, and the next morning had a dozen leeches on my chest, and 
 now I am all well. ... I am getting on beautifully in the signals ; we go to 
 sea soon, I believe, to cruise with the squadron, when I shall be able to show 
 my zeal. In our passage round from Gibraltar here we encountered a terrible 
 gale of wind, the worst I have seen yet. ... I have this minute heard that 
 we shall sail on Friday for Palermo, delightful ! — and to lie there for a month. 
 The weather is very hot here, and I bathe every day. I swim pretty well now, 
 and I dive beautifully. ... In a month I shall be rated a midshipman. I shall 
 be very glad of that, and fancy myself quite a man. . . . There are at present 
 only two vacancies in the ship — one for Archie Willan, and the other for Dickens 
 or myself; if Dickens gets it, may I join the Barham or some other ship on this 
 station, because if Dickens gets it there is no chance for me in this ship. " 
 
 On the 2nd July he again writes — 
 
 "This is horrible dull work. For the last six weeks we have been cruising 
 just outside Valetta harbour, now and then stretching across to Sicily abreast of 
 Alicata and Girgenti. From there we can see Mount Etna right over the other 
 
THE AC7SSELL—iS 3S -iS 39 35 
 
 side of the island. One morning I saw it smoking, which is a great wonder ; we 
 expected an eruption, but were disappointed. I have a great quantity of news 
 to tell you, but I cannot think of them. I have had two or three hairbreadth 
 escapes since I wrote to you. Once while 'hove-to' outside the harbour, the 
 Confiance steamer was towing a launch full of provisions alongside of us, and 
 the commander sent me with the jolly (boat) to take a hawser to the launch ; 
 and as I was lying alongside the ship, the steamer— a very large one— came up 
 with the launch, which caught under our stern and got the steamer's head 
 towards us in the jolly. She squashed the boat, but I and the jolly-boat boys 
 got on board the steamer by means of her bobstays, etc., and were all right. 
 We sail beautifully to what we expected; we beat the Rodney, Asia, and 
 Caledonia, three of the finest ships in the navy. The other day there was a 
 marine hung on board the Rodney for murdering his sergeant — it was a horrible 
 sight. The last news were 1 that we are going to cruise off Sardinia. The 
 reason why we are cruising here is because the cholera is raging so bad in 
 Malta. It broke out the other day, and it is very bad indeed now. We are 
 
 anxiously looking out for Sir R. S d 2 coming out to relieve this admiral, 
 
 because when he comes he is sure to take us round his station, and we shall see 
 every place in the Mediterranean. I wish he would come. ... I am getting 
 on very well indeed with the old commander — I am regular chums with him. 
 I am afraid that there is no vacancy for me in this ship ; I must look out for 
 some other — a small craft, if possible. We have had very hot weather here ; 
 on one day about a fortnight ago the thermometer was at 90 in the shade. . . . 
 I am quite well. I never was so well or so strong in all my life. I am all 
 bone and muscle ; you should see my arm — it is as hard as iron, you cannot pinch 
 it anywhere. In a fortnight we shall have completed two years' time, and 
 have only one year more to serve. When the ship is paid off I must join 
 another directly, or else I shall lose time, which will be a bad tally. We are 
 going to Palmas Bay in Sardinia, a beautiful bay but a bad town. ... I think 
 I mean to leave the signals ; I am getting tired of them. You know, I always 
 like a change. " 
 
 In this same letter we are reminded of the postal 
 conditions of Malta in those days. The mail packets left 
 England and Malta the 3rd of every month, and arrived 
 at each place on the 17th. It was the beginning of 
 steam mails, and the speed was just about half what it 
 now is. 3 
 
 The execution of the marine on board the Rodney — 
 not the only execution at the yardarm that Key was 
 destined to see — comes again as a reminder to us of the 
 great change for the better that time has wrought. 
 Murders or attempted murders have, it may almost be 
 
 1 1 did not know before reading these letters that the use of the word "news " 
 in the plural came so near our own time. 
 
 2 Admiral Sir Robert Stopford, G.C.B. 
 
 3 The postage of the letters was 2s. 6d. 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 said, passed out of the navy, and the grim and laconic 
 entry in the Russell's log might be three hundred years 
 old for all the application it has to the days we live in. 
 
 " 5.20 a.m. Sent boats manned and armed to H.M.S. 
 Rodney to attend the execution of a marine for murder. 
 At 5.30 turned the hands up and manned the rigging to 
 witness the punishment. Read the articles of war. 6.30. 
 Boats returned." 
 
 After cruising in the way described, provisioning and 
 storing at sea, and running in rarely for water to Malta, 
 the Russell had a cruise to Tripoli on a question of supplies 
 to Malta, and later on took an independent cruise, by 
 permission of the admiral, to Palermo and Palmas Bay. 
 Key expresses his delight with Palermo — 
 
 " The most beautiful place I ever saw ; it was exquisitely beautiful. I never 
 could have supposed that any place could be half so fine." 
 
 Returning to Malta, Key, in the middle of August, is 
 
 44 Very glad that we are going to Athens. I shall be able to bring you home 
 good specimens of marble, etc. The Ariadne, coal ship, is come out here to go 
 to Alexandria, and our mids. and men are to take her round ; therefore, as we 
 are short of midshipmen by that, I have volunteered to keep watch, which 
 pleased the commander very much, as it shows zeal. So I am out of the signals 
 for a short time." 
 
 On the 15th of July the news of the death of 
 William IV., and the accession of Her Most Gracious 
 Majesty, reached Malta. On that occasion the ceremonies 
 were that the Russell hoisted the admiral's flag at 2 p.m., 
 and fired sixty minute guns to the memory of the late king, 
 and then — Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi — at 3.30 manned 
 yards and fired two royal salutes on the accession of Her 
 Royal Highness Princess Alexandrina Victoria to the throne 
 of England. 
 
 On the 17th of August the Russell sailed for the 
 Archipelago, and did not return to Malta till the 19th of 
 November — 
 
 " Since I last wrote," says Key, dating from Syra on the 6th of October, " I 
 have seen a good deal. I think then I was at Malta under sailing orders for 
 Athens. We sailed two days after that, and arrived at Athens without any 
 adventure, except that we had a man attacked with cholera, and died two hours 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1 835-1 839 37 
 
 after it.' We found the Portland at Athens, but I could not see Granville Wood, 
 as we were in quarantine. The Athenians would not give us pratique, as we had 
 a case of cholera, and therefore our captain said he would not stay there any 
 longer, although it would be against his orders to sail. The Greeks said they 
 would give us pratique a fortnight after we left Vourla, so we sailed for Vourla 
 (Smyrna), and after watering there, and seeing the place, we sailed from there to 
 Syra, where we are now (Sept. 22nd). Now to business. Lieut. Lindsay joined 
 us the other day; he came out in the Wolverine, 16-gun sloop, and I was 
 talking to him about changing my ship ; and he said that the Wolverine was the 
 most comfortable ship I could go into; that all the officers, mids., etc., were 
 particularly gentlemanly, and besides that I shall be allowed every now and then 
 to keep officer's watch, which is the best thing I can do to learn seamanship. 
 Again, she is tender to the admiral, therefore I shall see the whole of the 
 Mediterranean, which I should not see in any large ship. She will just serve 
 my time, as she is only a few months in commission (Sept. 25th). We sailed 
 from Paros after we had watered, and arrived at Athens this morning. It was 
 my morning watch this morning before we anchored, and it was blowing rather 
 strong, when all of a sudden it fell a calm. We lowered the topsails directly, as 
 we expected something. It came, a regular hurricane from all quarters at once, 
 lightening, thundering, hailing, and raining all at the same time. I heard two 
 or three of the oldest sailors say that they never knew it blow so hard in their 
 lives. We bore up directly, and ran into Athens." 
 
 Key's next letter is dated from Malta on the 29th 
 November ; the Russell had arrived there on the 1 9th — 
 
 "Here we are, hard and fast in Malta again, and likely to remain here for 
 some time. In the first place, I am rated a midshipman, which is my first pro- 
 motion in the service. I am now entitled to wear a sword, which I sport on all 
 occasions, I can tell you. Well ! since I last wrote to you I have been to dear 
 Queen [of Greece] Amelia's ball. She is the most beautiful creature I ever saw. 
 I only wish she was Queen of England. She shook hands with all of us, and 
 spoke in French to us ; I was quite delighted with her, she waltzes beautifully. 
 I went in cocked hat and sword— full dress. ... I have got charge of the 
 first cutter ; a great charge. I can fit her out any way I like. I am on excellent 
 terms with the captain and commander. I have spoken to the commander 
 about the Inconstant [he was thinking of trying to join the Inconstant instead 
 of the Wolverine], but I have not spoken to the captain about it yet, as the 
 commander advised me not to speak to him about it till I heard from papa 
 again. ... On our passage from Athens to Malta we had three very heavy 
 gales of wind. One off Cerigo, another off Candia, and the other off Malta. We 
 ran into Malta under close-reefed topsails, and looked very beautiful. We 
 picked up our buoy admirably. I heard last night that Graham's Island is risen 
 again ; the third cutter is going to sail to-day to look for it. 1 A French steamer 
 that came in the other day said that she saw it. The other day, going to Palermo, 
 we passed the exact spot where it once was. ... I do not mind how soon I join 
 the Inconstant, because, although I am extremely comfortable here, yet, you 
 
 1 Graham's Island, between the island of Pantelaria and the coast of Sicily, 
 rose in 1 83 1 as a volcano, but sank again, leaving a shoal now called Graham's 
 Shoal. 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 know, I am considered a youngster, which I should not be in the Inconstant. 
 And besides, I am too comfortable here. . . . The Mediterranean agrees with 
 me very well indeed. I am growing very fast indeed. I am 5 ft. 5 in. in 
 height, and stout in proportion. Everyone says that I shall be very tall indeed, 
 and I have excellent health, which is a great thing. " l 
 
 Early in January 1838 the Russell was ordered to Corfu, 
 there to embark the 1 1 th Regiment for passage to Gibraltar, 
 and, it was supposed, to go direct to England from thence. 
 In the result, however, much to young Key's disgust, as 
 well perhaps to that of a majority of the Russell's ship's 
 company, they found themselves back at Valetta on 10th 
 March. But then, after loading up with invalids, seamen, 
 marines, boys, and soldiers, and other passengers, eight live 
 oxen and fodder for them, she sailed for Plymouth on the 
 27th March at 5 a.m., and, being towed out of harbour by 
 the Confiance steamer, anchored in Plymouth Sound on 
 30th April at 5.30 p.m. It is noticeable that this was a 
 quick passage, during part of which the ship sailed at the 
 greatest speed she had hitherto attained. For a single 
 hour she ran eleven knots, and for thirty-eight hours only, 
 continuously, did she make nine knots or more. After a 
 fortnight's stay at Plymouth the ship returned to Lisbon, 
 and, except for a short cruise for exercise off the port, she 
 lay there until her final orders took her home for the last 
 time. She was paid off at Sheerness, where she fitted out, 
 on the 1 6th of January 1839. 
 
 Here and there there are notes of interest in this last 
 year of Key's first ship, some of which may be picked out 
 of her log and some from the boy's own letters. In the 
 latter can be easily traced developments of his character as 
 we knew it towards the close of his life. 
 
 The mere storing of the ship with live oxen when she 
 left Malta for England transports us not only half a cen- 
 tury, but many centuries back. The passage from Malta to 
 Plymouth was a " voyage " of portentous character, and 
 required under Sir William Dillon much the same pre- 
 liminary arrangements as it would have required under Sir 
 
 1 The prediction as to his height was not verified. He was of moderate height 
 when he grew up, with a slight active figure. 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1 835-1 839 39 
 
 Francis Drake. In February, at Gibraltar, there were, 
 according to the log, " strong gales with heavy storms and 
 
 rain." At seven o'clock on the morning of the 25 th so 
 
 says the log — " Let go sheet-anchor under foot ; lowered 
 the topmasts close down. 7.30, wind (which had been 
 S.W.) shifted to N.W. in a very heavy squall with rain and 
 hail. The ship drove. Veered to half a cable on the sheet, 
 and brought her up. At 8 saw many vessels run foul of 
 each other, and one brig filled and went over on her broad- 
 side, and many on shore. P.M. Lashed the two kedges 
 and stream-anchor together, and bent both stream-cables." 
 
 Here we have in perfection the old seamanship, which 
 was less an art than a fashion, less a question of reason 
 than of authority. Authority spoke still for hemp cables, 
 and provided the Russell with a sheet and a stream-cable of 
 that character. Apparently she had then but one sheet- 
 anchor, so that, should she have dragged, or parted the 
 cables of those that were down, she had nothing to fall 
 back on but this temporary anchor made up of three small 
 ones. 
 
 The astonishing moral tone of a ship, esteemed by young 
 Key to be so very "comfortable" and, according to his account, 
 of such good repute amongst her fellows, still remains indi- 
 cated by the floggings. It is a well-known feature in men- 
 of-war that the conduct of the ship's company — if the ship 
 is properly managed — shows out better and better as the 
 time goes on. But in the Russell^ as measured by the 
 floggings, there is no sign of this. A couple of days after 
 leaving Plymouth, when she had been two years and nine 
 months in commission, a whole page of the log is taken up 
 with the record of corporal punishment meted out that day. 
 Eight seamen and one marine received seventeen dozen 
 lashes between them. There is no sign that such a holo- 
 caust affected anyone particularly ; certainly, young Key was 
 never sufficiently moved by what he saw to mention it in 
 his letters. A week or so later, the periodical arrange- 
 ments for " rigging the gratings " were proceeded with. 
 
 As to the character developing in the environment which 
 I describe from time to time, not only for its historical 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 interest but as a part of the story of the life which I am 
 telling, it was dominated all through this last year of the 
 Russell's commission with the prospects of home. 
 
 He was disappointed in his hope of visiting his well- 
 loved family from Plymouth in May, but after the ship's 
 return to Lisbon at the latter end of that month there was 
 continued expectation of the last return to England, as in 
 August the usual period of three years' commission would 
 be concluded, and the orders for the ship to be paid off 
 might at any moment arrive. But with the hope of home 
 life once more, which was immediate, there was in the boy's 
 mind the most continuous and anxious consideration for the 
 next ship. To the end of the chapter it may be supposed 
 that the young officer's wishes will centre on service in a 
 " small craft " rather than a large and crowded one, where 
 the law may be firmer, the routine more fixed, and the 
 etiquette more formal ; and Key was no exception to the 
 rule, though he varied. One time it is — " the Modeste, a 
 beautiful corvette, just commissioned, is the craft for me. 
 I wish you would find out her captain's name and her 
 destination." Then he is back again to an older love, the 
 Inconstant, and is regretting that her movements may pos- 
 sibly frustrate his hopes. Next it is — " but what I want 
 to write about in particular, is about joining the Vernon. 
 Lord John Churchill is going to commission her ; he is said 
 to be the most gentlemanly and altogether the best captain 
 in the service, and the Vernon is known to be the finest 
 frigate in the navy." Then he is back again — " I am glad 
 that there is a chance of my joining the Inconstant, because 
 she is a very fine ship and will very nearly serve my time, 
 which is a great thing." It seems that some steps must 
 have been taken by his father to place his son in the Incon- 
 stant, for in June young Key writes that he is very much 
 obliged to his father for trying to get him into the Incon- 
 stant, and is " exceedingly glad that he has succeeded, as I 
 would rather join her than any ship in the service," and he 
 has " very good accounts of Captain Pring." Then in the 
 middle of July we have : "I do not mind how soon I join 
 the Inconstant, therefore I should like Captain Pring to apply 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 41 
 
 for me as soon as he gets a vacancy." The commander of 
 the ship — Luckraft — received his expected promotion on 
 the occasion of Her Majesty's coronation, and left the ship. 
 Key declares he would follow him anywhere, and his loss 
 makes the boy more anxious than ever to change his 
 ship — 
 
 " No news of going home," he says in September. " I am quite tired of Lisbon, 
 and I long to get home. I have been inquiring for a comfortable ship, and I hear 
 that the Wasp, in the Mediterranean, is reckoned very comfortable. She is com- 
 manded by the Hon. Dudley Pelham. If papa knows anyone that knows him, I 
 should like to join her very much indeed." 
 
 But the next letter says — 
 
 "The Magicienne, a splendid corvette, just paid off, is going to be com- 
 missioned again by the Hon. Captain Keppel, who is liked very much, and 
 bears a good character ; I should like to join her very much, if Russell is paid 
 off in time." 
 
 Early in November the "steam-packet" from Lisbon 
 sprank a leak after sailing, and was obliged to put back. 
 The Espoir, 10-gun brig, took the mails, no doubt amid 
 some general remarks that, after all, the sailing vessels, 
 though slow, were sure, and could not be wholly displaced 
 by the revolutionary motive power. But such ideas could 
 not have found a place in young Key's mind, as he writes 
 thus a few days afterwards — 
 
 "lam much obliged to you for sending me the book on steam, as I find it 
 interesting, and I am sure it will be very useful. I have read a great deal of it 
 already, and I begin to understand the way the machinery works, of which I had 
 not the slightest idea before." 
 
 In the same letter we have an open confession of the 
 fondness for society, especially of the society of women, 
 which was a strong part of Key's character all his life, 
 which formed his manner, and made him such a favourite 
 wherever he was — 
 
 "As we are likely to remain here [at Lisbon] some time," he writes, "if you 
 knew anyone who could introduce me to any family here, I should like it very 
 much, as there are some very nice English families here, and it would be so 
 pleasant to spend the long winter evenings with them. Mr. Smith is very 
 kind to me, but there is no pleasure in spending the evenings without female 
 society, which I daresay you know I am very fond of. " 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 About this time he says — 
 
 "I have had a great deal of intercourse with the French midshipmen lately, 
 and I find that I can talk French better than I expected. The Donegal (flag- 
 ship) was taken from them in the last war. They do not seem to like the sight 
 of her." 1 
 
 As to reading, he says — 
 
 " I begin to feel the want of not having been fond of reading in my younger 
 days ; although in most arguments I generally get the best of it, but sometimes I 
 find myself involved in one which I am obliged to drop from not knowing suffi- 
 ciently about it. Perhaps you do not know that a midshipman's berth is an 
 excellent place to pick up information on all subjects." 
 
 And then with the light outlook of a young mind 
 speculating amongst realities to come — 
 
 M This war 2 will break out just in time for me to get on ; we are all longing 
 for it on board ; by all accounts it appears to be inevitable." 
 
 The boy's last letter home from the Russell is dated 
 the 8th January 1839. They had had very bad and cold 
 weather, and it was trying to all in the ship. But Key had 
 been gratified by a visit from his brother Henry, 3 and was 
 too full of the idea of home for anything to trouble him. 
 Almost his last words from the Russell were — 
 
 "I have been wet through ever since Henry left. I have been swamped 
 twice, and had to strike out for it once ; but never mind ! It's all for the good 
 of the service, and so I won't growl." 
 
 In the previous August the promoted Captain Luckraft 
 gave to Key's father a character of the son such as cannot 
 often be truly given of any boy — 
 
 " Having quitted the Russell, I take this opportunity of writing to you, which 
 I might have done long since, but I had a particular purpose of deferring to this 
 time. I can only say of your son now, what I might have said months ago. He 
 has been three years with me ; during so long a time I have had scarcely occasion 
 
 1 She had been the Hocke, captured in 1798. 
 
 2 Apprehended with Russia. 
 
 3 Henry Cooper Key was the eldest son, and the two brothers were through 
 life devoted to one another. He was rector of Stretton Lugwas for thirty years ; 
 a great gardener and a good violinist. He was a Fellow of the Astronomical 
 Society, and possessed what was, twenty years ago, the sixth largest telescope in 
 England. He ground his own mirrors. He died in 1879. 
 
THE RUSSELL— 1835-1839 43 
 
 to find fault with him, certainly not for anything of consequence. He is one of 
 the best midshipmen in the Russell^ a correct, gentlemanly young fellow. I should 
 be delighted to have him with me in any ship, or to recommend him. I left him 
 in good health, and if he keeps in the line which he seems to have laid out for 
 himself he will do well. He is justly a great favourite on board. Unfortunately, 
 that complaint is still sticking to him. I mention this, that when you see him, 
 perhaps professionally you may be able to do something for him. ... I should 
 certainly think, now that he is growing in strength and manhood, it might be got 
 over. " 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CLEOPATRA — I 8 39- 1 84 1 
 
 THE Cleopatra was commissioned at Sheemess on the 
 21st of January 1839. The crew were hulked — 
 that is, were quartered — on board the Nymphe, one 
 of the receiving ships moored in the stream, and fitted up 
 for the purpose of housing the crews of such ships as were 
 in the hands of the dockyard and not yet in a condition to 
 be inhabited. 
 
 Young Key's hopes and fears came to a conclusion by 
 his appointment to this ship, and he joined her on the 
 25 th, after a stay of only about a week at home. The 
 Cleopatra was a 26 -gun frigate. She was commis- 
 sioned by Captain Stephen Lushington, and the other officers 
 who first joined her were — Lieutenants, A. D. Fordyce, 
 A. Grant, F. Denison ; first-lieutenant of marines, J. Fraser ; 
 master, J. Fowler ; surgeon, P. Marty n ; purser, J. Halie ; 
 and assistant surgeon, W. Henderson. Mr. Warren was 
 the second master, and Mr. John Brown, clerk. Amongst 
 the other officers were Mr. P. L. Ross, mate ; and Mr. 
 Lyster, midshipman. 
 
 Unfortunately, very few of Key's letters during his 
 
 service in the Cleopatra have been preserved ; and while the 
 
 official records indicate clearly enough what the ship did, 
 
 where she went, and what was seen and done generally by 
 
 those in her, we have not much record to guide us as to 
 
 what the subject of these Memoirs thought of what he saw, 
 
 and how he mixed in the various scenes into which he was 
 
 thrown in the course of his service in the ship, extending 
 
 over two years and a half. 
 
 In those days a ship when ordered for commission was 
 
 44 
 
THE CL£OPATPA~iS 39 -iS 4 i 45 
 
 generally bare of everything except the lower masts and 
 bowsprit; and it was the business of the crew to place 
 everything on board of her that was required, and to rig 
 her completely— the rigging being really the most tedious 
 work, and requiring the greatest care. The time occupied 
 was long, and the Cleopatra, no exception to the general 
 rule, did not put to sea complete until the 24th of March, 
 reaching Spithead on the 27th; and sailing finally from 
 Plymouth Sound on the 10th April for St. John's, New 
 Brunswick. She had embarked 140 men and officers of 
 the 36th Regiment, with a number of women and children, 
 before sailing, reminding us of the capacity of men-of-war 
 to act as transports, and the use that was made of them as 
 such, in contrast with the want of capacity in the ships of the 
 present day and the almost complete cessation of the custom. 
 But changes in naval practice even since the Russell's 
 time find record in the Cleopatra's log. The Excellent, 
 gunnery ship, puts in another appearance, and the log 
 records the arrival of a gunner's mate and three seamen 
 gunners from that ship — a sort of foundation-stone of the 
 new navy which was growing up as young Key's environ- 
 ment. And then even the log itself shows the signs of 
 change. We no longer find the record of the weather in 
 the body of the daily page, as — " fresh breezes and cloudy," 
 " strong gales and squally," and so on ; but the Washington 
 standards are introduced in side columns under the heads 
 of "Force of Wind," indicated by the figures 1-12; and 
 " State of Weather," indicated by letters — as " b" indicating 
 blue sky ; " c" indicating cloudy ; " a" indicating squally, 
 and so on. The record at once becomes brief and full, 
 precise and short; all in the direction away from the 
 breezy and free vagueness which characterises the entire 
 record of the navy of a former era, and towards the pre- 
 cision of the rigid machinery and close measurement of an 
 iron and steel naval age, — even as the league is giving 
 place to the mile, the cable's length to the fathom and the 
 yard, the minute to the second of geographical measure- 
 ment, or the half-hour glass to the deck clock ; — or, coming 
 to the type of the log itself, from the great black log-board 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 a yard and a half square, where the record went down in 
 chalk, through the smaller and neater log slate, even to the 
 "deck log" of the present day, which is but a duplicate 
 of the fair log-book, and into which the record of every 
 occurrence is written in pencil at the moment it trans- 
 pires. Yet was the connection with the past kept up, for 
 in the Cleopatra they still talked of the " larboard side " and 
 the " larboard tack," etc. 
 
 The speed of the frigate in comparison with that of the 
 line-of-battle ship could not have failed to produce its im- 
 pression on the keen mind of the young officer who noted 
 it. The Cleopatra easily got away nine and ten knots 
 before an easterly breeze, of which the force was noted at 
 no more than five, a force which would allow the setting of 
 the lightest sails when the ship was sailing by the wind. 
 And presently, again, it is noted that under like conditions 
 with royals — the lightest and loftiest sails — the ship makes 
 from seven to nine knots, when close hauled. 
 
 On the 25th of April, when making for Sable Island, 
 and in lat. 4 2° 10' N. and long. 48° 41' W., they observed 
 some icebergs to the northward, and stood towards them 
 for their examination. There were two great peaks of ice, 
 apparently 150 feet high and half a mile apart, surrounded 
 by a vast sea of detached pieces extending as far as the 
 eye could reach. The beautiful and exhilarating sight 
 could not but have impressed the mind of our young 
 voyager with that sense of embodied majesty, purity, and 
 repose which, whether analysed or not, leaves its mark 
 behind it. 
 
 We may remember the occasion of the Russell's being 
 struck by lightning, as described in the last chapter. Key 
 was on the 2nd of May brought again into practical con- 
 tact with the march of scientific knowledge. The ship 
 met with squally weather and thunder and lightning. The 
 sails were gathered up and lowered, and the lightning con- 
 ductor was got up. In those days it was a wire, or small 
 wire-rope, with a pointed end to it, which was hoisted to 
 the highest part of the highest mast, and the end allowed 
 to trail overboard. The later arrangement, which still 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— rt^i^ 47 
 
 exists for wooden masts, is a stout strip of copper let into 
 the after side of the mast itself, and having metallic con- 
 nection with masts above or below it, and, in wooden ships, 
 carried from the lower masts along one of the beams 
 through the ship's side, and down to the copper covering 
 the ship's bottom. In iron or steel ships it is, of course, 
 only necessary to bring the copper conductor into metallic 
 connection with the metal of the ship anywhere. But Key 
 saw all the steps, from terrible danger to perfect safety. 
 He knew in the Russell what an appalling thing even an 
 ordinary thunderstorm was to the ship of his time. He 
 saw the danger consciously guarded against by careful 
 action in the Cleopatra, and how in later ships all the danger 
 was unconsciously, as it were, guarded against, and no longer 
 existed to trouble him. 
 
 The Cleopatra having sailed from Plymouth on the 
 ioth of March, anchored at St. John, New Brunswick, on 
 the 4th of May. 
 
 On the 9th she proceeded to Halifax, meeting there 
 Key's old friend the Pique, with the Andromache, Wanderer, 
 and, still marking change, the Medea steamer, even on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. Key's ship was back and for- 
 wards once or twice between the two ports, and on the 3rd 
 of June she met for the first time the commander-in-chief 
 of the station, Vice-Admiral of the White, Sir Thos. Harvey, 
 K.C.B., at Halifax. 
 
 Either the men were of a better sort than the Russell's, 
 or the methods of discipline were different in the Cleopatra, 
 for she seems to have got through the first four months of 
 her commission without a single case of corporal punishment. 
 Yet, as during the months of June and July she passed up 
 to St. John's, Newfoundland, touching at St. Pierre and 
 other anchorages, a sort of epidemic of desertion, such as 
 we have sometimes experienced at other places in later 
 years, seems to have set in, and the men were off singly or 
 in groups, without reason assigned. 
 
 Until the 20th of October, when the Cleopatra left 
 Halifax for Bermuda, she spent her time about the coasts 
 of New Brunswick and Newfoundland in looking after the 
 
4 8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 fisheries and performing those general duties of guardian- 
 ship which fall to the lot of a British man-of-war in peace 
 time. The countries were rough and wild, offering great 
 attractions to men wholly devoted to their rods and their 
 guns, but not to young Key, who really was not keen about 
 sport till late in life, and never, if I remember rightly, killed 
 a salmon until after he became First Sea Lord of the Ad- 
 miralty. He never took to the North American and West 
 India station, missing very much indeed the general society, 
 and especially the society of ladies, which he had longed 
 for in the Russell. About all matters of service and duty 
 he was as interested and as keen as it was possible to be, 
 and in his ship he was most happy, a universal favourite, 
 with several warm friendships, and a captain to whom he 
 was sincerely attached, and from whom he received many 
 marks of kindness and interest. 
 
 But I suspect that his mind was more full than the few 
 letters which have been preserved show, of the approach of 
 the day — some time in August 1840 — when he was to 
 pass his seamanship examination, making him a mate, and 
 qualifying him for promotion to the rank of lieutenant, and 
 of all that might follow that, to him, momentous epoch. 
 There was, I suspect, a certain restlessness, in view of the 
 outlook, which prevented him from settling down to the 
 enjoyments of a naval station which has for a long time 
 been a popular one. 
 
 There were some excitements, not only in the counter- 
 action of the deserting escapades of the men, but in 
 searches after unwilling absentees lost in the wild country 
 surrounding the ship. Thus at St. Pierre a man was lost 
 in the fog, and was only recovered after twenty-four hours 
 of wide searching, being brought on board completely 
 exhausted. And then in July, Mr. Martin, the surgeon, 
 got himself lost in the woods at Croe harbour, and the 
 crews of the Cleopatra and of the French commodore's ship, 
 the Blonde^ joined in a search extending through two days 
 and a night, at the end of which they discovered the 
 unfortunate officer, " much fatigued and nearly blind by 
 mosquitoes and flies." 
 
THE CLBOPATJ^A-~iS 39 ~iS4i 
 
 49 
 
 All through September, and up to the middle of 
 October, when she returned to Halifax, the Cleopatra was 
 looking after the fisheries on the coasts of Newfoundland, 
 carrying out the provisions of the remnant of the Anglo- 
 French treaty which still continually occupies our ships and 
 gives rise to difficulties. She was in and out of every little 
 bay and harbour round the coast ; places of great interest 
 to the sportsman, but not to others. 
 
 On the 28th October the ship put to sea for Bermuda 
 in company with the Winchester, bearing the flag of the 
 commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Thos. Harvey. At 
 Bermuda there was an exchange between Lieutenant Grant 
 of the Cleopatra and Lieutenant Page of the Andromache, 
 being one of the earliest changes of so many in the ship, that 
 Key, before he left her, may be said to have parted with all 
 his friends. On the 1 9th of November the Cleopatra sailed 
 for Port Royal, Jamaica, towing thither a tank vessel which 
 had been prepared at Bermuda, and which was in charge 
 of a mate, G. H. W. Ross, who had joined from the Crocodile 
 in May. At Port Royal was Commodore Douglas, in charge 
 of the port and naval yard ; and while there were the Rover 
 and Serpent, sailing vessels of the old navy, the presence of 
 the steamers Tartarus and Spitfire was pointing out to Key 
 what was coming, and leading up to a resolution perfectly 
 in keeping with his whole character, which we shall see him 
 put in force four years later, and which had an important 
 bearing on his future career. 
 
 A new kind of duty now engaged the officers and crew 
 of the Cleopatra — the suppression of the Spanish slave trade 
 to the West Indies under the powers of a treaty. And on 
 the 7th of December his ship sailed to cruise on the south 
 coast of Cuba. She was now in the line of Spanish ships, 
 whether legitimate traders or not, and in the cool manner 
 of the English she made full use of the Spanish harbours 
 as bases for her operations while chasing and boarding 
 every Spaniard who seemed at all suspicious. She was at 
 this work — occasionally meeting and communicating with 
 colleagues engaged on the same business without any result 
 — until, early on the morning of the 3rd of January 1 840, 
 4 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 when the ship was just south of the east end of Cuba, a 
 suspicious-looking schooner was noticed inshore. Chase 
 was immediately given to her, and, contrary to all experi- 
 ence as yet, she did not grow less suspicious as she was 
 approached. There was hardly any wind, but the schooner 
 was using as much as there was to make straight for the 
 shore. But the Cleopatra was gaining, however slowly. By 
 eight o'clock the chase was only five or six miles off. At 
 half-past ten the gig, cutter, and jolly-boat were manned 
 and armed and despatched under the first - lieutenant, 
 Fordyce, to overhaul her. By noon the chase was a mile 
 nearer, and the boats were gaining on her. But she was 
 getting near the shore. Presently those on board the ship 
 saw a boat quit the now undoubted prize. The gig, the 
 fastest and most advanced boat, opened fire. At one 
 o'clock the gig ran alongside the chase and took possession 
 of the Portuguese schooner Louisa % with 280 slaves on board, 
 from Basan, bound to St. Jago de Cuba, which had been 
 thus neatly caught about eighty miles short of her nefarious 
 goal. 
 
 But as excitements seldom come singly, a second 
 suspicious schooner hove in sight while the boats were 
 thus busy with the first. There was a rush to hoist the 
 barge out and send her after the hoped-for new prize, but 
 she turned out to be a legitimate packet — no doubt, to the 
 general disgust. 
 
 Key now entered on a wholly novel experience, for he 
 was sent as second to Mr. Ross, the mate, with ten men 
 and ten days' provisions, to take the prize to Port Royal, 
 200 miles off. A letter describing the new ideas sure to 
 have been raised by this sudden and close contact with a 
 great body of negro slaves, and the actual conditions of the 
 trade set up by our own Hawkins about 274 years earlier, 
 would have had a special interest; but, though such a 
 letter was written, it is not preserved, and the first letter 
 from Key relating to his Cleopatra service was written at 
 the end of February 1 840, from Port Royal, nearly a month 
 after the ship's return. 
 
 Key, with the rest of the prize-crew, had undergone a 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 5 i 
 
 period of quarantine ; and, writing on the 27th of February, 
 he did not date from the Cleopatra, having to report a 
 further change in his affairs. The Pickle schooner arrived 
 at Port Royal on the 5 th February from a cruise. She 
 was commanded by Lieutenant Holland, a man of excellent 
 reputation in every way — a reputation probably enhanced 
 by general knowledge that he was very well-off. The 
 admiral had given Holland leave to select a mate or 
 midshipman to serve as his second in command. Frank 
 Denison, the junior lieutenant of the Cleopatra, was in an 
 extra degree Key's friend, and he was also the friend 
 of Holland, to whom he introduced young Key as the 
 officer he wanted. Holland asked Key if he would come 
 with him. Key was only too delighted, but Captain Lush- 
 ington's leave must be obtained — 
 
 "I spoke to Captain Lushington about it," writes Key, "and he was very 
 kind indeed. He said that he considered that he had charge of me from my 
 friends, and therefore he could not think of my going anywhere that would do 
 me any harm ; but he knows Holland, the commander of the Pickle, very well, 
 and he was the only man he would let me go with. Holland and Denison both 
 spoke to him about it, and really I was quite flattered (and I am sure you would 
 have been too) at the trouble everyone seemed to take about me. Holland is 
 very anxious to get me, and the captain so very loth to part with me. The 
 captain told me that he thought it would do me good going in the schooner for a 
 short time ; and as the Cleopatra was going for a cruise till the end of May, and 
 the Pickle is going on a cruise also, he agreed to let me go till that time, which is 
 about three months. . . . He gave me a champagne dinner the day I left, and 
 plenty of good advice, and duff. 1 If you knew what an excellent man Holland 
 is, you would not mind my going with him. In the first place, he is a perfect 
 gentleman, and has ,£2000 a year ; then he is a strictly religious and steady man, 
 and a very good officer and sailor ; he behaves to me as if I was his son. I am 
 the only mid. on board, therefore I am regular first-lieutenant, and carry 
 on all the duty, which he does not interfere with. You must not think that I 
 left the Cleopatra for a short time because I was not comfortable. I told the 
 captain that. Of course I can never be grateful enough to Mr. Denison for the 
 kindness he has shown me for the last year. Although he is a wild fellow him- 
 self, he will never let me make a row on shore or anything of that sort, which 
 all mids. do ; and Holland (who is a very intimate friend of Denison's) told 
 me that he gave him charge of me with such a solemn face. Holland has 
 introduced me to all the captains and commanders in the harbour, and they 
 asked me to every party. Meanwhile I am hard at work all day, from 5 a.m. to 
 sunset, rigging the schooner, which I am doing all myself,— and pretty hard work 
 it is, I can assure you. We are refitting our rigging, and we shall sail in a fort- 
 
 1 i.e. pudding. 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 night in search of vessels engaged in the ' unlawful traffic of human beings ' ; 
 and Holland has asked the admiral to allow him to come into Port Royal, on 
 purpose to change me back, at the same time the Cleopatra does. . . . When 
 the Cleopatra sailed, as I was going to remain behind in the Pickle, the captain 
 left me in charge of our prize as prize-master, as she is not condemned. There- 
 fore I am skipper of one schooner and first-lieutenant of another." 
 
 Writing again on 9th March, Key says — 
 
 " Here we are now, all ready for sea in the schooner, and we sail to-morrow 
 morning at daylight for a three months' cruise. Lots of slavers knocking about 
 now, and some larger than ourselves, so we stand in chance of an action. 
 Would not that be splendid ? If we take a prize, however large, I am to go in 
 command of her, — think of that ! Last week I had an invitation to go up in the 
 mountains for a few days with Mr. Holland and Captain Robb of the Satellite. 
 We went up to a very nice little country house, about ten miles from Port Royal, 
 and it was delightful. The scenery was superb, only it put me too much in 
 mind of dear, darling England. I nearly had an accident there, as sailors always 
 have when they pick themselves up on shore ; like schoolboys, we began climbing 
 up trees for fruit, and as I was coming down I took hold of a rotten branch and 
 down I came, and was picked up insensible ; but I soon came to, as my head is 
 moderately thick, and I was then all right." 
 
 The Pickle cruised along the south and south-west 
 coasts of Cuba to the Caymans and the Isle of Pines, 
 chasing ships and frightening some sometimes, as the 
 Pickle had a rakish piratical look about her, and the fear 
 of pirates had not then died out. At the Isle of Pines 
 there was varied shooting — wild oxen, pigs, pigeons, and 
 parrots — 
 
 " Shooting pigs," says Key, " is excellent fun. Mr. Holland would insist on 
 my using his gun and rifle, and we used to take such long walks together." 
 
 In a letter written early in April, Key presses his 
 father and mother not only to allow him to come home, 
 but presses his father to arrange it at the Admiralty. 
 Whether, as a first medallist at the College, Key was then 
 looking forward to what afterwards happened, and was 
 anxious to reap the full advantage that was possible by 
 an early return home, he does not say in his letter, and 
 assigns no cause beyond the mere desire to return home — 
 
 " If I am fortunate," he says, " I shall most likely fall in with three captains 
 to pass me in August ; and as I really wish to come home directly after I have 
 passed, if papa and yourself have no objection, I wish you would try and get my 
 discharge at the Admiralty sent out to me, as mids. are so scarce nowa- 
 days that it is very hard to get one's discharge out on a foreign station. If you 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 53 
 
 apply about the beginning or middle of August it will come out to me just in 
 time. You may be sure . . . that I would not wish to go home if I thought it 
 would do me the slightest harm in the service ; but I am certain that it will not, 
 and you may indeed rest assured with that, as I flatter myself I am a bit of a sea 
 
 lawyer, and know the service pretty well. I have spoken to Captain L about 
 
 it, and will do so again when I join the Cleopatra, which will be in the end of next 
 month. I hope . . . you will do this, as I am very very anxious to get home, 
 although I really do not think that there is a midshipman on the station who is, 
 or ought to be, so comfortable as myself. You know, I suppose, that directly 
 I arrive in England I have to pass a second examination for navigation at 
 Portsmouth, which being in this schooner will help me to pass, as well as in sea- 
 manship, for I work the reckoning myself, take my own observations, and 
 everything." 
 
 He writes also to ask his father to write to Lieutenant 
 Holland to thank him for his kindness. He says : " Holland 
 would like that, I am sure, more than any return it is in 
 my power to make." Further on in the same letter he 
 says — 
 
 " Mr. Holland has made me a present of his very handsome gun and rifle ; both 
 in one case to fix on the same stock. The rifle is double-barrelled as well as the 
 gun, made by ■ Westley Richards,' the best maker in London. He insisted on 
 my accepting them as a slight remembrance of the Pickle, he said. It is nearly a 
 new gun, used very seldom. You see, . . . everything conspires to make me forget 
 home ; the friends I have made out here, and everyone trying to make me com- 
 fortable—and yet it only brings home, sweet home ! fresher to my memory." 
 
 Though the Pickle made no captures while Key was on 
 board of her, she was not without the excitements of the 
 chase. One evening, — the 23rd of April, to be accurate, — 
 the ship being at anchor in the track of slave ships in 
 darkness, those on board her became aware of the im- 
 mediate presence of a schooner running before the wind ; 
 not only so, but as she neared there came from her that 
 " racial effluvium " which denoted negroes, and a full cargo 
 of them. A musket was at once fired at her, but she held 
 on her way, and was disappearing into the darkness. The 
 Pickle fired her long 6-pounder at her, and there was light 
 enough to see her topsail-yard come down as a consequence, 
 but still the slaver made away. Holland and Key, and ten 
 men all armed, got away after her in the gig, and hoped 
 all things to result. But the slaver had the start of them, 
 and they soon lost her in the darkness. They chased -in 
 her direction, however, all night, and only when it was 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 perfectly hopeless did they return weary and disappointed 
 to the Pickle — 
 
 "If we had come up with her that night," says Key, "what a glorious fight 
 we should have had ! Holland would have been sure to have been promoted, and 
 so would I directly I had passed. 1 It would have been a glorious cutting-out 
 expedition, — only our ten men against at least thirty or forty on board the slaver. 
 I can answer for it, they would not have beat us off. How glorious ! seeing one's 
 name in the papers for something of that sort ! Should not you like it, dearest 
 mama ? I was sharpening my sword in the most butcher-like manner all the 
 chase. It was delightful to see how eager our men were to get up with her. . . . 
 The morning after the chase, after I came on board, I just laid my head down 
 in the commander's cabin, and I can assure you I slept for ten hours without 
 waking : fine constitution I have for sleep ! " 
 
 On the 29th he again writes — 
 
 "We have had a very amusing chase after a Spanish schooner. She sailed 
 very fast, but we came up with her and found her to be an innocent merchant- 
 man. Sail ho ! a again ; I must go up and see what she is. She is only a small 
 fore-and-aft schooner working to windward. Oh ! how I long to take a slaver, 
 to have command of her ! I expect we shall take. one before we get in." 
 
 On the 9th of May the Pickle fell in with the Cleopatra, 
 and Holland and Key went on board of her. They found 
 that poor Captain Lushington had been confined to his bed 
 almost ever since they parted, and Key expresses his 
 sorrow, and recalls the kindnesses done to him by the 
 invalid. 
 
 On the 20th May the Pickle returned to Port Royal, 
 where the Cleopatra had already arrived, and Key was then 
 transferred to his proper ship — 
 
 "I left the Pickle" he says, "with great credit, I assure you. The men 
 came aft for leave to give me three cheers as I left. Of course it was not allowed. 
 Mr. Holland gave me a very excellent certificate. After the usual form written 
 by the clerk he has written in his own hand : 3 ' Mr. Key has had charge of a 
 watch during this period, and I cannot speak too highly of the seaman-like and 
 
 1 Holland's after-career was very different from Key's. He left the Pickle in 
 December 1840, and, except that he appears to have been appointed to the Osprey 
 for a few months without joining her, never served again. He was made a 
 commander in 1846, was placed in the Reserved List in 1851, and died in i860. 
 
 2 This expression "Sail ho !" I never heard. It had gone out of fashion in 
 1846, and until I read the letter quoted I had been under the impression that it 
 never was in the navy, but was the invention of the nautical novelist. 
 
 3 It was one of the changes effected many years later, that the captain should 
 always express his view of the services of an officer, to whom a certificate was due, 
 in his own handwriting. 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 
 
 55 
 
 officer-like manner in which he has performed that, as well as any other duty I 
 have entrusted him with. 5 " 
 
 On arrival at Port Royal, Key received a letter from 
 his father urging him to remain abroad until he was pro- 
 moted to the rank of lieutenant, and it is remarkable that 
 neither father nor son appear to have had any thought of the 
 more certain, as well as the more distinguished, way in which 
 the young officer was to win his promotion. And while, 
 therefore, Key was generally to be found choosing con- 
 sciously the course which would lead to advancement and 
 distinction, secondary causes here operated so as to draw 
 him unconsciously towards the goal at which he was aim- 
 ing. Key replied to the letter, that " if his father really 
 thought it would be for his good, he would stop with 
 pleasure, however much he disliked the station." But for 
 all that, he never ceased to urge his suit, and to plead 
 the disagreeables of the station, until his wishes were 
 gratified. 
 
 On the 2nd of June the Cleopatra sailed for Bermuda 
 with money for the troops, expecting to be sent to Halifax. 
 And this little incident reminds us of one of the great 
 changes which have taken place in the naval service of 
 late years. At the date which now occupies our thoughts, 
 and for many years later, men-of-war were almost the 
 universal carriers of bullion, whether for Government or 
 private firms ; and the small percentage allowed to captains 
 for undertaking the responsibility, generally represented a 
 handsome increase to his ordinary emoluments, and some- 
 times a sudden and a large fortune. One of the romances 
 of naval life which has now passed away, was the possi- 
 bility of at any moment receiving such a freight on board 
 as would make the captain comfortable for the rest of his 
 career. 
 
 The ship arrived at Bermuda on the I 3th of June, but 
 instead of proceeding on to Halifax, as was expected, 
 orders were received directing her to Barbados, to embark 
 some companies of the 76th Regiment and to return to 
 Bermuda and Halifax. Captain Lushington was now so 
 ill that it was necessary to send him to hospital at Bermuda, 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and when his ship sailed on the 17th he was left behind. 
 The return to the West Indies, though a general disappoint- 
 ment, was otherwise to Key, for at Barbados an uncle of 
 his, Dr. Young, resided during the winter months, and Key 
 was full of hopes — 
 
 "I shall have," he writes to his brother, "delightful times if he is there. I 
 believe he lives about eight miles from where we shall anchor ; that will be all 
 the better." 
 
 The visit to Barbados was, however, so far a disappoint- 
 ment, as Dr. Young had sailed for England about a fort- 
 night before the Cleopatra's arrival. 
 
 The disappointment did not diminish the young 
 officer's desire to quit the station and return home. All the 
 way down to Barbados he had been speculating to his 
 brother Henry on the chances of his return, and pleading 
 with his mother to use her influence with his father — 
 
 "I have great hopes," he says to the former, "of being able to persuade 
 the ' governour ' to allow me to go home from Halifax, as I am heartily tired of 
 this station, and I am sure it is no possible use my remaining out. I expect 
 to pass (or try to pass) my examination in seamanship in a month or two, and 
 then I never wish to see this station again. It is a horrid hole ! No society ; 
 1 no nothing '! ... I so long to get to England among civilised beings, as I 
 have not spoken to a lady or gentleman, excepting our own officers, since I have 
 been on the station. The ■ governour ' wishes me to remain away from England 
 till I am promoted. I have no objection to going to sea again on some other 
 station directly I have passed my second examination at Portsmouth ; the only 
 thing I do not like is the station I am on, and I wish particularly to get 
 home." 
 
 To his mother it is the same story. If his father 
 decides that he should remain, he is willing — 
 
 M Though," he says, " I can assure you it required some time before I could make 
 up my mind." Yet, "if you do not think it is for my interest to remain out, 
 I wish you would allow me to go home to pass my second examination. You 
 might send me to sea again immediately. Captain Lushington said : ' A word 
 from your father, and you shall go directly.' ... I may be able to get home 
 soon after your permission, although it is very hard to effect. The Snake and 
 Satellite are going home ; I am a friend of both their captains (Captains Robb 
 and Hay), and they would take me directly. You know, I suppose, that I 
 have to pass a second examination for navigation directly I arrive in England. 
 I do not fear either the seamanship or the navigation, — that is one con- 
 solation. You have no idea . . . how many real friends I have made since 
 I have been in the Cleopatra, — friends who will be useful to me in after-life. 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 57 
 
 Mr. Denison is one of my best. 1 ... I expect to have Captain Parker of the 
 Winchester as one of my passing captains ; he is reckoned one of the strictest 
 afloat, at least on this station. Captain Lushington has told me to beware of 
 him. ... We anchored in Barbados last Sunday, the 28th. I immediately 
 went on shore to inquire for Uncle Young, and to my great sorrow I found that 
 he had sailed for England a fortnight since. You may imagine how disappointed 
 I was. Barbados is certainly the nicest island in the West Indies, but I must 
 say, 'bad is the best.' " 
 
 In this letter other sides of the growing character dis- 
 play themselves, one of which has been already noted. " I 
 am studying," he writes, " Paley's works now ; I find them 
 very interesting. Indeed I do not think I have ever read 
 anything with so much pleasure. Mr. Holland promised 
 to lend me Keith on Prophecy \ but I came away without it ; 
 if you have it, will you send it out with the other things ? " 
 A little before, he had said : " I admire the French, and 
 detest and abhor the Yankees ; nothing would give me 
 greater pleasure than going to war with them ! " He thinks 
 his father does not know " how difficult it is to get made 
 lieutenant nowadays. It requires immense interest and 
 continued application at the Admiralty. I have not built 
 my hopes on getting it for some time." 2 
 
 By this time it has become plain that the subject of my 
 story might have well joined in the words of a song I knew 
 well half a century ago, and have not met since — 
 
 But a charm to me has never appeared 
 
 In the most romantic of places, 
 Till a cheerful voice was distinctly heard 
 
 And I looked upon friendly faces. 
 
 And a curious instance comes out in two successive letters. 
 Writing on his way from Bermuda south to Barbados, 
 Key says : " Bermuda is about three degrees and a half 
 worse than Sheerness, which place you know well." Writ- 
 ing three weeks later, on the way from Bermuda north to 
 Halifax, we have : " I am rather sorry to leave Bermuda, 
 as it is the only place on the station where I knew any- 
 
 1 Denison, a lieutenant of 1838, was second-lieutenant of the Cleopatra. He 
 died in 1844. See Chapters V. and VI. 
 
 2 The names of mates did not appear in the Navy List till 1841. There were 
 then 569 on the list, and 142 of them were of more than six years' standing. 
 
58 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 one." The difference of view had been produced by an 
 introduction to the governor and his family, who were very 
 kind to the boy, and for the time quite reconciled him to 
 his fate. The governor was Colonel, afterwards Sir, William 
 Reid, author of the Law of Storms \ and the great exponent 
 of the principles which govern not only the action of the 
 winds, but the warnings that may be got of their coming 
 action. But, notwithstanding the mitigation which his dis- 
 like to the station had undergone at Bermuda, the dislike 
 is only scotched, not killed. ■ I really wish I was on some 
 civilised station," he writes on his way to Halifax, " like the 
 Mediterranean, instead of this horrid place. You will think 
 that I am getting quite discontented, but it is enough to 
 make anyone ' growl ' being here " — 
 
 "We are afraid," he goes on, "that our captain will leave us after he is 
 married at Newfoundland. I wish he could take me to England with him. 
 July 20th. — We are in regular Nova Scotia weather again ; I came on deck this 
 morning at four o'clock to keep the morning watch, and I found it awfully cold, 
 and so thick a fog that we could not see a ship's length ahead. In the middle 
 watch, the fog being very thick, a large merchant ship going in the opposite 
 direction to ourselves was seen right ahead, steering directly for us ; we immedi- 
 ately put the helm a-port and just escaped both ships being sent to the bottom. 
 We were going eleven knots, and she was going about ten, so the crash would 
 have been awful." 
 
 The ship arrived at Halifax on the 26th of July, where 
 was the flagship, the Winchester, with the admiral, Sir 
 T. Harvey, on board. Captain Lushington had improved 
 in health since rejoining the ship at Bermuda, and it was 
 arranged that the Cleopatra was to accompany the Win- 
 chester to Quebec, sailing with her about the 20th of August. 
 Key remained restless and dissatisfied, and though pleased 
 with the prospect of lying quiet in harbour for a time, and 
 with the hope of visiting Quebec, could not restrain a fling 
 or two at his surroundings — 
 
 " I wish I was in England, off this dull station. Halifax, a place that I have 
 heard praised up above all others, is the dullest place imaginable, — no balls, or 
 parties, or anything ! I am going deer-shooting in the woods for one or two days, 
 if I can get leave ; fine exercise for my new rifle ! You can have no idea what 
 an expensive station this is ; you cannot open your mouth under a dollar, and it 
 then takes two to shut it ! The three days that I was living with the Governor 
 of Bermuda has done me a great deal of good. I am getting quite^a/ since I was 
 there ; fancy me fat ! I am very glad that we are going to Quebec" 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 59 
 
 This sort of restlessness and discontent with his environ- 
 ment, which appears to have possessed the boy throughout 
 his service in the Cleopatra, up to this time almost seems to 
 have been the shell of an inward decision which was slowly 
 maturing and had now formed itself — 
 
 " I have," he writes, "come to a decision this afternoon, come to a resolu- 
 tion. I daresay you and papa have heard of the Excellent, a ship stationed at 
 Portsmouth to teach officers and men the science of gunnery. There are a great 
 many advantages attached to joining her. Everybody has been advising me to 
 go there, and I really think that I shall get on well if I go there ; and it is also a 
 claim for promotion. I have resolved, with your leave [he is writing to his 
 mother] and through papa's means, to get appointed to her. I do not think 
 that you will have any objection ; I shall only have to stop there a year at the 
 furthest. If you approve of my resolution, I would be obliged to you to wait till 
 I write you word when I have passed. Then if you would ask papa to try and 
 get me appointed to the Excellent. If Uncle Bransby * could manage to ask Sir 
 John Barrow, 3 it would easily be done. Then I should be sent home immedi- 
 ately, and get leave. I am sure I should get on in the Excellent, as I am getting 
 quite a studious character. If papa has any naval acquaintances, he can ask their 
 opinion of the Excellent. You may expect the news of my passing in a short 
 time, but do not be too sanguine. Our worthy skipper and I had a long yarn 
 about it yesterday, which was very satisfactory to me. He is an excellent fellow, 
 — I wish he was well. . . . August 2nd. — I am sorry to say our captain is getting 
 rather worse. I was speaking to Mr. Denison about joining the Excellent, and 
 he not only approved of it, but strongly advised me to join her, saying that it was 
 the best thing I could do, and also that besides getting my appointment to the 
 Excellent, you had better, after having got that, get my discharge from Cleopatra. 
 What a horrid station this is ! I have not been on shore since I have been in 
 Halifax. I am going to send this by the steamer — the first that has brought the 
 mail to Halifax from England. . . . Our captain is worse, I am sorry to say, 
 therefore he will not be able to go to Quebec, so we remain here at Halifax till 
 the admiral returns." 
 
 As it happened, the whole programme, not only as far 
 as the ship was concerned, but as far as Key himself was 
 concerned, was altered. Key was " lent " to the Winchester 
 — the flagship — for a time, and the Cleopatra was ordered 
 to sea. The Winchester proceeded to Quebec, and Key 
 was there in her when, on the 1 1 th September, the 
 Cleopatra unexpectedly returned under the following cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 1 Bransby Blake Cooper, Mrs. Key's eldest brother. He succeeded his uncle, 
 Sir Astley Cooper, in the house, 2 New Street, Spring Gardens. He was a 
 hospitable, genial man. 
 
 2 The well-known Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty. 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 I quote from the ship's log: "About 7.30 [on the 
 22nd September] John Collins, A.B., walked aft on the 
 quarter - deck and thus accosted Lieutenant Page, the 
 commanding officer. * Are you the commanding officer ? 
 I want to strike you ! ' inflicting at the same time a stroke 
 with his hand on Mr. Page's left cheek. Mr. Page im- 
 mediately gave directions for the man to be secured and 
 placed in irons. The sergeant of marines, while engaged 
 in executing this order, received a stab in his left side with 
 a knife, inflicted by the prisoner, John Collins." Of this 
 stab he died next day, and the Cleopatra at once rejoined 
 the admiral in order that a court-martial might be held on 
 the unhappy man. Key immediately returned to his own 
 ship, and a court-martial condemned the prisoner to be 
 hanged on board the Cleopatra, Key was painfully struck 
 by the misery of the whole thing — 
 
 "You must think me," he writes, "a hard-hearted wretch to pass over so 
 slightly the condemnation of the miserable being who is now within a few yards 
 of me as I am writing. It has just struck me what an awful thing it is. I am 
 sorry to say that on board ship we think too little of these things. He is to be 
 executed to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, and I am truly grieved to say his 
 soul is in the same lost state as when he committed the deed ; although Mr. 
 Sleight, the chaplain of the flagship, has been constant in his attendance on 
 him, he is as hardened as ever. Is it not horrible to think of? His coffin is 
 actually at this moment being made within his hearing, and nearly within his 
 sight. The poor wretch is staring about him in a horrid vacant manner. It is 
 an awful lesson to the seamen in the squadron. I will not close this till after 
 the execution. Monday morning. — It is all over : an hour ago the poor wretch 
 was sent to his last account. He remained hardened to the last. I was close 
 to him at the awful moment ; the only words he said were, ' Do not run me 
 quick, but walk me up slowly.' He walked as firm to the forecastle as he ever 
 walked in his life. He struggled for two minutes, and then all was over. His 
 body is lowered down now, having been up for an hour. And now, to hear how 
 the sailors are talking and laughing, you would not think that anything had 
 happened. " 
 
 This terrible scene was a sort of foil to the joy the 
 young officer was otherwise experiencing, for he had 
 passed his examination for lieutenant on the 20th of 
 August, and his parents had approved of his application 
 to join the Excellent^ and were using their influence at 
 home to further his wishes, and he was keenly looking 
 forward to his discharge to some homeward-bound man- 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 61 
 
 of-war. Yet he was a long time from this climax to his 
 happiness. The Cleopatra, with the other ships of the 
 squadron, ran down the St. Lawrence on the 29th and 
 30th of September. On the 6th of October the Cleopatra 
 anchored at St. John's, Newfoundland, where all this time 
 Captain Lushington was lying sick. On the 8th he was 
 invalided — that is, finally discharged for a passage to 
 England, as too ill to continue in command of his ship. 
 Then, on the nth, the Cleopatra again put to sea for 
 Bermuda, where, on the appearance of the admiral a few 
 days afterwards, Captain Alexander Milne x was transferred 
 from the command of the Crocodile to that of the Cleopatra. 
 The ship then went the round of the West Indies, and no 
 doubt drew from the young mate fresh expressions of 
 disgust at the surroundings and at the postponement of 
 his return home. There was not much of interest for the 
 remainder of the year, but there were aggravations to one 
 of Key's affectionate and social turn. His captain had 
 gone, and now his best friend amongst the lieutenants — 
 Denison — also fell sick, and was obliged to be sent home. 
 In the midshipman's mess there were several changes, so 
 that the ship began to be strange though so familiar. The 
 men themselves seemed to feel the effect of the several 
 changes, and got, as it is called, " out of hand." On the 
 14th January 1841, while at sea, they found that some 
 mischief-makers amongst the crew had unrove the fore 
 tack, jib-sheet, and downhaul, and cut the jib-halyards, and 
 thrown the coil overboard. There was a rough-and-ready 
 way of dealing with this sort of thing in those days, 
 which the ship's log discloses without directing attention 
 to the comic aspect of the proceeding. " Stopped the 
 starboard watches' grog," says the log, " except the petty 
 officers', for the more effective means of finding the person 
 who cut and unrove the gear as noted." The official 
 record says nothing of whether the means used were 
 effective, but some successful slave - chasing broke in on 
 the monotony of the time. On the 27th of January the 
 ship put to sea from St. Thomas, and was immediately 
 
 1 The late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Alexander Milne, Bart., G.C.B. 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 in chase of a vessel which proved to be a Spanish 
 slaver with 288 negroes on board. Mr. Gordon, the 
 senior mate, was sent away in charge of the prize, 
 and this gave Key what is always looked on as a sub- 
 stantial rise in rank and position. He now began to 
 take charge at sea as officer of the watch ; to be, in fact, 
 the lieutenant, the placeholder or deputy of the captain 
 when the latter was not on deck. It is often a rather 
 nervous time for a young officer. All eyes are turned 
 on him, to see how he will do it ; but, worst of all, he 
 has to get used to the sound of his own voice, and this 
 has generally a very strange and unexpected timbre to 
 him. Perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the 
 change from sail to steam is, that the officer of the watch 
 need now have no voice at all. Key, as a mate in the 
 old days, stood on the weather gangway, and was bound 
 to make his voice heard all over the deck, and all over 
 the rigging, from the flying jib-boom end, over the royal- 
 mast heads, and down to the taffrail. Now the officer of 
 the watch rests on a bridge near the fore end of the ship 
 and whispers confidentially all he has to say down the 
 nearest voice -tube, or, mayhap, speaks not at all, but 
 turns a handle or two. The glory of it is gone for ever, 
 unless glory is to come from considering how will, that is 
 almost disembodied, has come to rule. 
 
 After the West Indian winter the Cleopatra came north 
 again, but with yet a new captain, Christopher Wyvil, — 
 Milne going back to his old ship, the Crocodile, — and she 
 went over the old round in protecting the Newfoundland 
 fisheries, and with much the same old trouble of desertion 
 epidemic amongst the men. But in July, Key's time was 
 come. He was discharged for passage to England to 
 join the Excellent^ now " his proper ship," on the 23rd of 
 July 1 841, at St. John, New Brunswick. He must have 
 been in high glee, for there were few left of the original 
 Cleopatras — his friends — behind him in the ship, to furnish 
 matter for regret. Of those who quitted England with 
 him, the captain, all the lieutenants, the master, and nearly 
 all in the midshipmen's berth had disappeared from the 
 
THE CLEOPATRA— 1839-1841 63 
 
 ship, from various causes, before Key left her ; and it is 
 a striking evidence of the sieve-like character of the 
 naval life, that when Sir Cooper Key died, he was either 
 the last, or the last but one, left of all the original 
 Cleopatras. His old ship had yet another cruise without 
 event in the West Indies, and then she took her departure 
 homewards from Barbados on the 9th of March 1842, 
 anchoring at Spithead on the 7th of April, and being 
 paid off at Chatham on the 20th. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EXCELLENT AND COLLEGE — 1841-1843 
 
 I WAS greatly at a loss for knowledge of Key's life 
 during the period of his service in the Excellent and 
 at the College, where, true to his instincts, he had 
 placed himself as in the advanced-guard of forward change, 
 and where the distinction which had attended him without a 
 break all through his career was to become more marked 
 than ever. There is no College log where all.'that is striking 
 finds record, as we have already seen in the ships where 
 he served ; and there would be fewer indications of char- 
 acter in the short letters possible to preserve, while for that 
 very reason the letters would fail to survive. But a College 
 and a lifelong friend of Key's, Captain Montagu Burrows, 
 Chichele Professor of Modern History at Oxford, whom the 
 navy has proudly seen able to distinguish himself at the 
 University of Oxford, even late in life as he took up his 
 place there, has offered me a tribute to the memory of his 
 old and distinguished friend, and has recorded his recollec- 
 tions of the time which was to both of them so happy 
 and so stirring. I make no apologies for quoting him in 
 full, being very well aware that he was much more worthy, 
 as well as much more competent, to fulfil the office which 
 has fallen to me. Thus he writes : — 
 
 " My knowledge of Cooper Key (or ' Copper Key,' as 
 he was familiarly called amongst his friends at the Royal 
 Naval College, Portsmouth) only dates from our meeting 
 at that institution in 1842. We had indeed been trained 
 at the same College as boys, but he was my junior by a 
 year, having entered in August 1833; and, according to the 
 custom of the place, the separation by an interval which 
 
 64 
 
EXCELLENT: COLLEGE— 1841-1843 65 
 
 then seemed long — and indeed it was half the whole course 
 — prevented our knowing much more of each other than 
 the names. He was probably too low down on the list to 
 take any part in the momentous reassertion of the authority 
 of the twelve seniors over the rest of the boys, whole- 
 somely exercised from time immemorial ; but for something 
 like a year set at naught by a knot of stalwart youths 
 more distinguished for bodily than for mental prowess, who 
 delighted in calling themselves ■ the twelve brigands.' He 
 must have been, however, most assuredly on the side of 
 order, and swelled the tide of juvenile opinion which pre- 
 vented the successful counter-revolution from being attended 
 with any more sanguinary circumstances than the public 
 * cobbing' of the arch-offender for kicking with extreme 
 violence a little boy named Kingsley — the brother, I believe, 
 of the celebrated author. Nor were our first experiences 
 at sea gained in the same ships, nor on the same stations ; 
 so, as I say, it was not till January 1842 that we began a 
 close friendship which lasted for life. 
 
 " The circumstances of the intimacy which now took 
 place between us were not at first sight favourable to the 
 idea of friendship. We were rival competitors for the 
 lieutenant's Commission, which in those days was given, 
 twice in the year, to the mate (the sub-lieutenant of to-day) 
 who passed the best examination in mathematics at the 
 end of his year of study. Now, if there was one thing 
 more terrible than another to young men who were anxious 
 to ' get on ' in the service, it was the prospect of being con- 
 demned to linger in the lower ranks as an ■ old mate.' It 
 simply meant ruin. Out of the numerous 'old mates' 
 whom I remember, only a very small percentage escaped 
 from gross deterioration under this shocking mismanage- 
 ment of the younger officers by the Admiralty of the day. 
 It could only be excused by the fact that it was the 
 inheritance of an evil system produced by the superabun- 
 dance of officers called out for the service of the great war ; 
 but it should be stated that it was beginning to receive 
 attention and remedy at the time of which I speak. 
 
 " It may be imagined, then, what an avenue to a com- 
 
 5 
 
66 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 parative paradise opened out before the eyes of the young 
 mates who had any talent for mathematics and no objec- 
 tion to hard work. In days not long before this time, 
 the gold medal won by the boy who passed the best 
 examination at the Naval College carried with it a lieu- 
 tenant's Commission when he arrived at the age of nineteen 
 and had passed for seamanship. This was thought not 
 to answer well, and indeed it was too great a prize to be 
 won at the age of fourteen or fifteen. It had been a 
 feature in the effort to meet the requirements of the day, 
 made by the more cultivated portion of the governing 
 body of the navy, themselves for the most part ' collegians.' 
 But there had always been a strong opposition to this 
 party amongst the officers who had not passed through the 
 Naval College, and who looked upon all scientific attain- 
 ments not so much as waste time, but as injurious to the 
 acquisition of seamanship and the details of routine. They 
 were right in attacking this particular plan for encouraging 
 scientific tastes ; they were wrong in forcing the Admiralty 
 to put an end to the Naval College altogether. That did 
 not, however, last long. It was seen that some sort of 
 education for the navy was necessary, and the admirable 
 plan was adopted, first of assigning the empty apartments 
 and halls of the time-honoured College for boys, to the 
 mates on full-pay and officers of the higher ranks on half- 
 pay ; and soon afterwards of turning the Britannia into a 
 college for boys, where they might receive that suitable 
 mixture of school and ship training which the old College 
 had failed to supply. It thus took about half a century 
 to compose the differences which had existed from the 
 time of Nelson between the two classes of officers above 
 mentioned. 
 
 " The development of the Naval College at Greenwich 
 has been a still later form of the movement for the higher 
 education of officers who have attained to manhood. It 
 mainly arose out of the replacement of wooden sailing ships 
 by iron-built steamers, and was first organised as a place 
 of education by the subject of this Memoir. 
 
 " The abolition of the gold medal as a great life-prize 
 
EXCELLENT: COLLEGE-1841-1843 67 
 
 had been very unpopular amongst the young officers of a 
 scientific turn, even though the memory of the past had 
 been to some degree effaced by changing the metal of the 
 coveted distinction. There had always been a gold and a 
 silver medal. The gold had been changed, when it ceased 
 to carry a Commission, to silver; but there was still in our 
 time a first and second medal, both of silver, given precisely 
 as before to the two highest boys in the College each half- 
 year. It was natural that those who had carried off the 
 ' first medal ' should find themselves better equipped than 
 their contemporaries for the new struggle in which they 
 eagerly rushed to engage as young men of twenty to 
 twenty-three. As boys they had marched far ahead of 
 their companions, and become, for the last part of their 
 course, Dr. Inman's peculiar charge. To them the veteran 
 senior wrangler delighted to impart such treasures of his 
 knowledge as they could digest, and for which the common 
 routine of study did not provide. Under his personal 
 training they learnt not only the art of taking accurate 
 observations of the heavenly bodies and other objects, but 
 the principles of the necessary calculations, and indeed many 
 things besides. Even though this might not have been 
 followed up, the contact with a superior mind like his 
 left its mark ; and if being thus singled out was a little 
 spoiling, the inevitable hardships of the career which im- 
 mediately followed it on going to sea brought everything 
 to a common level. But in many cases it had been 
 followed up, and the medallists sniffed the approaching 
 contest with a keenness of scent for which their sea experi- 
 ence might well account. Before Key and I became com- 
 petitors, the ' first medallist ' of the old College had never 
 been beaten in the race which he ran for in the new. 
 But ours was a peculiar case. We had both obtained the 
 ' first medal,' and a contest between two who had been 
 equally successful as boys had never yet taken place, nor 
 did it again occur. 
 
 "It has been necessary to say as much as this, in order 
 to bring out Key's special characteristics. He started with 
 a serious disadvantage. He brought with him no reputation 
 
68 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 for industry, nor had he pursued, as far as I can remember, 
 any special course of preparation for the arduous year of 
 work which awaited him. 1 
 
 " He had, again from circumstances, much less time 
 to spend during the short leave from the Excellent which 
 preceded the College year, than I had. He was known to 
 be clever, and he was a most popular man, but he did not 
 rise above the level of his contemporaries — probably was 
 ignorant of the great powers which were latent within that 
 easy-going and pleasant exterior. Without being a hand- 
 some man, I may here say that Key was a very ' nice- 
 looking ' fellow, and had a capital figure. I have certainly 
 never met anyone to compare with him for powers of 
 fascination. Some men are adored by women ; others are 
 much more the favourites of their own sex. With Key 
 everyone fell in love, men and women alike. There was 
 in his composition a remarkable mixture of gentleness and 
 manliness, readiness of expression and fun, quickness and 
 modesty, good breeding and common-sense, which took 
 people by storm, and which was the natural fruit of an 
 excellent home education, and of high principle maintained 
 all through the ungenial atmosphere of the midshipmen's 
 berth. 
 
 " His father and mother were remarkable people, in 
 every sense of the word ; to them must be given the chief 
 credit of this gracious manhood. From them he derived 
 his peculiar talent, which, exhibited in the most eminent 
 form through both lines of parentage in the medical pro- 
 fession, took in him the direction of an astonishing rapidity 
 and correctness of insight into mathematical problems, for 
 which he was unrivalled. What others could only attain 
 by a circuitous route, following methods already found 
 useful in similar cases, Key could pierce almost at once by 
 some unknown process, which used to remind us of the 
 familiar stories about the famous ■ calculating boy ' of those 
 days or a little earlier. It was this special talent which 
 
 1 We have seen how true this statement is, and how remarkable it may be 
 thought that all through his previous service he seems not to have contemplated 
 contending for the great prize he was to win. 
 
EXCELLENT: COLLEGE— 1841-1843 69 
 
 made up for all previous loss of time. He did indeed set 
 to work in earnest as soon as he joined the College, and he 
 was most fortunate in securing a Cambridge tutor of emin- 
 ence during the summer vacation, thus receiving what our 
 professor at the College — himself, like Dr. Inman, a senior 
 wrangler — did not supply, — the explanations of principle 
 without which the higher mathematics are not much more 
 valuable than the various virtues without charity. 
 
 " Professor Main was a good and popular man, but did 
 not possess the art of teaching. How could the whole 
 course of mechanics, the differential and integral calculus, 
 hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, and optics be mastered in a 
 year without assistance of a peculiarly close and suit- 
 able kind ? The standard was that of Cambridge. The 
 first class represented the wrangler's degree, the second that 
 of the senior optime. If it were not that the professor him- 
 self established the course, I should be inclined to think 
 that his instinct taught him to despair of arriving at any 
 good result in so short a time, and thus that he thought it 
 best to leave us pretty much to ourselves. All this, no 
 doubt, is managed much better nowadays at Greenwich. 
 
 " I am by no means prepared to say that there were 
 not more than two men who profited sufficiently by this 
 cram-course to make their studies practically useful for 
 nautical purposes, but the only men of whom this was 
 commonly said in those days was the subject of this 
 Memoir and the late Sir Alfred Ryder, admiral of the fleet. 
 Many others, of course, benefited by the industrious habits 
 and power of thinking to which the course contributed, 
 but a better one might easily have been adopted for this 
 purpose. It suited Key, however, wonderfully well. He 
 added to his knowledge when he went to sea, and applied 
 it excellently in the re-launching of the stranded Gorgon 
 in the harbour of Monte Video, and even more conspicu- 
 ously in the account of that successful operation which he 
 published. It stood him in good stead when he was called 
 upon to apply his talents to the organisation of the navy 
 and construction of ships, as well as to the problems con- 
 nected with gunnery which the new organisation brought 
 
70 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 to the front. An average man, with the average training, 
 could not have performed that work. His rival by no 
 means possessed the peculiar gifts required, and it was not 
 wonderful that Key carried off the coveted Commission. 
 At the first examination which tested their respective 
 powers, at the end of six months' work, that rival was the 
 favourite, and justified the opinion formed, from the ad- 
 vantage he possessed in a better start, by coming out well 
 ahead of Key; but there were some who had discerned 
 Key's superior talents, and at the end of the year, thanks 
 chiefly to his quickness in working hard problems — the 
 only true test of mathematical eminence — he came out in 
 the first place of the first class. 
 
 " How did we escape the dangers of unwholesome 
 rivalry which appeared to be inevitable, and preserve the 
 relations of Pylades and Orestes ? I have no hesitation in 
 asserting that it was because we were tied together by the 
 bonds of Christian unity. Perhaps, if I had not attained an 
 age which enables a man to say outright what he means, I 
 should have hesitated to say so ; for it might be misunder- 
 stood as a claim to some sort of superiority which we did 
 not possess. I think Key was a little misunderstood. His 
 high spirits and gaiety, his fondness of female society, and 
 his passion for athletic sports, in which he excelled, obscured 
 the fact that he was essentially a religious man. That foun- 
 dation being laid, it was happy for us both that we were 
 pursuing our studies just at the very time when Archdeacon 
 Samuel Wilberforce was creating all round him, from his 
 Alverstoke centre, that atmosphere of religious influence 
 which has gone on widening over the whole neighbour- 
 hood ever since. He and his curates — Trench, afterwards 
 archbishop, and, I may surely add, my brother Henry, 
 his other curate, afterwards canon of Rochester — formed 
 an inner circle of religious and intellectual eminence into 
 which it was our privilege to be taken up. At my father's 
 house at Anglesey Key was at home, and on the never-to- 
 be-forgotten Sundays we heard together what we could 
 never forget. One model woman, Mrs. Richardson, the first 
 wife of Dr. (afterwards Sir) John Richardson, the famous 
 
EXCELLENT: COLLEGE— 1841-1843 71 
 
 Arctic traveller, must also be mentioned as having deliber- 
 ately set herself, in spite of the claims of a large family 
 and many friends, to raise our professional ambition to 
 the higher level of religious duty. Lord Beaconsfield, in 
 Lothair, most truly says that it is worth all other social 
 advantages in the world to have known in early life one 
 noble woman. Key and I knew more than one ; but no 
 young men ever had a common friend who better under- 
 stood how to get at their hearts, and elevate their whole 
 nature, than we had in Mrs. Richardson, of Haslar Hospital. 
 Her letters have remained amongst my treasures ever since 
 those days, and for their elegance and fine spirit might 
 well be published if they were not too sacred. One sentence 
 bearing on the present subject may, however, find a place : — 
 
 " ' I have always looked upon the struggle between you 
 and Key as involving far higher things than the lieutenancy, 
 and my wishes are so much confused by knowing you both, 
 that I am very glad no word from me can influence the final 
 decision.' 
 
 "It was in this spirit that we received the Holy Com- 
 munion together, just before the examination began. It 
 would not be true to say that we were thus enabled to be 
 perfectly indifferent as to which of us should succeed, but it 
 is quite true that we absolutely lost all sense of variance or 
 ill-feeling, every spark of " envy, hatred, malice, and un- 
 charitableness," and were both prepared to welcome the 
 success of either, though at the expense of the loser. And 
 this remained. Ours, no doubt, was not the only case of 
 the kind, but the circumstances are characteristic of Key's 
 early life, and will explain much that came afterwards. 
 
 " The reader will excuse the few words which have been 
 necessarily bestowed on Key's rival, since those alone could 
 bring out the biography of the man himself; but he will 
 not be troubled with any more. Both went off to sea and 
 took different lines, the result, exhibited in different ways, 
 of the common life they had led at Portsmouth and 
 Alverstoke." 
 
 I have said that the remanents of Key's life at College 
 under his own hand are scanty. There are just a few lines 
 
72 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 which should be quoted as illustrative of the account 
 Captain Burrows has given of him at this time. He writes 
 to his mother, under date 25 th September 1842 — 
 
 " If you have Keith's Signs of the Times would you be kind enough to lend 
 and send it to me, and also his Evidences of Prophecy, which I think you have in 
 town. I have kept my resolution bravely, not having been out to a single 
 evening-party except to Lady Hastings' one evening she asked me to go in. 
 Burrows and I are both in good health, and working very hard, and getting on 
 equally well. 
 
 1 ' We have such a nice set of captains and commanders here now. There is 
 one commander, Captain Caffin, 1 a great friend of mine ; he was an old friend of 
 Holland's. The captain is very kind to me ; I like him more and more every 
 day. You can have no idea with what pleasure I shall look back on the year I 
 have spent here. I am certain that I shall always consider it as the best 
 employed year in my whole life. 
 
 Again on 9th October — 
 
 " I read your last delightful letter with a great deal of pleasure ; it enlightened 
 me on other points beside the one in question. My reason for asking the ques- 
 tion was, that I had Molyneux on Regeneration of Baptism put into my hands ; 
 and as he is, I believe, a very low churchman, I did not like to read it before 
 asking your opinion on the subject first, for fear of being influenced in any way 
 by him, but now I can read it with safety. 
 
 " Now I am going to ask you another question on a subject which I am afraid 
 is difficult to explain. What is meant by Christ's descending into hell ? You 
 need not explain it to me, but refer me to passages in Scripture where I can find 
 it out myself. What a delightful book the Evidences of Prophecy is ! you may 
 think I am a long time reading it, but I am only half through it now. The only 
 time I can possibly spare is Monday afternoon, and after evening service on 
 Sunday. Our quarterly examination commences to-morrow, and lasts till 
 Thursday. I hope I shall beat Burrows." 
 
 The next scrap of a note is without date beyond the 
 day of the week (Tuesday), but it relates most probably to 
 the examination just referred to — 
 
 "lam first, I am happy to say, by several numbers. I only trust I shall be 
 so next time, but I do not think about it. . . . Burrows has just been in my 
 room while I am writing, and asked me what I was about. I said I was writing 
 to you, telling you that I was first ; so he says I am to give you his love at the 
 same time. And really, although he only said it in joke, yet I am sure he loves 
 you for my sake. We often talk about you. It is so delightful to think that we 
 are such good friends." 
 
 1 The late Admiral Sir James C. Caffin, K.C.B. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CURAQOA 1843-1844 
 
 THE Curacoa was a ship with a poop, a sixth rate, carry- 
 ing 24 guns and 240 men. She was commissioned 
 at Chatham on the 1st March 1843 by Captain Sir 
 Thomas Pasley, Bart., 1 and on the 6th the newly promoted 
 lieutenant, Key, joined her as junior and gunnery lieutenant, 
 and there he found, to his delight, his old friend in the 
 Cleopatra, Frank Denison, installed as first-lieutenant, and 
 next day Mr. Carmichael joined as second - lieutenant. 
 Other officers soon made their appearance, and the fitting 
 out of the ship went on at a rate which was, for those days, 
 brisk. A piece of scientific improvement which does not 
 appear to have had its day, I find noted in the log. Some 
 of the sails were dipped in " Burnett's solution." Sir William 
 Burnett was medical director-general of the navy, and his 
 name was long preserved by means of a disinfectant, largely 
 used in the navy, which bore it ; but what the object of the 
 present solution was I am unable to say. It may have 
 been a non-inflammable compound or a preservative. No 
 doubt it was duly watched and noted by the junior lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 On the 27th of April the ship was towed down to 
 Gillingham Reach by the Monkey tug — a very early ex- 
 ponent of the new system of propulsion, and there she was 
 employed for the two succeeding days, as the log has it, in 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Pasley was afterwards captain of H.M.S. Royal Albert during 
 the Crimean War ; then successively captain-superintendent of Pembroke Dock- 
 yard, rear-admiral superintendent of Devonport Dockyard, and admiral com- 
 mander-in-chief at Portsmouth. He retired from the navy in 1870, and died at 
 Moorhill, Hants, in 1884. 
 
 73 
 
74 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 " swinging ship to find local attraction." This, again, was 
 one of the innovations or advances with which Key no 
 doubt much concerned himself. The existence of what is 
 now called " local deviation " in the compass was a com- 
 paratively recent discovery. It was always slight in wooden 
 ships, but in the early iron ships was found to be so great 
 that it used to be seriously discussed whether the fact alone 
 would not hinder the employment of such material in ship- 
 building. 
 
 It seems strange to us now to recall the indifference 
 with which errors of the compass were treated only so short 
 a time ago. Sir Thomas Pasley was more alive to the 
 point than some of his contemporaries ; and though he 
 speaks in his journal of Captain Johnstone, who was then 
 devoting himself to this branch of naval science, somewhat 
 slightingly as " the compass man," he yet used his influence 
 to obtain that without which no ship would now be thought 
 fit to go to sea, and was supplied with " a standard com- 
 pass as a favour." 
 
 Every ship in those days, if not in earlier ones, was 
 pursued by experimentalists, and anchors of experimental 
 construction were supplied to the Cura^oa when she had 
 completed the examination of her compass deviation. She 
 was given a " Roger's " anchor on the one bow and a 
 " Porter's " on the other. Roger's was but a modified form of 
 the ancient anchor still in use, with an iron instead of a 
 wooden stock. Porter's anchor was a curious novelty, with 
 its crown and flukes in one piece, rather in the form 
 of a boomerang, and pivoted through the centre on which 
 it worked. Falling into the hands of a Mr. Trotman, who 
 made a slight modification in it, it became well known on 
 paper for a great many years, owing to the persistent 
 advocacy it received at the hands of the modifier, notwith- 
 standing which it fell out of use. 
 
 The progress seawards was in those days somewhat 
 deliberate. The Curagoa was towed down to Sheerness 
 by H.M.S. Tartarus on the ist of May, and she was 
 inspected by Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Brace next day. 
 On the 3rd she was towed as far as Margate by the 
 
THE CURAQOA— 1843-1844 
 
 75 
 
 Tartarus and African, when a thick fog compelled an 
 anchorage. 
 
 Sir Thomas Pasley had been twelve years on shore 
 when he assumed command of the Curacoa. The days 
 when the necessity for large reserves of officers was not 
 admitted had not yet arrived. There was but a slight 
 indication of "retirement schemes," and officers accepted 
 early promotion and long rests on shore afterwards as 
 inherent in the naval system. The manning of the navy, 
 too, still remained as it had been. The Curacoa was sixty 
 men short as she lay at anchor off Margate, and with four- 
 teen men on the sick-list could have made no approach to 
 that efficiency which is now demanded of a man-of-war 
 before she leaves her port. Even while at Portsmouth, Sir 
 Thomas records his attempts to man his ship, and regrets 
 that owing to the rain he was only able to pick up two 
 men. 
 
 The coming change from sail to steam finds a regretful 
 record in the captain's journal. The Curacoa passed the 
 Cyclops, which was a sister steamer to the Gorgon, hereafter 
 to be spoken of. Captain Pasley notes her, and records his 
 sorrow that he did not take command of her instead of the 
 Curacoa, she being so independent, while the Curacoa was 
 in tow. 
 
 On the 4th of May the Curacoa managed to get as 
 far as the Downs by the use of her own sails, and on the 
 5 th she finally put to sea, arriving on the afternoon of the 
 6th at Spithead. By the 1 oth she had got as far as Ply- 
 mouth Sound, and was detained there, as the log says, 
 " fitting new chain cable compressors, the old ones being 
 useless," which gives us a hint that chain cables were still 
 somewhat on their trial. 
 
 She was, however, ready for sea on the 22nd, and the 
 ponderous and rather inconsequent methods of the old 
 time are illustrated by the log noticing that on that day 
 " Rear- Admiral Sir S. Pyne came with pay clerks to pay 
 two months' wages." The two objects of remark being, that 
 it took a rear-admiral and staff of civil clerks to do that which 
 is now done monthly by the paymaster of the ship without 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 excessive note; and that care was taken in these bygone 
 days not to let the men get their money until it was certain 
 they could not spend it, unless they had run into debt 
 beforehand. In this case the Curaqoa sailed next day. 
 
 The passage from Plymouth to Rio Janeiro occupied 
 fifty-four days, being broken by short stays of a day or two 
 at Madeira, and at Santa Cruz in TenerirTe. The apparently 
 dull recitals in the log of the changes of wind and weather 
 were to the voyagers the elements of that romance of the 
 sea which everyone felt in the days of sails, but which dis- 
 appeared, possibly for ever, when steam became a common- 
 place. Apart from these changes, there was not much out 
 of the ordinary track to influence the character whose 
 history we are tracing. 
 
 The gloominess of the first day at sea, when the absence 
 from all those each one holds dear is a fresh wound, leaves 
 a record in Key's journal — 
 
 " How wretchedly dull everyone seems ! The chaplain is the only happy-look- 
 ing man in the mess. The way they are all employed is rather amusing. Denison 
 is on deck, looking very sulky, growling at everybody ; I would not like to tread 
 on his toes for something. The master, having seen the ship clear of the land, is 
 just come below, and immediately sits down, pulls out three old letters in a lady's 
 hand, and reads them. The marine officer, who is subject to alternate fits of 
 sentiment and sea-sickness, is leaning with his head on his hand and the Army 
 Evolutions before him upside down." 
 
 But the young lieutenant, full of an eager spirit, though 
 sailor-like he was not now unmindful of the girl he had left 
 behind him, and full of memories of his much-loved home 
 circle, was the last person in the world to suffer his energies 
 to be hampered by soft remembrances. He plunged at 
 once into his regular " three watches," adding thereto the 
 gunnery duties for which he was appointed to the ship. 
 " All my spare time," he says, " is taken up with drilling. 
 But one is never so happy as when always employed." 
 
 On the night of 27th May, Key's innate readiness and 
 seamanship came in to save a serious collision with probable 
 loss of life. The ship was close hauled on the starboard 
 tack, and Key and the captain, Sir Thomas Pasley, were 
 walking the quarter-deck together, Key being officer of the 
 watch, at half-past nine at night, when the lookout reported 
 
THE CURAQOA—iSK-rtu 7? 
 
 a sail ahead. In those days no anti-collision lights were 
 carried, and there was not, any more than there is now, 
 any settled teaching as to what is safe and what is 
 dangerous in approaching another ship at night whose 
 condition is not made out. So Sir Thomas gave what was 
 a usual but yet dangerous order in calling to the helmsman, 
 " Luff!— keep a close luff!" Key, not easy in his mind as 
 to the result, rushed forward to the forecastle, and there 
 saw that they were running straight into a ship which was 
 close under their bows. Key was quick with the reversing 
 order: "Hard a-starboard ! — let go the peak halyards!" 
 and had the satisfaction of finding the ship pay off, so 
 that the CuraqocCs flying boom just cleared the stranger. 
 
 A couple of days later, Key being below, heard the 
 always startling cry of " A man overboard ! " and, rushing 
 on deck, he found Denison, the first-lieutenant, in the act 
 of jumping after the man ; but the latter caught a rope, 
 and Key and Denison hauled him in. 
 
 The old-world character of times so little distant in 
 point of years comes strangely out of the pages of Key's 
 journal on this and the next day — 
 
 "A man was found drunk this morning; I suppose he will be flogged to- 
 morrow. 
 
 "The captain flogged that man this morning; gave him three dozen, and 
 wound up with a short appropriate speech. We were all much pleased with 
 the captain's behaviour, as the first flogging is generally taken as a criterion of 
 his future conduct towards the ship's company, in the way of supporting his 
 officers." 
 
 None of the facts, and little of the sentiment, remain 
 at the present day, where the finding of a man drunk at 
 sea is almost impossible, and no trial of the public char- 
 acter of the captain, and his capacity of self-control, exists 
 under the rule of law which prescribes everything, and 
 hides punishment from sight. 
 
 Key's view of the blessing of work always seems to 
 have kept his spirits at high level — 
 
 "This has been a beautiful day," he writes on 31st of May. "If we 
 had not a foul wind I should enjoy it above all things. At 6 p.m. we turn 
 the hands up to dance and skylark, and the men on one side are dancing to 
 
78 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the bugle and fiddle ; on the other, they are playing at two or three different 
 games, all looking so happy ! On the quarter-deck the youngsters are skylarking 
 and racing up aloft." 
 
 On 6th June the ship anchored at Funchal, Madeira, 
 and Key, setting eyes for the first time on this soft and 
 languorous paradise, is in all ways enraptured with it, He 
 is particularly struck by the wealth and variety of the fruits 
 and flowers — 
 
 "Madeira is the only place in the world where you see such a variety of 
 fruits and flowers. I assure you there are fuchsia and geranium hedges ; and then, 
 you see the cherries, peaches, gooseberries, currants, etc., growing alongside of 
 the mango, shaddock, pine-apple, and all the West Indian fruits." 
 
 What used to strike me more and more on every visit 
 to Madeira was its soft stillness, so that the clattering of a 
 horse's hoofs on the pavement of the town was quite an 
 alarming sound. Key had his fill of the Madeira horses, 
 charging equally up or down hill, with their attendants 
 holding on to their tails. Nor does he forget to remark 
 that, in charging down hill, the approved plan is to fix your 
 cigar tight in your mouth and hope for the best with a 
 loose rein. 
 
 The Curacoa was at Santa Cruz on the i ith, and made 
 an effort to weigh the anchor on the 1 2th, with the intention 
 of putting to sea, but there was no ordinary power which 
 could move it. All blocks and tackles applied gave way 
 under the strain, and at half-past nine at night the task 
 was given up in despair. They guessed that they had 
 accidentally hooked an anchor and cable lost there by the 
 Winchester nine years earlier, and which it had been the 
 thankless task of many men-of-war subsequently to search 
 for without result. All the next day they were at it with 
 improved and strengthened purchases, and by the afternoon 
 had secured not only the lost Winchesters anchor of three 
 tons weight, with 150 fathoms of cable attached to it, but 
 another smaller anchor and cable, the whole weight being 
 over eight tons. 
 
 The contrast in our views of what constitutes swiftness 
 of movement at sea is brought out by a note of the 
 Curacoa' s passage to Rio Janeiro. Sailing from Santa Cruz 
 
THE CUR A CO A— 1 843-1 844 
 
 79 
 
 on 14th June, she arrived at Rio on 16th July. She never 
 on any occasion ran for an hour at a greater speed than 
 9.6 knots, and her greatest run in one day was 2 1 1 miles, 
 her average being less than 122 miles per day. And yet 
 the Curaqoa was a good sailer, and easily passed merchant 
 ships. But her officers thought she was " rattling away " 
 when she attained the speed of eight knots. 
 
 The Curaqoa was now on her station — the south-east 
 coast of America, the interest of which centred at this time 
 between possible captures of slavers to the northward and 
 possible wars with revolutionary parties in the river Plate. 
 But Sir Thomas Pasley being required to carry on the 
 senior officer's duties at Rio, the Curaqoa lay there for two 
 months and a half, which were comparatively uneventful. 
 
 Key had, however, one opportunity of snowing the stuff 
 he was made of, which he thus describes — 
 
 "The only other affair of any interest that has happened since is a very 
 narrow escape a boat's crew and myself had the day before yesterday. There 
 are two American frigates and a corvette here — the Brandywine, Columbia, and 
 Sf. Louis. Between the anchorage where we are and the town, there is what 
 they call a bar, running across. It is a sandbank, on which there is a tremendous 
 surf when there is any swell in the harbour after a gale of wind. For the last 
 week there has been a very heavy surf running on the bar, the heaviest the 
 Brazilians have ever seen since 1833. There is one place where it can be 
 crossed. Two days ago I was going on shore in one of the cutters, with the 
 chaplain and one or two of the midshipmen in the sternsheets, I being in com- 
 mand of the boat, of course. I steered straight for the passage (even there some 
 very heavy surfs broke occasionally), but as we were on the bar I saw a tremen- 
 dous roller coming up astern. I sang out, ' Give way for your lives, men ! ' 
 when the surf struck us on the stern, broke over us, unshipped the oars, and 
 hove one man overboard, clean out of the boat. The surf carried us on about 
 twenty fathoms, and left us up to our waists in water, and the unfortunate man 
 still struggling in the centre of the surf. We had lost four oars, but we got the 
 boat round to pull into the middle of the surf again for the man, and succeeded 
 in picking him up. In the meantime two American frigates' boats and one shore 
 boat were pulling past us towards the surf. In half a minute they were on the 
 bar, and a heavy roller was fast coming up with them. Fancy my horror at 
 seeing all three boats capsized and turned bottom up at the same time, there 
 being twenty human beings struggling for their lives in the middle of a most 
 tremendous surf, and apparently no chance of a boat being able to save them. 
 I of course pulled right in towards them, and succeeded in picking up all but 
 five. Only one of those five was drowned, and the others picked up by the 
 commander of one of our brigs anchored near, who shoved off just before the 
 boats were capsized. I took the men I had picked up on board the Brandywine, 
 the ship they belonged to, for which, of course, I received hearty thanks. The 
 
80 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 American commodore has twice sent to thank our captain for the assistance of 
 our boats in saving their men's lives. 
 
 "I mentioned that our chaplain, Jenkins, was in the cutter with me the other 
 day. He was very much frightened ; so much so that in the evening he broke 
 a blood-vessel, and is still lying in a very dangerous state. The doctor says it is 
 owing to the shock he received crossing the surf. Even if he recovers, he will 
 be sent home. Poor fellow ! we shall be sorry to lose him." 
 
 Key describes a soiree at the emperor's palace to 
 celebrate the birthday of his sister, to which he was invited, 
 and with the airy contempt for all that is not British which 
 possesses the young sailor, more perhaps than any class of 
 our island race, he " thinks it was worth going to, merely 
 to see how the goose of an emperor behaved himself." 
 " His sister," he continues, " the Princess Donna Januaria, 
 is a nice-looking girl about twenty. She was the only 
 decently - dressed woman in the room. . . . The lord- 
 chamberlain came to our skipper to say that the princess 
 wished to dance with him. Sir Thomas was by far the 
 handsomest and most gentlemanly-looking man in the 
 room." 
 
 Early in September Key witnessed a terrible sight in 
 the arrival of a slaver captured by Lieutenant Cumming 1 
 in one of the Frolics boats. In effecting the capture he 
 had shot the captain of the slaver, but had found himself 
 alone in boarding her, facing a large crew fully armed. 
 She only measured fifty-five tons, but had 338 slaves on 
 board when she arrived. 
 
 Of this occurrence Sir Thomas Pasley writes — 
 
 M I went this morning (September loth), the first thing after breakfast, to see 
 the negroes taken from the slaver and down to the Crescent (hulk), and in my 
 life I have never witnessed anything so shocking. About 450 were packed into 
 that small vessel, as you would pack bales of goods ; and disease of all sorts 
 became rife among them. One hundred had died before she was taken, and they 
 were, and are still (a month after), dying daily. Some were carried up the side in 
 a state of emaciation such as I would not have imagined possible to exist with 
 life ; others with raw sores, their bones all but through them, and some dreadful 
 cases of smallpox, covered from head to foot. These were all sent back to the 
 schooner, being contagious, none such being allowed in the Crescent. Some 
 children were in the last stage of emaciation and sores. It was dreadful ; and 
 so distressing, I could have cried. The patience, or rather the apathy, with 
 which it was all borne was astonishing. 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir Arthur Cumming, K.C.B. Died in 1893. 
 
THE CURAQOA— 1843-1844 81 
 
 " Happily for them, they have not the same feelings we have. They were fed 
 immediately they came on board, and soon recovered their spirits. Those who 
 were not ill were ready to sing and dance the next day. Some of the women 
 had infants ; but of the other children, whose ages were from five to nine, there 
 were no parents, or none to be discovered amongst the adults. After all these 
 miserable creatures were brought on board, several women came, tolerably well 
 dressed, and fat and sleek — to my great astonishment, till I was told that these 
 were the harem of the prize's crew, and were well fed and taken care of. Ill- 
 looking rascals these crew were, twenty-seven of them, mostly Portuguese. 
 They were all confined in the Crescent's prison by night, and left at large in the 
 day-time for the present. 
 
 " The officers and men of the Frolic were not a little to be pitied who had to 
 live on board such a disgusting vessel, first with the Africans and afterwards 
 when they were removed, for the shocking state of filth, and the stench, was not to 
 be endured, and yet, tracing the smallpox among them, I would not let them 
 communicate with this ship." 
 
 How far from our own time these events were, a little 
 note which Sir Thomas Pasley makes brings home to us. 
 The Fisguard and Cormorant had just arrived from England, 
 and at a drawing-room at the palace their officers arrived 
 in uniform with the present white facings, while all the 
 Curaqods officers were wearing red facings. Moreover, the 
 newly arrived lieutenants were wearing two epaulettes, 
 while Key and his brother-lieutenants were wearing one 
 only, on the right shoulder. 
 
 A sad loss fell upon the ship in the middle of 
 September, when the first-lieutenant, Denison, Key's old 
 and dear friend, was invalided for epilepsy, and had to be 
 sent home. All, and not least Sir Thomas Pasley him- 
 self, were in great grief over this loss. Sir Thomas had 
 the highest regard for him, and greatly feared that his loss 
 could not be supplied. 1 Lieutenant Knott, who had arrived 
 in the Cormorant, on his way to join the Dublin on the Pacific 
 station, was appointed to fill Denison's vacancy, and re- 
 mained first-lieutenant till Key left the Curaqoa. 
 
 The ship lay at Rio until 4th October, when she pro- 
 ceeded to Bahia. Key's somewhat uneventful life had 
 meantime been only broken by a few days' shooting trip 
 up the river, which he much enjoyed. 
 
 Bahia was reached on the 19th of October, and the 
 passage there had been enlivened by some racing with 
 
 1 Mr. Denison died a few months after leaving the Curacoa. 
 6 
 
82 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 H.M.S. Satellite. The trim of the Curacoa having been 
 altered by shifting the quarter-deck guns into the bow-ports, 
 and putting fourteen tons of water into the fore-hold, the 
 ship went faster than she had ever yet done — ten knots 
 with all the starboard studding sails set. 
 
 At Bahia, Key and three other officers made a three or 
 four days' snipe-shooting trip up the river. Key had never 
 shot snipe before, but there were plenty of them, and fair 
 bags were made. He expresses astonishment at finding 
 himself so good a snipe shot ; but it was part of his nature 
 to fit readily into whatever he took up, and, though never 
 what is properly called " a sportsman," he took very kindly 
 to any kind of sport that came in his way to the end of his 
 life. On this trip he was surprised and gratified to meet 
 great civility from the lower orders of the Brazilians. The 
 British were in exceedingly bad odour with the coast 
 population at this time on account of their operations 
 against the slave trade. It was not always safe for known 
 officers who had been active in their duty to be alone on 
 shore ; but probably the feeling — as in the case mentioned 
 by Key — did not penetrate much beyond the coast-line. 
 
 After a ten days' stay at Bahia the Curacoa passed on 
 to Pernambuco, arriving there on 6th November. Of the 
 short voyage, Key writes — 
 
 "Our passage up has been quite devoid of interest, — I mean in the way of 
 incident ; but for myself and my own feelings, I have derived great pleasure from 
 it, as I am in hopes that I have materially improved in the discipline of my 
 mind. For instance, I find that during the last two months I have read a great 
 deal more and more regularly than I ever was in the habit of doing before. 
 I find that I can fix my attention better on anything I am employed about. I 
 never, or seldom, find time hang heavy on my hands. When I have a spare five 
 minutes on my hands during the day, I generally have something ready for 
 employing it, and I never allow myself more than six hours in bed." 
 
 These words are an illustration of the inner seriousness, 
 so to call it, of Key's character. He possessed a theory of 
 life which it was his constant aim to act up to. In a good 
 deal of close intercourse with him in his later life, I have 
 only the recollection of one or two cases where he drew 
 the conversation to what we understand as the inner life, 
 but I always had the feeling about him that the inner 
 
THE CWe^CO^— 1843-1844 s 3 
 
 life was with him always in close contact with and govern- 
 ing the outer. 
 
 On the voyage out from England he described himself 
 as constantly reading a book which he calls Culture and 
 Direction of the Mind y and he had read it three times 
 through before the ship reached Rio. Now he was read- 
 ing— 
 
 "Plain Sermons, reading one nearly every morning before breakfast. 
 They are beautifully written, and I really do not think I could pick out any 
 twenty or thirty sermons so well suited to myself as the first volume of the 
 Plain Sermons." 
 
 Some power of will was clearly necessary to take up 
 these studies by a lieutenant who was on deck as officer 
 of the watch eight hours out of every twenty-four, and 
 carried out the gunnery duties, in themselves generally 
 considered a full day's work, at the same time. 
 
 But even these gunnery duties, when we get a glimpse 
 of their actual character, throw us back in time as every- 
 thing else does — 
 
 " The second day after our arrival," writes Key, " I asked the captain to let 
 me exercise the men firing at a target, — there is a very heavy swell here, and as 
 the ship rolls, it is very different practice from that in the Excellent. We com- 
 menced in the forenoon. I laid out the target myself, that is, anchored a 
 cask at a distance of 500 yards from the ship, by taking the angle subtended by 
 the ship's mast. The firing was excellent ; we were obliged to send out four 
 new targets during the forenoon. But what pleased me most was that the 
 Excellent men we have on board were the four best shots in the ship. I may 
 say, I had a good laugh at the fellows who run them down." 
 
 The old-world air about all this lies chiefly in the three 
 points — that the Curacoa had now been more than eight 
 months in commission, and yet this was the first time she 
 had had any target practice; secondly, that the practice 
 should have been carried out at anchor ; and thirdly, that 
 the target should have been placed only 500 yards off. 
 It is all of an age one hundred and fifty years ago almost, 
 and the only thing which perhaps survives is the jealousy 
 of the Excellent, It has been traditional with those who 
 were not of the gunnery school to cast scorn on that 
 innovation, and perhaps the novelty has not yet wholly 
 established itself in the conservative naval mind. 
 
84 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 The old world was likewise governing the mails at 
 this time. Key only got on the 1 2th November answers 
 to letters written from Rio in the middle of July, and his 
 letter in return, despatched on the first-mentioned date, — 
 written on letter - paper and sealed as before the days 
 of envelopes, — did not reach his home till the 31st 
 December. 
 
 Some cloud had ruffled the smooth surface of Key's 
 love for his family at this time. He accuses himself of 
 writing a " hasty " letter from Rio, and of indulging his 
 " hasty temper " when at home. He declares that when 
 at home he is seen " in a false position," and " not in his 
 element." The words read strangely to those who, like 
 myself, must regard Key as having been a marvel of good 
 temper, as even lacking that " spice of the devil " which 
 has scarcely ever been absent from the lives of those who 
 have left a mark behind them. I should suppose that, in 
 the remarkable warmth of his love for those he had left 
 at home, acts and words seemed unkind which did not 
 really bear that stigma. 
 
 The Curagoa was back at Bahia again on the 18th 
 of November, and put to sea for the southward on the 
 30th. 
 
 Key had had an idea that the ship might be ordered 
 on to the Pacific station, and appears to have been 
 somewhat weary of South America as far as he had 
 seen it, with no sort of prescience of what South America 
 was presently to do for him. The climate and even the 
 temperatures of Bahia and Pernambuco merited his praise ; 
 they were, for the tropics, delightfully cool and fresh, and 
 held to be very healthy indeed — 
 
 " I think I never met," he says, "within the tropics or without, a more beauti- 
 ful and apparently healthy climate than that of Bahia and Pernambuco. Here 
 we are within a month of the middle of summer, with the thermometer never 
 higher than 83 in the shade. And situated within 13 of the line ! The 
 air is beautifully cool, and about 10 a.m. we invariably have a delicious sea 
 breeze." 
 
 This was one side of it, but there was another — 
 
 "Everybody says we are booked for the Brazils for four years. Is it not 
 
THE CURACOA— 1843-1844 85 
 
 dreadful ? You must find my letters very uninteresting, I am sure. But if you 
 knew what stupid towns and people the Brazilians are, you would not expect 
 any interesting description of them. They have one redeeming point, which is, 
 that they all agree in cordially hating the English." 
 
 A hint of one of the sides of Key's mind, which is 
 presently to show itself in important practical work, and 
 which has been several times noticed in these pages, is 
 a lament which he utters about this time over the non- 
 arrival of the numbers of the Civil Engineers' and Architects' 
 Journal. But he was in some way consoled by a long 
 and affectionate letter from his old friend Holland, who 
 had happily married, and described the tours abroad and 
 at home which he had had with his bride. 
 
 Back at Rio again by 6th December, Key writes — 
 
 11 The packet does not sail for some days, but this morning the captain came on 
 board and told us to keep ourselves in readiness for sea, as there is a brig up the 
 harbour with a large quantity of doubloons on board, and fitted with a slave deck 
 and all the forbidden articles required for the slave trade. She is expected to 
 sail this afternoon or to-morrow morning, and therefore, as we may be in chase 
 of her some time, and the packet may sail before we return, I think I had 
 better send this at once. We anchored here on the 6th, just at the commence- 
 ment of a heavy south-west gale, which lasted about twelve hours. . . . 
 
 " Everything here is as slow and dull as usual, that is to say, on shore. The 
 commodore 1 is still in the river Plate ; they say there is to be a grand action 
 between the Buenos Ayreans and the Monte Videans ; a great number of French- 
 men have taken up arms in favour of the latter. The commodore remains there 
 till something is settled between them, to protect our merchants, and then comes 
 to Rio, and will send us to Monte Video. 
 
 11 The climate of this country is superb. The warm weather is fast setting in, 
 but as yet it is as cool as we could wish. One of our messmates, poor fellow, 
 has not found this place so healthy. Baker, our marine officer, is on his death- 
 bed in a consumption; he cannot live long. We sent him on shore this 
 morning to sick-quarters. 2 
 
 " I forget now whether I told you of Arthur Cumming, one of the lieutenants 
 of Frolic, who brought a slaver in here. The slaves had the smallpox in the 
 same manner as in the one I was in in the West Indies. Poor Arthur, after he 
 had rejoined his brig a few days, was attacked with smallpox and sent home. 
 He is as fine a fellow as there is in the service. He is the mate who led the 
 Turks over a bridge at Sidon the other day. I think I told you about it,— as 
 gallant an affair as has been done for some time. 
 
 "The great advantage of lying at Rio is that ships either going out to or 
 coming from 'round the Horn,' the Cape, East Indies, or China stations, 
 invariably touch here ; and we are sure to find some old messmate on board. 
 
 J. B. Purvis, a captain of 1809. Died a vice-admiral in 1857. 
 He died soon after being landed.. 
 
86 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 The Pilot is now here on her way to China, and Oliver Jones is first of her. 1 
 You have heard me mention his name, I think ; he gained the first commission 
 at the College. . . . 
 
 11 If we take this slaver we are going out in chase of, I shall have to take her 
 either to the Cape or Barbados, where she will be condemned. I shall not 
 mind that in an empty slaver ; the only bore is how to join one's ship again after 
 she is condemned. I am longing so for the December packet to arrive, to bring 
 news of Denison's arrival and complete restoration to health. Sir Thomas 
 Pasley and myself are continually talking about him ; he is very fond of 
 him. . . . 
 
 "We have been in daily expectation of getting under way in chase of the 
 slaver I mentioned ; and now we sail on Tuesday to convoy a merchant barque 
 that has been chartered to take 300 liberated slaves to Demerara. I am not sorry 
 to leave Rio, as the heat in January and February in this harbour is, they say, 
 insupportable. . . . 
 
 "lam beginning to like this place a little better than I did. The Minister- 
 plenipo' is a most gentlemanly man. Carmichael a and myself are very intimate 
 with him. He is a Mr. Hamilton ; there is but one person between him and the 
 Dukedom of Hamilton. I am also domesticated with the Danish minister and 
 family, i.e. I walk in and ! take tea' when I please." 
 
 As noted in the foregoing letter, the Curacoa sailed in 
 company with the hired transport Lancashire Witch on the 
 27th of December, and did not return till the 12th of 
 January 1844 — 
 
 " On our arrival," Key writes, " we heard that Captain Willis 8 of Frolic, and 
 one of his officers, had been attacked on shore at Santos Bay (a celebrated slave 
 port about 200 miles south-west of Rio), and were lying in a dangerous state on 
 board. The surgeon of Frolic would not allow them to proceed to sea, and as 
 they were short of provisions we sailed for Santos to supply her. On our arrival 
 there we found that what we had heard was too true. The facts are these. The 
 Frolic has been stationed off Santos for some time to aid in the suppression of 
 the slave trade, and had annoyed the Brazilians very much by the captures they 
 had made, and also by their having blockaded for three weeks two slave brigs 
 in the port of Santos. One afternoon Captain Willis, his master (May), and the 
 captain's steward, landed to walk to the town, the nearest way to which was by 
 a narrow lane about three miles in length. It being broad daylight, they 
 probably went on shore without their swords ; and although May had a brace of 
 pistols in his pocket, he did not load them. On their return, a little after 
 sunset, the commander and May were walking together, and the steward a little 
 behind them, when they heard the steward call out. They ran towards him, and 
 just had time to see that there were seven Brazilians, armed with bludgeons, 
 
 1 "First" is first-lieutenant. Oliver Jones became a captain in 1855. He 
 retired in 1871, and died a rear-admiral in 1877. 
 
 2 Lieut. Thomas Carmichael of the Curacoa. 
 
 3 Captain Willis never got over his injuries. He was granted a pension for 
 his wounds in 1848, became a captain of Greenwich Hospital in 1856, and died 
 in 1863. 
 
THE CURAQOA— 1843-1844 87 
 
 when they were knocked down, and remembered nothing further. These 
 ruffians had beaten them most unmercifully, thrown them into a ditch, and left 
 them for dead. A Brazilian gentleman passed by about an hour after, picked 
 them up, and with the assistance of some others sent them on board. Captain 
 Willis has his skull fractured, his head severely cut in two places, his arm and 
 two fingers badly broken. May escaped much better, having sustained no 
 serious injury beyond a broken head, and most awfully bruised all over. The 
 steward had his thigh broken and some other minor injuries. 
 
 "We immediately sent on shore to the police to make them find out the 
 offenders, and they have seven men in custody, but only one of them can be 
 sworn to ; they are the crew of one of the brigs in Santos." 
 
 It has been seen all through this narrative that Key's 
 nature, or motive in life, second to that of the desire of 
 filling absolutely whatever post he occupied, was to be 
 abreast of the times. He seems always to have been struck 
 more by what was coming than by what was past, and now 
 for months he had been brooding over a decision which was 
 in entire accordance with the spirit that was in him, and 
 which was at the same time to form a landmark in the 
 plain of his life. 
 
 He foresaw that steam was coming to sweep away the 
 old navy, and that it behoved him, if he were to take the 
 place his ambition pointed at, he must ally himself with 
 steam at the earliest possible moment. I will let him tell 
 his own story, which he does in the letter last quoted, and 
 which was written from Rio on 26th January 1844 — 
 
 " After much consideration and mature deliberation I have come to the deter- 
 mination that the only way to get on in the service by one's own exertions, in 
 these times of peace, is to join a steamer and to follow it up. About two months 
 ago I came to this conclusion, and immediately acted upon it by going to Sir 
 Thomas Pasley, explaining all my reasons, and requesting him to assist me in 
 exchanging with Lord A. Beauclerk of the Gorgon, as I had heard of a little 
 misunderstanding between his lordship and Captain Hotham. I talked Sir 
 Thomas over, and he entered into my views completely, although in a manner 
 very flattering to me, and said he would write to the commodore about it (the 
 Gorgon is stationed in the river Plate). I the same evening wrote to Lord 
 Amelius, and three days ago, on our arrival from Santos, we found answers, 
 accompanied by the captain's orders to proceed immediately to the river Plate. 
 It is all settled excepting the official order from the commodore, which I shall 
 receive on our arrival. During these two months of preliminary arrangements, 
 no one in the ship, with the exception of the captain and Carmichael, have known 
 a word about it. I did not write to you till it was all settled, as it would have 
 been useless had anything prevented the exchange, but till you hear of my being 
 actually on board, will you direct to Cura^oa? I dread the idea of leaving this 
 ship ; she is so comfortable, we all act so well together, and the captain is so 
 
88 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 superior a man. In fact, on board this ship there is not a single thing I should 
 wish altered. I am going into the strictest vessel on the station, and where I do 
 not know one of my messmates. I have for once chosen for myself ; I trust it 
 may be for the best." 
 
 On all grounds Key's decision was a remarkable one 
 for a young man to make. At this time, and for many 
 years afterwards, current opinion in the messes thoroughly 
 despised the growing propulsive power. " Steamer's mid- 
 shipman," " steamer's lieutenant," were terms of opprobrium 
 in the rising generation, and even the captains and com- 
 manders who commanded steamers were regarded as a 
 lower grade of officer, lost to the traditions of the service, 
 and out of the running in the matter of distinguishment. 
 It needed no common discrimination in so young a man 
 to see that he who wished to reach the head of the pro- 
 fession ought to attach himself to the newest element in it ; 
 and no common resolution to part with present comfort, 
 and to break with all pleasant associations, in acting on the 
 judgment formed. 
 
 Generally speaking, it is accepted as an axiom in the 
 navy, that as no one knows what a day may bring forth in 
 the way of opportunity for distinction, it is better to trust 
 to fate than to select posts which probably may, but 
 possibly may not, afford the desired openings, unless the 
 ground is pretty secure. Key, in electing to change from 
 the sailing frigate to the steam " vessel," was acting on 
 general principles, and could reap no immediate advantage 
 unless it arose -from the condition that he would pass from 
 being junior lieutenant of the sailing ship to second- 
 lieutenant of the steamer. 
 
 But the mark the young officer had already made, and 
 the esteem in which he was held, whether personally or by 
 reputation, is strongly brought out in the contemporary 
 opinion of the captain whose ship he was leaving, as well 
 as of his to whose ship he was going. 
 
 Sir Thomas Pasley writes in his journal, under date 
 14th February 1844 — 
 
 " I quite omitted to mention on Monday last that Mr. Key left the ship, and 
 Lord Amelius Beauclerk joined from Gorgon, they having exchanged. A greater 
 
THE CURACOA— 1843-1844 89 
 
 loss to me than Key is could not have happened in the ship, and I believe the 
 feeling is general among officers and men." 
 
 And here I trust I may be pardoned for intruding a 
 reflection in memory of a chief who was very dear to me 
 when I served under him, and who, during his whole career 
 in the navy, attracted the regard and respect of all who 
 came in contact with him. It was only like Sir Thomas 
 Pasley that he should have fallen so readily into promoting 
 what he hoped might be the advancement of one of his 
 officers, and putting himself and his own convenience and 
 satisfaction so entirely on one side. It is, every captain 
 of a man-of-war must know from experience, no common 
 wrench to lose an officer who is not only a persona grata 
 to himself, but on whom must hang to a great extent the 
 comfort and order of the ship, and therefore the captain's 
 reputation. Nine men out of ten in Sir Thomas Pasley's 
 place would have dissuaded his officer from taking the step 
 Key proposed to himself. He could easily have done it 
 without disclosing the motive. Many men might have 
 experienced a sense of bitterness against an officer parting 
 from him under such conditions. But neither on the side 
 of the captain nor of the lieutenant did this kind of feel- 
 ing exist. A word would have held Key in the Cura^oa, 
 but the word was never uttered, — never perhaps contem- 
 plated, — and the warm friendship founded in the Curagoa 
 between Pasley and Key was cemented years after when I 
 became closely connected with both of them . together, and 
 it remained untouched as long as they both lived. 
 
 Captain Hotham of the Gorgon writes to Key, under 
 date 1st January 1844 — 
 
 " Our interview at Portsmouth was to me so satisfactory that I rejoice I am 
 likely to benefit by your services as lieutenant of the Gorgon. I would have 
 proposed the subject to you before had not a sense of right and wrong towards 
 Sir Thomas Pasley restrained me. As it is, I can only express a hope that future 
 experience may not induce you to lament the exchange." 
 
 The reputation which Key had already gained was 
 indeed extraordinary for a lieutenant of only a year's 
 standing ; and though his change into the Gorgon was to 
 culminate in much higher reputation and very early pro- 
 
90 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 motion, owing to special circumstances, it is impossible to 
 doubt that the mark of distinction was already borne by 
 the young officer, and would in any case have shown itself 
 in early advancement. 
 
 The Curaqoa reached Monte Video on the 4th of 
 February 1 844, and the exchange was effected between 
 the lieutenants of the Cura$oa and Gorgon a week later. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GORGON — 1844-1845 
 
 THE ship on board of which Key now found himself 
 was of a late type. In the Navy List she was 
 entered as a 6-gun " steam vessel," but was more 
 commonly called a "steam frigate," though lacking the 
 chief characteristic of a frigate, in having no gun-deck below 
 the upper-deck. All her guns were on the upper-deck, 
 and arranged chiefly on what were called "traversing 
 carriages " about the bow and stern. She had been built 
 at Woolwich in the year 1837, and measured 1108 tons, 
 which would give a displacement, as now calculated, of 
 about 1 6 1 3 tons. She was driven by common paddle- 
 wheels ; but as the screw had not yet made its appear- 
 ance in 1843, there was no need to specify, as was done 
 later, the nature of the mode of propulsion. Her nominal 
 horse-power was 320, probably about 800 indicated horse- 
 power as now calculated. She had the peculiarity of copper 
 boilers, but her speed was only quoted at eight and a half 
 knots. 
 
 The Gorgon had been commissioned in December 1842 
 by her present captain, Charles Hotham. 1 Her first duty 
 had been to carry out Mr. Wilson, Charge d'Afifaires, to 
 Venezuela, and she had landed him there on 1st April 
 
 1 Captain Charles Hotham. He was made a K.C.B. for his services in the 
 river Plate ; became commodore on the West Coast of Africa, and in 1854 was 
 appointed Governor of Victoria in Australia. He died at Melbourne in 1855. 
 
 Her other officers were, at the beginning of 1844— Lieutenants, A. J. Wood- 
 ley and W. Horton, and then R. E. Smith ; first-lieutenant of marines, Jos. E. 
 W. Lawrence ; master, H. Baker (acting) ; purser, Wm. Young ; surgeon, Peter 
 Niddrie, M.D. ; second master, Thos. Arundel. The present Admiral Sir 
 Leopold M'Clintock was a mate on board at the same time. 
 
 91 
 
92 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 1843. She had then passed down the South American 
 coast, touching at various ports on the way. She had 
 been in the river Plate, and chiefly at Monte Video, since 
 the 1 8th of June 1843. 
 
 For years there had been rivalry and turmoil between 
 the inhabitants of the right and left banks of the river 
 Plate, necessitating the constant presence of the warships 
 of different nations to protect the interests of their subjects. 
 It was this duty which had kept the Gorgon so long in the 
 river, and had brought the Curaqoa to join her. Commo- 
 dore Purvis, in the Alfred, was now in command of the 
 British ships, and there were also French and American 
 war vessels present. 
 
 Key's first letter from the Gorgon gives not only an 
 account of his own situation as it appeared to him, but 
 a very concise account of the political condition of the 
 Argentine territories — 
 
 " In a few days after we anchored I had the commodore's official approval of 
 our exchange, and, the day following, his lordship's cabin and my own exchanged 
 owners ; and here I am. Although for the first few days I was miserable at 
 leaving my old messmates and captain, and that not merely on account of the 
 change, but because I could see at a glance that those on board the Gorgon are 
 decidedly inferior, yet I never for a moment have repented of the step I have 
 taken. In fact, I assure you that I am most ambitious to rise in my profession, 
 and am ready to make any sacrifice to gain advancement in the service. ... I 
 am anxious to hear [Denison's] opinion of my exchange, as well as yours and 
 my father's. I mention Denison first, as of course he will understand the cir- 
 cumstance more clearly than you will on first hearing of it. At the same time, I 
 think that you must see the advantage of it. A few years ago I should never 
 have thought of leaving a man like Sir Thomas Pasley, but I think I have now 
 arrived at an age so as to be in a manner independent of any captain, and ought 
 not to allow my ideas of comfort to interfere with what I consider a step towards 
 my advancement in the service. You may imagine that I appear to dwell too 
 much on such a trifling subject as a change of ship ; but in my case I consider 
 it of great importance, as I have almost made it a change oj profession , intending 
 for the future to devote myself exclusively, or nearly so, to steam navigation. 
 
 " And now I suppose I must tell you something concerning the Monte Videan 
 war. The origin of it is this : — Owing to the difficulty of the navigation of the 
 river Plate, and Monte Video being situate 180 miles lower down than Buenos 
 Ayres, 1 the former, although not so powerful a republic as the latter, has mono- 
 polised a large proportion of the trade of the river. Rosas, the President of 
 
 1 This is not quite correct. Monte Video is about 1 10 miles only from Buenos 
 Ayres. 
 
THE GORGON— 1844-1845 93 
 
 Buenos Ayres, has been on the lookout for an excuse to declare war with Monte 
 Video, and about two years ago, during the French blockade of Buenos Ayres, 
 the Monte Videans foolishly assisted the French fleet. About this time Oribe 
 was President of Monte Video, having been elected for the usual term of five 
 years. Shortly after his election he found that a very strong party had risen 
 against him, and would most likely turn him out ; he therefore resigned. After 
 his resignation he went to Rosas, stating his grievances, and the latter, glad of 
 having a general like Oribe to assist him, after a short time gave him command 
 of the whole Buenos Ayrean army. Oribe, after marching down the northern 
 bank of the river, committing the most unheard-of atrocities, on the 16th of 
 February encamped under the walls of Monte Video. The Buenos Ayrean fleet 
 are cruising at the mouth of the river, and have established a blockade, which 
 we (the European powers) have recognised. 
 
 "Riviera was the man elected President in the room of Oribe, and he is 
 general-in-chief of the ' Colorados,' or ' reds,' so called to distinguish them from 
 Oribe's party, the ■ Blancillos,' 1 or 'whites.' Since the siege of Monte Video 
 commenced, Riviera has been in the country in command of the cavalry (about 
 2000), harassing the rear of Oribe's army and collecting forces, horses, bullocks, 
 etc., to relieve the town. During the whole year he has never been able to 
 approach the town till the night before last (18th February 1844), when he sent 
 in a force of 1000 horse, driving in 300 bullocks, and each man bringing in a led 
 horse. We saw them force their way through Oribe's outposts, and establish 
 themselves in the mount. General Passe commands the infantry inside the walls, 
 which, including about 3000 French and Italian volunteers, amounts to nearly 
 8000. This relief of Riviera's in the shape of bullocks has arrived most oppor- 
 tunely, as they were beginning to be nearly starved in the town. We can see a 
 guerilla, or skirmish, from the ships every morning and evening, when each party 
 relieves their outposts. Yesterday we expected a grand action, as we saw 
 Generals Silva and Flores (Colorados), in command of the cavalry, form their 
 troops and march towards Oribe's camp, but they retired after a smart skirmish. 
 Of course we are divided in our opinions on board, some being Colorados and 
 some Blancillos. I am the former. 
 
 "I admire Captain Hotham more every day: he is a reserved man, but a 
 first-rate officer, and in every sense of the word a gentleman. His reception of 
 me was most kind, leading me to believe, both by his words and manner, that I 
 was actually doing him the favour of joining his ship. I assure you he told me 
 as much. 
 
 "Captain Hotham is not a scientific man, but is decidedly a clever man, a 
 good linguist, very well informed in history and politics, and I imagine for a 
 naval man a good diplomatist. 
 
 " We are very anxious for the termination of this war, as of course we can 
 buy nothing here, and are obliged to send to Rio for stock at a great expense. 
 We consider ourselves very fortunate in being able to get our clothes washed at 
 seven shillings a dozen. 
 
 " I intend writing to Denison by this packet, and I shall ask him to explain 
 to Mr. Hay 2 my reasons for leaving Curafoa, so as to do away with any odium 
 
 1 Also called, perhaps more generally, " Blancos." 
 
 2 Denison died before he could have received Key's letter. Mr. Hay was 
 probably Mr. J. H. Hay, a senior clerk at the Admiralty. 
 
94 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 that may be attached to me for exchanging, as I know it is a step never admired 
 at the Admiralty, but I fancy Sir Thomas Pasley will take care that I am not 
 hurt in their opinion. 
 
 " Februaiy 2Qtk. — Bad news for the Colorados. Last night Riviera was 
 sending uoo bullocks for the relief of the town, when they were surprised by the 
 Blancillos and lost iooo of them. They have several English colonels on both 
 sides. On the Colorados' there is a man called ' Cockney Sam,' who began life 
 as a London waterman. He rose from that to be captain of the forecastle on 
 board a man-of-war, and here he is, general of division and a first-rate soldier, 
 going by the name of ' General Sammes. ' Some of the Gorgons the other day 
 went to see him, and in course of conversation expressed a wish to see some 
 fighting. ' Fighting,' said he ; 'if you will wait five minutes, I'll get you up a 
 guerilla.' He turned out his troops, and sallied out ; they accompanied him to a 
 retired spot, saw half-an-hour's good sport and then returned, well satisfied with 
 Cockney Sam's display. No one is allowed to talk about the war till they have 
 walked out to the outposts and been shot at — a pleasure I experienced the 
 other day." 
 
 Key's personal situation, as well as the general and 
 political one, are again well described in his next letter, 
 dated 25 th March 1844 — 
 
 "By the last packet I received your parcel of presents, and by a strange 
 coincidence the drawing utensils arrived most opportunely. Captain Hotham, 
 who is really quite an artist, has been talking to me very often about drawing 
 lately, and I mentioned my intention of commencing it in earnest ; he was 
 delighted to hear it, and has offered to give me lessons in sketching, etc. ; he has 
 a most beautiful collection of his own drawings, all from nature. His master 
 was a person of the name of Devint, or some name like that ; he also knows 
 Prout * very well. I am giving him instruction in algebra, etc. 
 
 "There is nothing of any interest stirring now; we in the river Plate are 
 quite out of the world, and hear nothing except about our own private war. 
 Since I last wrote, a new French admiral 2 has arrived, and you remember I told 
 you that a great number of Frenchmen had taken up arms inside the town. The 
 old admiral had called on them twice to lay down their arms, and they had 
 refused. The Blancillos were very anxious for the arrival of the new admiral, 
 as they said he intended to enforce his order, and if so the town must fall. On 
 his arrival he published a proclamation calling on them to lay down their arms. 
 They were all assembled, in number about 3000, in the great Plaza de Consti- 
 tucion, and a copy of the proclamation was given to the captain of each company, 
 who read it aloud ; the whole of them were then received before Pachecho, the 
 Minister of War, who made a speech to them, and then asked for their answer. 
 They ' Viva'd ' in glorious style, and not one, of course, laid down his arms. 
 The French admiral has taken no notice of it. 
 
 1 Prout, the artist, had been a patient of Dr. Key, and became a friend of the 
 family, Mrs. Key being herself a good painter. Dr. Key having, according to 
 his custom in such cases, refused a fee, Mr. Prout begged his acceptance of three 
 water colours which hung on the walls of Key's home. 
 
 - Rear-Admiral Laine. 
 
THE G0/?GCW— 1844-1845 95 
 
 " Two days ago I went over to a mount called El Cervo, as I had seen a large 
 body of cavalry march out, and expected an action when I went over. I went 
 first to the Colorado army and found that they did not intend to engage the 
 whole of them, but were merely going to manoeuvre to alarm the enemy. On 
 our side there were about 2000, and on the Blancillo about 2500. After per- 
 forming a good many cavalry evolutions, the Blancos detached a party of 
 skirmishers to annoy them, which they did by extending themselves along the 
 opposite bank of a stream that ran between them, with about twelve yards 
 between each man, and commenced firing at the troops. The Colorados sent 
 about 300 men to drive them back, which they did in good style. There were 
 only about three or four killed and wounded on each side, but from my situation 
 the sight of the hostile bodies of troops manoeuvring was very interesting. They 
 continued skirmishing, etc., for about four hours, when they eventually retired— 
 to dinner, I suppose. 
 
 "The general of the Colorados had seen us standing there (the master of 
 Gorgon l was with me), and he sent us an aide-de-camp to ask us to dine with him, 
 but we were just going on board, and therefore declined. 
 
 " The climate of this place is very fine, although the weather is changeable,— 
 sudden gales of wind are very common, and also very heavy thunderstorms, — but 
 the temperature is exactly what I like, for I find, however much I may enjoy a 
 tropical climate, that it invariably weakens me, and makes me more subject to 
 headache. It is astonishing how much stronger I feel since I have been here, 
 and not only stronger in body but more able to read and employ myself, which, 
 I can assure you, it is very difficult to do in a tropical climate. . . . 
 
 " I shall only be away three years from the time the Curacoa was commis- 
 sioned, and more than one of those have already gone. In fact, I can nearly say 
 with certainty that I shall be in England by February or March 1846, therefore 
 by the time you receive this, nearly half my time will be up. They never keep 
 steamers in commission more than three years. 
 
 " I am now going to lose the Curacoa ; she sails to-morrow for Rio. 2 She 
 will be a great loss to me, as I have vet}' excellent friends in Sir Thomas Pasley, 
 Carmichael, and Noddal. The only person I have on board Gorgon to replace 
 them is Captain Hotham. 
 
 " Every day, my dear mother, shows me that I am what people would generally 
 call very fortunate wherever I go. That is to say, I am peculiarly favoured by Pro- 
 vidence under all circumstances. You remember Captain Napier asking me if he 
 should give me a letter from Sir Thomas Bouchier 8 to Commodore Purvis ; I accepted 
 it, thinking at the same time that it would be useless, and in fact I probably, on 
 arriving here, would not deliver it. One day, after I had joined the Gorgon, 
 Carmichael said to me, * You lucky dog, Key ! we hear the commodore is 
 going to make you flag-lieutenant, 4 and going to give you the first acting vacancy 
 on the station, and all sorts of things.' I thought he was joking, but at the 
 same time ' I kept it dark,' and went on shore to call on the commodore. To 
 my surprise, both he and Mrs. Purvis were very warm in their reception of me 
 (it appears that Sir Thomas Bouchier had written to the commodore himself), 
 who told me that he was under greater obligations to Sir Thomas than to anyone 
 
 1 H. Baker. 2 The Curacoa returned on 2nd June. 
 
 3 Sir Thomas Bouchier was a captain of 1827, and K.C.B. 
 
 4 i.e. aide-de-camp. 
 
96 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 else in the world, and therefore, he said, ' although you know that I have no 
 decided patronage, yet who knows what may turn up ! and as I have no followers, 
 I promise you anything I may have in my power to give you.' Was not this 
 unexpected ? To add to this, the commodore, a few days afterwards, went on 
 board the Curacoa to inspect her, and of course they went to quarters to exercise 
 the guns ; he kept them at it for two hours, and, when the guns were secured, 
 said to Sir Thomas Pasley and the officers : \ Sir Thomas, I have never during my 
 whole period of service seen a ship in such perfect order at her guns as the 
 Curacoa, or altogether such a picture of a man-of-war ; may I be introduced to 
 the gunnery officer ? ' 
 
 ** * It is Mr. Key,' said Sir Thomas, \ who is now on board the Gorgon.' 
 
 " • Oh, indeed ! ' said the commodore ; ' I know him very well.' 
 
 " The next day I dined with him, and you may imagine I was rather pleased. 
 You see that I am ' all right ' there. 
 
 " I am anxious to hear your opinion of my change of ship ; it is strange that I 
 have tumbled on board the Gorgon, after all. Do you remember the evening 
 I came up to Sir William Gage 1 about her ? And all the while I was thinking 
 of the cab standing at the door with my portmanteau, and I did not know his 
 number ! 
 
 " Being in a steamer has given me a much greater interest in the service than 
 I had before, from having, I suppose, an object in view to which I feel myself 
 suited. 
 
 "You know that it is no expense sending parcels out to me, and I believe 
 Gillott 2 always has it in his power to send them, therefore I have less hesitation 
 in asking you to send (if there is an opportunity), first, a French grammar and 
 some old French books ; . . . secondly, to ask Smith & Elder to get for me 
 Appendix C to Tredgold's new edition of The Steam Engine, with the plates — 
 from John Wade Weale, 59 High Holborn. From the same person, Results of 
 Experiments on the Disturbance of the Compass in Iron-built Ships, by Airey ; 
 and Captain Hotham says I ought to have some better paint-brushes, rather large 
 ones. . . . Will you add to the list two little books to give to Majendie and 
 Wortley? 3 I think I should like the Christian Year Tor Wortley, and I cannot 
 spare mine. If there is a small edition of Paley's Evidences of Christianity, I 
 should like to give it to Majendie. 
 
 "We have heard this morning that the French admiral intends to force the 
 Frenchmen in the town to lay down their arms ; if so, the town will be obliged 
 to surrender, and the war will be over ; but we expect that they will not lay 
 down their arms so easily, in which case the French admiral will have to land all 
 his men and make them. 
 
 "You will find now that as I am writing from the river Plate, although it is 
 only 1 100 miles from Rio, this letter will be nearly three months before it 
 reaches you, and of course yours are the same time before I receive them." 
 
 Key's ruling passions, if they can be called so, come 
 
 1 Vice- Admiral of the Red, Sir William Hall Gage was Second Sea Lord of the 
 Admiralty, and in charge of the lieutenants. 
 
 2 Gillott & Co. were then the principal naval outfitters in London. 
 
 ' Appear to have been midshipmen of the Gorgon. Majendie died a retired 
 captain in 1873. 
 
THE GW?£CW— 1844-1845 97 
 
 out as markedly in the latter part of this letter as we have 
 seen them all along. He is still so fond of Paley as to wish 
 his friend to be fond of it also. His companionship with the 
 Christian Year is too strong to be broken even for a friend, 
 and the latest books on the sciences which have a practical 
 relation to his life are the subjects of his study. I am sure 
 that readers of this chapter must agree with me that it 
 gives a picture of a remarkably complete character, without 
 any consciousness of completeness which could have ob- 
 truded itself upon those with whom he was in hourly contact. 
 I will at this point resume what Professor Burrows has 
 so kindly written for me, as we get an outside view of 
 Key's life at this time, which we have viewed till now from 
 the inside — 
 
 "Fortunately," writes Professor Burrows, "as to this period, I possess a 
 letter from Leopold M'Clintock, from which I am allowed by the writer to 
 extract what bears on our subject. This fine officer, who was so soon to become 
 celebrated in a line distinct from that followed by either Key or myself, has not 
 hitherto been mentioned, because, though he formed one in the little group of 
 those who entered and left the College at the same time, he was satisfied with a 
 less extended course of mathematics, and did not appear in the lists against us in 
 the final tournament. He, again, was very like a third brother ; finding himself 
 at home at my father's house, and keeping up a friendship which still lasts. He 
 had to endure, on going to sea, the trying position of a mate (which was not bad 
 discipline, but felt all the more keenly after the College life) somewhat longer 
 than myself; for the Admiralty, who had been much pressed by Sir Thomas 
 Hastings and other officers to make a double promotion in my favour, acceded 
 to the request very soon afterwards, and sent my Commission on to the Cape 
 station. Key and M'Clintock found themselves on the South American station, 
 on board the same ship, H.M.S. Gorgon, within about a year of their separation 
 at Portsmouth ; and the latter writes thus : — 
 
 " ' Key is now, as he was last half-year' [at College], and * spoons with hairy 
 integrals' [the College slang, derived, I believe, from Cambridge], when, 
 according to all rules of common-sense, I think he should put away all such 
 absurd stuff as vexatious, and tending to mystify the brain. He is much more 
 the man than he used to be, and not so careless. He is quite a ship-keeper, 
 and, I think, is very comfortable in this ship. We both like Captain Hotham, 
 and both are picking up Spanish. 'Key reads De Tambour and Tredgold daily 
 [two authors on steam, of note in those days], and / read something more enter- 
 taining — histories, travels, periodicals ; and I am going to read Alison's History 
 of Europe as soon as it arrives from Rio. Key has turned his whole attention to 
 steam [for which our mathematics scarcely left us any time at College], and 
 perseveres in his studies with a steadiness and application which really surprised 
 me and seemed unaccountable. He often works more in the twenty-four hours 
 than he even did latterly at College,— the lieutenants keep the night watches 
 only, and Key reads all his middle watches,— and till he explained to me, one 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 first watch, how his position and prospects acted as a most powerful stimulant to 
 his exertions, I could not imagine why he worked away at such high pressure. . . . 
 The more I see and know Key the more I esteem and admire him, and I hope 
 sincerely he may enjoy all the happiness which he anticipates. [This, I imagine, 
 is a hint, left unexplained, of some one of the numerous romances in which young 
 lieutenants were engaged in our time, and I daresay are still ; but Key was "nearly 
 the most susceptible of men. ] ... I do not undertake to tell you all the news, — 
 that I have left Key to do, — but have just written to show you that I do not wish 
 to be quite forgotten. Key ought to be well up in the politics of this wretched 
 country, as he knows the daughter of the Prime Minister, a pretty little animated 
 girl, who has patience enough to listen to his bad Spanish ; but I do not think 
 they confine their attention to such a dry subject. Although he has quite given 
 up systematic spooning, he is very fond of nice female society. We shall be off 
 to the coast, I suppose. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "«F. L. M'Clintock."' 
 
 The shadow of a great disappointment fell upon Key 
 at this time, which had better be told in his own words, 
 under date 23rd April 1844 — 
 
 " I am much afraid that you will have heard two circumstances concerning me 
 at the same time. The first, that I have joined the Gorgon, and immediately 
 afterwards that Gorgon is ordered to the coast of Africa. Both true, and 'no 
 mistake.' I daresay you will not want for kind friends to tell you all about the 
 pleasures (?) of the coast, accompanied by long yams about fever, ruined con- 
 stitutions, cum multis aliis ; but let me put you quite at ease as to that. If we do 
 go, we are certainly going to a bad part of the station, the Bight of Benin, 
 but we are in a large roomy vessel ; we are with a captain peculiarly careful 
 about the health of his men, and one who, being a single man with a good 
 income, does not care about capturing slavers when it is attended with risking of 
 the men's lives and health up the rivers. We shall be nearly senior officer, and 
 therefore have the choice of healthy cruising-ground. Again, concerning myself, 
 I never in all my life remember being in such health as I am now ; and what 
 makes me more confident, my present state of health is the result not only of 
 the beautiful climate of Monte Video, but of my having been able to establish a 
 system of diet, exercise, and study. 
 
 "When our orders came out by last packet, you can have no idea of the 
 sensation it created. One man was going to invalid at once, another to leave 
 the service, another asked the commodore to allow him to exchange, a fourth 
 wanted to join the Monte Videan army. The captain was extremely annoyed, 
 and with some reason, as with his interest he had had the choice of a station ; 
 and, from his very precarious state of health, he knows that he will not be able to 
 stand the climate. This, combined with his devotion for the service, makes him 
 feel it very acutely, as he is certain to be obliged to invalid the moment he 
 arrives on the coast. 
 
 " I really believe I was the only unconcerned listener ; and now I must tell 
 you that it is by no means certain that we go after all, as the Buenos Ayrean and 
 Monte Videan ministers, and all the merchants, have sent in letters to the 
 commodore requesting him to detain us on account of Captain Hotham's 
 individual services. 
 
THE GORGON— 1844-1845 99 
 
 M Now a little about the war. When I last wrote, I told you that the French 
 admiral had issued a proclamation ordering all the French residents (3000) to 
 lay down their arms. On their refusal he became outrageous, declaring that if 
 the Orientale (Monte Videan) authorities did not join [in compelling] them to do 
 so, he would declare war on Monte Video. He then ordered his squadron to 
 get under weigh, and take up positions commanding the principal streets and 
 abreast the forts ready for bombarding, directing the merchant vessels to move 
 out of the way. His squadron attempted to obey the order ; one brig ran into 
 and stuck fast in the mud, out of gunshot. A corvette anchored about twice as 
 far out as she was before, and, after all, the only vessel that anchored within gun- 
 shot was a 2-gun schooner, and she took up such a position that if it had come 
 on to blow she must have been lost. Well, the people on shore laughed at all 
 this; but the French legion, rather than involve Monte Video in a war, laid 
 down their arms as Frenchmen, and picked them up again as Orientals,— that is 
 to say, they threw off their allegiance to France. The admiral then had no 
 power over them, so he gained nothing by his motion. The war seems still 
 inclined to be interminable. 
 
 "The last accounts I received concerning Denison's health from you and 
 himself made me very unhappy ; he writes in such low spirits about his nervous- 
 ness. Whenever you write, if you have seen him, will you always tell me your 
 opinion of his health and appearance, as you will be able to see changes which he 
 cannot. . . . 
 
 " I like this place immensely, chiefly from the beautiful climate. I never 
 have been in such good health, only having had one headache during the last 
 month. I am making a great effort to cure my stammering, being convinced it 
 proceeds solely from my excitable temperament and slight constitutional 
 nervousness. I have given up smoking entirely, and strive on all occasions to 
 keep myself free from excitement ; and I assure you I am successful. Altogether, 
 my dearest mother, I never remember having been so truly happy as I am at 
 present. With the exception of being away from you, and our dear domestic 
 circle, I have not a care. I have not a wish ungratified. I trust my Heavenly 
 Father will continue to increase my spiritual knowledge, and give me a heart 
 truly thankful for all His blessings. To convince you that I am not deceiving 
 myself, I will tell you what my present state of mind is caused by and founded 
 on. On leaving the Curacoa, where I had friends in whose society I was always 
 delighted to be, I joined a mess of strangers ; and although for gentlemanly 
 demeanour, good-nature, education, and general information, they are decidedly 
 superior to most small bodies of men promiscuously thrown together, yet there is 
 no superior- minded man among them — no one to whom I can look up for advice ; 
 and I cannot make a friend of a man to whom I consider myself superior. 
 
 "Now, on that all-important subject, religion, I very much need a worldly 
 adviser ; yet, from the fact of my being thrown entirely on my own resources to 
 employ my mind, I naturally feel less every day the want of society, which tends 
 so materially to destroy that calm state of mind so necessary for the proper 
 reception of divine truth. . . . 
 
 " This morning, while writing to you about the excellent state of my health, I 
 was rather premature, as I was seized with a bad headache, which lasted about 
 eight hours, completely laying me up. 
 
 "We have heard this morning that the commodore has decided on detaining 
 us for the present, as he thinks some crisis is approaching, and he wishes to 
 be properly prepared for it. Our duty will be, directly the town is assaulted, to 
 
ioo MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 rush on shore and bring off all the fair ■ seiioras,' English and Spanish, that we 
 can lay our hands on, as these inhuman monsters spare no one." 
 
 Professor Burrows gives me another letter of nearly the 
 same date — 
 
 " My dear Burrows, — Knowing, as I do, the few opportunities you have of 
 communicating with Rio from the Cape, I will not commence growling at you 
 for only having given me one letter for two I have written to you, but now 
 send a third unconditionally. In the first place, you must know that I am in 
 Gorgon, with old Clink [the usual term of endearment applied to M'Clintock], 
 having determined that the steam branch of the service is the rising line. I 
 exchanged from the most comfortable ship in the service into Gorgon, with 
 Beauclerk, and all the return I get for it is to be immediately ordered to the 
 coast ! However, that I do not much mind. I have been in Gorgon now about 
 two months, and am much more comfortable than I expected. She has not 
 moved out of the river Plate for ten months, on account of this grand Monte 
 Videan war, of which I daresay you have never heard, and consequently cannot 
 be interested in it. The whole affair is that Monte Video is blockaded and 
 besieged by Rosas' (President of Buenos Ay res) fleet and army. We acknowledge 
 the blockade, but preserve, nominally, a strict neutrality. The French and all 
 other nations have squadrons here, and as usual ourselves and the French lean to 
 opposite sides. As you have no doubt heard at the Cape, Gorgon is ordered to 
 the coast immediately. We are in great hopes that through the minister here 
 the commodore will detain us, our services being so valuable. I shall certainly 
 be sorry to leave the river, as I have just commenced to like it, and began to 
 learn Spanish two days ago. Clink, dear fellow, is rather glad than otherwise. 
 Although, as I said before, I am in a comfortable ship, she is quite negatively 
 so. I joined a mess of strangers, and they still remain so after two months 
 acquaintance. They are equally good messmates, agreeable and gentlemanlike, 
 but the only friends I wish to have are Clink and the captain. I think I may 
 except ; he is a superior-minded man, but wrong-thinking — very. 
 
 "This state of things, I find, has one advantage : it throws me more on my 
 own resources for enjoyment, and I assure you I am beginning to be convinced 
 that nothing is more destructive to one's happiness and contentment than what 
 is called going into society [barring, according to ' Clink,' ' one fair spirit for 
 his minister ']. I am certainly now very happy. 
 
 " The Iris has lately arrived from England with the British Charge d' Affaires 
 for Monte Video, and I send this letter by Heath, who is on board of her. I like 
 him exceedingly. I hope you will see him. [M'Clintock's letter also speaks of 
 meeting Heath ' of College celebrity ' — the present Sir Leopold Heath, whose 
 distinguished career is well known.] 
 
 "Although these lines are few and uninteresting, they will show you that I 
 have not forgotten my old friend. We may meet, if Gorgon goes to the coast. 
 How fortunate you are in having a man like Wainwright as a messmate. x I feel 
 
 1 Professor Burrows says of him : " He also, like Heath and Key, had been 
 a first medallist at the old, and had gained the lieutenant's commission at the 
 New Naval College. We were then serving together on board the Winchester, 
 Admiral Percy's flagship." 
 
THE GORGON— 1844-1^45 I : . ol 
 
 myself alone, and you know, my dear fellow, how much I require advice and 
 support ; at least, how much I fancy I do. I find, certainly, that being thrown so 
 completely on myself tends to make me infinitely better acquainted with my 
 own character than I could ever expect to be in any other position. 
 
 " Remember me very kindly to all your family, and to Wainwright and Cock- 
 burn, and believe me, my dear Burrows, ever your very sincere friend, 
 
 "A. Cooper Key." 
 
 I have no more letters of Key's now until four months 
 later than the above, and meantime things momentous to 
 the Gorgon and to the fortunes of her young and eager 
 second-lieutenant had happened. 
 
 The commodore's detention of the ship, which was 
 intended to be but temporary, became the cause of her 
 enforced detention for a much longer time than was con- 
 templated, and determining events began to show them- 
 selves in the form of a moderate breeze from the south- 
 west on the morning of 9th May 1 844. 
 
 I will let the subject of the Memoir tell the story him- 
 self, as I find it recorded in his journal. The journal, by 
 the bye, had always been somewhat intermittent, and he 
 had not written a line in it since leaving the Curagoa until 
 the exciting occurrences which began on 9th May drove 
 him once more to his pen — 
 
 " May gfn, '44. — On the afternoon of this day a breeze that we had had from 
 the S. W. since the morning was gradually freshening into a gale. Slight indica- 
 tions of an approaching gale had been observed not only from the state of the 
 barometer, but from the appearance of the weather, sky, etc. At sunset, after 
 evening quarters, the glass still falling, the captain ordered the yards and top- 
 masts to be struck ; we then veered on our B.B. cable (the only anchor down) 
 to 75 fms., and placed an anchor watch. At midnight the sea had risen consider- 
 ably, the wind still from the S. W., and the ship riding easy. 
 
 "May \oth, Friday. — At daylight the gale was evidently increasing, with 
 heavy squalls ; the boats and guns were secured afresh ; at 7.40 we observed that 
 the ship was driving. . . . Let go small bower-anchor, veered on the cable 
 to 30 fms., and on B.B. to 92 fms. ; then lighted the fires and got the steam up. 
 Bent the main trysail ; the vessel still driving, veered on small bower to 42 fms. 
 At 9, the steam being up in all the boilers, the ship was attempted to be eased 
 at her anchors by steaming ahead in the squalls, and when the strain appeared the 
 greatest on the cables. The ship was now riding with the wind and sea three 
 points on the port bow. The gale increasing, the main trysail was set, close 
 reefed, to endeavour to keep her head to the sea ; ship still setting in towards a 
 reef running off from the fort in the town, and which was now about i£ cable's 
 length astern of us. 
 
 "We now endeavour to pick up the small bower, and then, slipping the best 
 
tOi MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 bower, intended steaming with full power, out clear of all danger. From the 
 heavy sea, this we found impracticable ; no nippers l would hold ; although the 
 strain was eased by steaming ahead, the hawse-pipe carried away. Buoys and 
 buoy ropes were now got on the cables, ready for slipping if necessary. At 1 1 
 ... the small bower-cable parted just before the bitts. Vessel still driving ; 
 slipped the B.B. cable at the 8th shackle with buoy and buoy rope on it. 
 Steamed ahead with full power, the main trysail set to endeavour to bring her 
 head to the sea. We steamed out in a direction about west, intending to pass to 
 windward of the Brazilian corvettes, . . . and then proceed to seaward. When 
 nearly abreast of the quarter of the Brazilian admiral, finding that from a 
 tremendous squall at the moment that it was impossible to bring her head to the 
 sea, and that by standing on we should foul the Brazilian, the engines were 
 stopped, the staysail shown for a moment ; the ship paid off and passed astern of 
 the Brazilian corvette. The full power was then put on her again, but was not 
 sufficient to bring her head to the sea ; the ship was therefore approaching Rat 
 Island, a most dangerous vicinity. Four lengths of the small bower-cable were 
 bent on to the sheet-cable; at 11.40 the sheet-anchor was let go, and cable 
 veered to 70 fms. ... At noon the anchor was holding well, and ship riding 
 easy ; the gale had risen fearfully, and no sign of breaking. 
 
 "We were now congratulating ourselves on being in a perfectly secure 
 position, being much more sheltered than in our former berth ; the stream- 
 anchor of 12 cwt., backed by the large kedge of 9 cwt., was bent on to the 
 I2£ in. hemp towing-cable. 
 
 "At 3 the cable of sheet-anchor parted just outside the hawse-pipe, ship's 
 head paid off, drifting in shore to the northward. Let go stream and kedge, 
 and veered to the clinch — vessel still driving — battened the hatches down. The 
 two foremost 32-pounder guns were now slung and got ready for heaving 
 overboard, intending to bend on to them the remainder of the chain cable. 
 Soon after 4 the ship struck the ground aft, apparently on hard sand ; the 
 steam was immediately let off, and fires hauled out, ran the water as high as 
 possible in the boilers. The ship was now lying broadside on to the sea driving 
 in shore, the stream [anchor] coming home. At 5 the ship had driven broad- 
 side on to the beach on mud bottom, every sea driving her heavily up. Making 
 no water, and apparently straining nothing — seas breaking over us. 
 
 "The topmasts were got over the starlxrard side and forced into the mud 
 to shore the ship up. At 8 the ship had been driven higher up ; ship's head 
 N.W., wind W.S.W. 10 ft. water alongside on the lee side, 13 ft. the 
 weather side. II in. in the well, and making no water. Carpenter reported 
 ship not strained or damaged in any way. Engineers reported that neither 
 the machinery nor any of the beams in the engine-room were strained in the 
 least — no abatement in the gale. Spliced the main brace [i.e. served out 
 an extra allowance of grog], ship's company having been wet through for many 
 hours." 
 
 And so the Gorgon was high up on the beach, where 
 she was destined to remain immovable until the 15th July, 
 and then was to be pressed towards the sea, as it were, 
 
 1 Nippers were the short soft ropes that were wrapped round the cable and 
 the messenger together in weighing the anchor. 
 
THE GORGON— 1844-1845 I03 
 
 inch by inch, and was not to receive the cheers which greeted 
 the " recovery of the Gorgon " until the 30th of October. 
 
 This catastrophe, such as it was, became in every way 
 the making of Key's fortunes. The dreaded transfer to 
 the coast of Africa was summarily prevented, and Key's 
 mechanical and inventive turn of mind had so ample a 
 field for its display in the various and novel devices which 
 were employed for the recovery of the ship, that special 
 mention of his services in this respect were conveyed to 
 the Admiralty, who specially commended them in their 
 letter of approval and congratulation to the captain and 
 officers of the Gorgon. 
 
 After Key's return to England he published a full and 
 detailed account of the persevering efforts which, continued 
 through five months and a half, were at length crowned 
 with complete success. His book bore the title of A 
 Narrative of the Recovery of H.M.S. " Gorgon " (Charles 
 Hotham, Esq., Captain), Stranded in the Bay of Monte 
 Video, May 10th, 1844." It would be foreign to my 
 purpose to go over the ground taken up in this work. 
 The whole story is there very plainly and lucidly told, 
 and the description proves that, in view of the meagreness 
 of the appliances in use, the Gorgon } s recovery must take 
 rank as a feat of engineering skill, as well as a remarkable 
 illustration of tenacity of purpose triumphing over great 
 odds. 
 
 The steady work for the recovery, which embraced the 
 three main operations of digging out a dock and channel ; 
 buoying the ship up by means of " camels " and other air 
 vessels, and forcing movement by means of screws and 
 purchases, was sometimes diversified from the situation of 
 the ship lying between two hostile armies. The ship, and 
 a certain portion of the ground surrounding her, were by 
 agreement made neutral ground, and both sides found 
 occasion to avail themselves of its privileges. On one 
 day a boat from the blockading squadron got too close 
 to the town, and was cut off by boats from Monte Video. 
 She made for the Gorgon, and was sheltered there, under 
 the denunciations of the Monte Videan commanders, 
 
164 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Oribe's field-pieces had a little engagement with the Monte 
 Videan gunboats, which had arrived to prevent the escape 
 of the whaleboat, and Key notices that interludes of this 
 sort were eminently useful as entertainments to keep up 
 the spirits of the Gorgons. 
 
 On a later occasion the Monte Videans sent out a 
 party of cavalry which passed along the beach close to 
 the Gorgon, and after some time returned with a great 
 capture of cattle and horses. But one trooper was cut 
 off, and only escaped destruction by claiming the neutrality 
 of the Gorgon. He left his horse on the beach, which 
 was promptly seized by the Blancos, who demanded the 
 surrender of the man, which Captain Hotham refused. 
 Presently an officer came down and harangued with much 
 gesticulation as to the unfairness of the Gorgon, declaring 
 that the man would not be harmed, but would only be 
 compelled to fight it out with a combatant of his own 
 selection. This polite offer was also refused, Captain 
 Hotham reminding him how he had extended protection 
 to the Blanco whaleboat so short a time previously. 
 
 Key's letters while the ship was on shore were gener- 
 ally hurried and short, like the following one — 
 
 "Gorgon, July 1st, 1844. — I have but ten minutes to write to you in; the 
 reason of my hurry, I daresay, will rather please you. Three days ago the 
 captain asked me to draw diagrams and write a description of everything we 
 have done and are doing, to send to the Admiralty ; also to calculate the power 
 of everything that has been applied to her. Since he spoke to me (three days) 
 I have had but six hours' sleep, as the captain does not wish it to be known. I 
 therefore work eleven hours a day on the beach, and write all night — do not 
 mention this. I am quite well. 
 
 "We are getting on with the ship, but it is tremendous work. We have 
 been nearly three weeks on shore now, and I am afraid have little chance of 
 moving her for some time. But I think we shall be in England in February at 
 latest. I have not a moment to spare, the boat is shoving off." 
 
 He was writing daily full notes of all that went on on 
 board ; his mind was wholly set on the work surrounding 
 him, in which he took not only a leading but an excited 
 and anxious part. There were losses of life from accidents, 
 and Key writes : — 
 
 " I am afraid these two accidents [two men had been killed by the bars of 
 one of the capstans flying out, and another had died of tetanus supervening 
 
THE GORGON— 1844-1845 105 
 
 on an injured arm] occurring so close together (both during the last five 
 days), will dispirit the men; the duty of encouraging them has therefore 
 fallen, at this time more particularly, on the officers. The weather has lately 
 been much against us, having had a great deal of rain, and it is really heavy 
 work for our poor sailors, working day and night, wet through ! as they are 
 obliged to do. There is one thing which buoys us up (I mean the officers), 
 which is our perfect confidence of success ; whereas I am afraid that among our 
 men, and I may add in the foreign squadrons and the town of Monte Video, few 
 hopes are entertained ; they say it is impossible,— we will prove them all wrong. 
 Oh ! if the old ship gets off safe ! When I get home, what ' yarns ' I shall have 
 to spin to you all at the breakfast table. I wish I was there now, instead of 
 writing to you at 2.30 a.m.! But jamais esprit, it will soon be over. What 
 blessings hope and a sanguine disposition are ! . . . 
 
 "Monday, 2.yd {September). — The captain has just been showing me the 
 letters he has written about the ship, etc., and I can tell you that this affair will 
 turn out the best thing that ever happened to me." 
 
 The next letter runs from 18th to 26th October, and 
 is hurried and disjointed from the exhausted and excited 
 condition in which he wrote — 
 
 " At last I am enabled to send you a little better news. The day after I 
 wrote my last letter, September 25th, the tide rose higher than usual, and we 
 hove the ship astern 18 ft.! We again made all preparations for another high 
 tide, and on Sunday, October 13th, we hove the ship out of the dock, clear ot 
 the sand, and 300 ft. from her original position ! ! ! Is not this a glorious 
 triumph ? We are now in the soft mud, in which the ship is embedded to the 
 depth of 3 ft., but we are in comparatively deep water, and although we still 
 have to transport the ship over a distance of two miles in less water than she 
 draws, yet with the means we have applied to lessen her draught it is a very 
 simple operation. We are therefore now waiting for a moderately high tide, 
 and then we shall have the pleasure of anchoring alongside the French and 
 Yankee squadrons, the officers of which have continually declared the impos- 
 sibility of ever moving the Gorgon off the beach. Oh ! it is a glorious reward 
 for our labours. Now we may venture to look ahead again a little. I think we 
 may venture to calculate on our leaving this for Rio and England in two months 
 from this date, say New Year's Day ; we shall then arrive in England the end of 
 March. Then come court-martial, paying off, new ship, new station, and all 
 their accompaniments. All this depends on whether we find it as easy to heave 
 her through the mud as we anticipate. . . . October iyd.—\ wrote the fore- 
 going on October 18th. On the 19th the tide rose a little, we therefore com- 
 menced heaving at about 4 p.m. We found the ship move steadily through the 
 mud. We therefore continued at the capstans for 11J hours without a moment's 
 cessation. At 4 next morning we lay down for two hours, then were at work all 
 day, weighing anchors and laying them out afresh. Well ! for three successive 
 nights and days we have done exactly the same, and you may imagine that now 
 we are all pretty well worn out. But the result is that now we are three-quarters 
 of a mile from the beach, and will soon be far enough to get our masts in, and 
 most of our stores off, before we heave her clear. Oh ! is not this glorious ! 
 glorious ! 
 
106 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 " I really cannot put two ideas together, so you must not expect much more 
 from me now. . . . 
 
 "26M. — We hove her out three-quarters of a mile last night, heaving from 
 8 till 3." 
 
 When the Gorgon got finally out into deep water oh the 
 30th, and received the international cheers of the ships sur- 
 rounding her, she was a mere shell. She had neither masts, 
 bowsprit, nor paddle-wheels. All her stores were left 
 behind on the beach, all her weights removable had been 
 taken out of her, even to the plates of her coal bunkers. 
 She had not completed the replacement of these things 
 until 1 2th January, when she anchored in the outer roads. 
 Then on the 14th she proceeded to Rio for that examina- 
 tion and repair which, according to the state in which she 
 was found, might be either for the return to the river Plate 
 or for the voyage to England, as Key had surmised. 
 
 The ship's " full speed " of seven and a half knots brought 
 her to Rio on 23rd January, and there the diving dress 
 which had interested the young volunteer ten years before 
 at Spithead, and yet was still a novelty, found a closer 
 interest for the young lieutenant in enabling reports of the 
 state of the ship's bottom to be made. 
 
 The statement was that the whole of the false keel was 
 gone, and part of the forefoot knocked away. But the 
 bottom otherwise was intact. On the 29th of January a 
 new admiral — Rear- Admiral Thomas, in the Dublin frigate 
 — arrived, and the decision was, that as affairs in the river 
 Plate were growing more and more towards that state of 
 tension which would demand international interference, the 
 Gorgon should return thither. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FANNY AND GORGON — 1845-1846 
 
 THE determination having been come to by the 
 Governments of Great Britain, France, and Brazil 
 that the general anarchy and check to trade and 
 prosperity developed by the operations of Rosas against 
 Uruguay should come to an end, and Rosas proving in- 
 tractable, preparations for serious measures against him 
 were made. Those which immediately concerned the 
 subject of this Memoir were the hiring and arming of the 
 brig Fanny — 
 
 " I wrote a few days ago by packet," says Key on the 18th August 1845, 
 " but, an event of some importance to me having since occurred, I now write by a 
 merchant vessel. I am in command of a brig, a vessel that has been hired for 
 service during the war here, to mount two long 32-pounders. I have been 
 selected out of the whole squadron to command, although I do not know the 
 admiral, and have never even been introduced to him." 
 
 The next letter is under date, Fanny, river Plate, 
 1 2th October 1845 — 
 
 "I have this time been longer from home than any time before; it does 
 seem to me that the two years I spent in the West Indian station appeared to be 
 a century compared to this. The truth is, I have been constantly employed — 
 whether well or ill employed, i/trien sabe? as the Spaniards say, but employed ; 
 and at the present time more so than ever. To-day is the first leisure day I have 
 had for weeks, and it is now, very strangely, caused by a heavy gale of wind. 
 
 " I think I last wrote to A before the capture of Colonia, and shortly 
 
 after my appointment to the Fanny. I will give you a brief outline of our pro- 
 ceedings since, which have occupied a space of about six weeks. 
 
 " Colonia is a town on the north side of the river Plate, nearly opposite 
 Buenos Ayres, containing between 12,000 and 14,000 inhabitants. When we 
 declared our intention of forcibly intervening to eject the Buenos Ayrean army 
 from Banda Oriental, this town, which is in the latter province, was occupied by 
 a portion of the said army. One of our first steps was therefore to take posses- 
 sion of it, and put it into the hands of the Monte Videans, the proper owners. 
 
 107 
 
io8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 On the 28th August the admiral [Rear- Admiral Samuel Hood Inglefield, C.B. 1 ] 
 on board the Firebrand, the Gorgon, Satellite, Philomel, and Dolphin, went 
 over to bombard the town. I accompanied the squadron in Fanny ; but, as 
 we then had no guns on board, did not take up a position for bombarding, but 
 went on board Gorgon to do my duty at my old quarters. The account of the 
 bombarding, I suppose, you have read in the papers. It was a paltry affair ; they 
 only returned a few shots, and then retired to the country. The small-arm men 
 and marines were immediately landed under command of Captain Hotham. I 
 was landed as his aide-de-camp ; we marched up after the enemy, but after a short 
 skirmish they scampered off far into the country. We remained on shore six 
 days, repairing the fortifications and putting the town in a complete state for 
 defence, having little skirmishes daily, in which only one lieutenant was wounded 
 in the head by a musket ball. When the fortifications were complete we gave 
 the town into the hands of the Monte Videans, and then re-embarked. 
 
 " The Fanny had then a long 32-pounder put on board of her and forty men, 
 making a perfect man-of-war of her. 
 
 "A squadron under command of Captain Hotham in Gorgon, consisting of, 
 besides his own ship, the Acorn (Commander J. E. Bingham), Philomel (Com- 
 mander B. J. Sulivan), Dolphin (Lieutenant Levinge), and Fanny, was ordered 
 to proceed up the river Uruguay, to act in conjunction with the Monte Videan 
 squadron. This was an interesting expedition. We were going up a river on a 
 warlike mission, where man-of-war had never before been ; without charts or 
 pilots, and also where everybody who knew the country said it was impossible 
 for any but small boats to navigate. All the little incidents of our cruise I will 
 detail to you at our summer tea-table, or walking on Row-dow 2 with my father 
 and a cigar. I have not time to do so now. It will suffice to say that our expedi- 
 tion was a very interesting one ; we got all the squadron to Paisandu {vide maps), 
 and when there, received orders to return to the mouth of the Parana, and then 
 to proceed up that river with fresh instructions. I found an independent com- 
 mand very enjoyable. I would rather command in a hut than serve in a palace ! 
 
 " Immediately on sailing from Paisandu, Captain Hotham ordered me to 
 proceed in Fanny to Monte Video with despatches. I am come now to the 
 entrance of the Uruguay, and am detained there by a tremendous S.E. gale, 
 blowing at this moment. I have indeed had plenty to do ; alone with forty men, 
 being captain, first-lieutenant, master, purser, pilot, boatswain, and everything 
 else. Directly this breeze is over I join the admiral at Monte Video, looking 
 into Buenos Ayres to Curacoa on my way, and most likely I shall be sent by the 
 admiral with fresh despatches to Captain Hotham, and ordered to join his 
 squadron, which is now to be reinforced by Firebrand and one other ship, and 
 then proceed up the Parana, where we shall have plenty of fighting, as they have 
 forts on each side all the way up. My organ of destructiveness is getting very- 
 active, I am sorry to say. . . . 
 
 '* Thursday morning, October gth. — I have passed such a night ! Never do 
 I wish again to see its equal — the most tremendous gale I have ever seen ! I 
 went on deck yesterday evening after writing the above, and have not had my 
 clothes off since. I was up the whole night in the rain, expecting to part our 
 
 1 The father of the late Admiral Sir Edward Inglefield. 
 
 2 A corruption of Rough Down, a steep common with chalk pits near his 
 father's house — The Lawn, Boxmoor. 
 
FANNY AND GORGON— \ 845-1 846 109 
 
 cables and drive ashore every minute. At about 12 a brigantine, the only 
 vessel anchored near us, parted her cables and drove past us,— we of course could 
 render her no assistance ; it was awfully dark, we could just see her as she flew 
 past. Imagine my anxiety, thinking our turn would come next. To add to it, 
 a heavy sea struck our boat and washed it away — our only boat ! This morning 
 the gale has abated, — no signs, however, of the unfortunate brigantine. We have 
 dragged our anchors nearly a mile during the night, but most fortunately I had 
 anchored the brig in the centre of the channel, which is very narrow, about 
 quarter of a mile broad, with sand banks on each side. We had providentially 
 drifted right up the channel. 
 
 " Saturday ', October nth. — During the last two days I have been pretty 
 busy. After writing this I weighed in the Fanny to proceed with my despatches, 
 running down the river Uruguay with a strong breeze and a tremendous current ; 
 
 at about we struck on a sand bank, hard ; the tide swept us up into 5 
 
 feet water, although the brig draws 8 feet. I laid out anchors and cables, 
 and by 2 a.m. I had the brig afloat. Again weighed the next morning at 4 a.m., 
 and proceeded down the river ; at 8 a.m. struck again on a sand bank, laid out 
 anchors and chain cables, and in four hours had the brig afloat, having hove her 
 quarter of a mile over a sand bank in a foot less water than she draws. When 
 afloat, I again weighed, and arrived at Colonia last night, and it is now blowing 
 a hard gale. 
 
 V How thankful I ought to be that the two days I was aground were the 
 only fine days we have had, and for having got off so quickly. The Gorgon, 
 Philomel, and Dolphin have all been on shore frequently up the river. In fact, 
 it is unavoidable, but sometimes they have remained two and three days. 
 
 " The 65th Regiment of foot have arrived here, but whether they take part in 
 the war I know not. 
 
 "Sunday, October nth. — I have just concluded the performance of divine 
 service on as lovely a day and scene as I have ever witnessed. My heart is full ! 
 It is so seldom ... in these stirring times that I can turn my thoughts upward 
 — except in morning and evening prayers, and, I am sorry to say, more in times 
 of danger than of prosperity. But that is our nature. What numberless bless- 
 ings I have to be thankful for ! . . . 
 
 11 To-morrow is the anniversary of heaving Gorgon off ! " 
 
 Later on, two squadrons — one English and one French 
 — were formed for the purpose of forcing the passage of the 
 Parana, and opening it up to that commerce which Rosas 
 had put a stop to. The British squadron consisted of the 
 Gorgon (Captain Hotham), the Firebrand (Captain Hope), 
 both paddle steamers ; the Philomel, surveying brig (Com- 
 mander Sulivan) ; Comus, sailing sloop (Commander Ingle- 
 field); Dolphin (Lieutenant Levinge); and Fanny (Lieutenant 
 Key), brig. The French ships were the San Martin 
 (Captain Trehouart), corvette ; the Fulton, paddle steamer ; 
 the Expeditive, Pandour, and Procida, sailing ships. These 
 proceeded up the river till they met the batteries and the 
 
no MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 barrier of chained vessels that Rosas had stretched across 
 the river. Key describes what followed — 
 
 "Off the Forts of Obligado, Rio Parana, 
 "Nov. 22nd, 1845. 
 
 "Again it has pleased Providence to watch over me in the midst of danger ! 
 Would that I deserved it ! 
 
 " I think I have told you that we expected great resistance to our passage up 
 the Parana. We have found much more than we expected. I have not much 
 time, so I must tell you in few words. We knew that Rosas had concentrated 
 all his force at a place called Obligado, about 100 miles from the entrance of the 
 river. We sailed up this 100 miles without meeting any of the enemy. On 
 the evening of November 18th we anchored about three miles below Obligado, 
 and remained the 19th to arrange the plan of attack. The force and disposition 
 of the army and artillery we learned from a few men who deserted to us, and on 
 the morning of the 20th we commenced the attack. 
 
 " I will sketch a rough plan for you. Here it is. Look at it. 1 The places 
 I have marked for the ships are those they were intended to take up in the plan 
 drawn out by Captain Hotham before the action. Well, on the evening of the 
 19th we — that is, the captains of each ship — were summoned on board Gorgon to 
 receive our orders. They were too long to explain now, but the last was that 
 the PhilomePs signal would be made to weigh at 7 a.m. on the 20th (if the 
 wind was fair), and the other captains would exercise their own judgments to 
 weigh, so that every ship should be at her appointed station at the same moment. 
 
 "The wind was not fair at 7, but at 8.30 a breeze sprang up, the signal 
 was made. I weighed instantly in company with Philomel, the French Ex- 
 peditive also. The Philomel and Fanny, however, outsailed her, and we stood 
 on alone — the leading ships — to the forts. The other ships had weighed, and 
 were standing along the right-hand bank. When the Philomel and ourselves, 
 with Expeditive and Procida astern of us, had arrived within 900 yards of the 
 forts, they opened on us. Oh ! what can I compare it to ? It was a perfect 
 hailstorm. To brave this, unsupported, for half an hour ! I ordered my men 
 below, except the gun's crew. Every shot told on our hull and rigging. The 
 Philomel was close to us, and I saw her first-lieutenant, Doyle, struck almost 
 immediately. We stood on under this to our stations and anchored, and then 
 opened fire in return. The Expeditive and Procida had their rigging so much 
 cut up that they dropped astern. 
 
 " Meanwhile the other ships had come up to their stations, and the fire was 
 more equally divided. 
 
 "We were all now pretty nearly in the places marked on chart, — a, b, c, and 
 d directed our fire more particularly on batteries 1 and 2, the remainder on 
 3 and 4. The enemy kept up an incessant fire, although we could see that our 
 shot caused great havoc amongst them. They fired beautifully, but, fortunately 
 for us, pointed principally at the French ships, who evidently were suffering 
 severely. 
 
 "Although the Fanny was closer to the forts than any ship, except Dolphin 
 and San Martin, to our surprise no one waseven wounded ; the shot continually 
 striking us. Our windlass was shivered, best bower-cable shot away, and 
 
 1 This plan has, unfortunately, not been preserved. 
 
FANNY AND GORGON— 1 845-1846 m 
 
 numerous shot in the hull, but most of them cut our rigging and sails, which were 
 riddled. 
 
 44 We commenced firing at a quarter before ten. At about twelve Captain 
 Hope of Firebrand went away with his armourers and blacksmith in his boat, 
 pulled up under all the fire, and cut through the chain moored across the river! 
 leaving a passage for us to pass up. The steamers then weighed, and, passing 
 through the opening, anchored above the forts so as to enfilade them. This 
 evidently disheartened the enemy. Their fire slackened, and at the same time a 
 large schooner of war, which was anchored above the chains and had kept up an 
 incessant fire, blew up. 
 
 44 Our exertions were redoubled. The San Martin and Dolphin were so cut 
 up that they were obliged to drop away. The firing continued without interrup- 
 tion till 5 p.m. — seven hours ! Captain Hotham then made the signal for 
 boats manned and armed to rendezvous on board Gorgon preparatory to landing. 
 I manned my boats immediately, and with thirty men pulled up the river to 
 Gorgon. Now they showered us with grape and canister, but not a man was 
 struck. The French commandant said he could not join us in landing, as his 
 boats were all destroyed, and he advised us not to do so, as the forts were still 
 full of troops. In fact, we all thought that it would be madness to attempt it ; 
 but the boats being ready, we shoved off and pulled in towards the forts with 
 three hearty cheers, under a shower of grape and round shot. 
 
 44 We landed, and formed our men in companies on the beach. I was 
 Captain Hotham's aide-de-camp. He immediately ordered me to take the third 
 and fourth companies ahead as skirmishers ; so I led the men up to the fort 
 (which, I have not told you, is on a cliff about 30 (? 80) feet high, and a 
 thick wood close behind it). When we got into the fort the enemy opened a 
 sharp fire of musketry upon us, which we returned with interest. They retired 
 into the wood. I was just going to give the word to advance when, two of our 
 side being killed and two wounded, I made them retire behind the parapet, and 
 from there we drove them well back into the wood. We then advanced and 
 took possession of the wood, from which the enemy soon retired, leaving us 
 masters of the whole position. I was then sent with the skirmishers to hold 
 the wood while a party in the forts destroyed the guns, of which there were 
 twenty-seven. They broke off the trunnions, spiked them, and burnt the 
 carriages, and then pitched the guns over the cliff. 
 
 44 It was then dark, and so, at about 8, we embarked. 
 
 44 The next day (yesterday) we again landed and brought off ten splendid 
 brass pieces, 32-pounders and 24-pounders, and all their ammunition, and every- 
 thing else besides. I as usual had the skirmishers, and had a few brushes, but 
 none of consequence. 
 
 44 And now I have told you of the glory of the affair, we will turn to the 
 other side of the picture — a melancholy contrast ! 
 
 44 The enemy, we judge, consisted of between 3000 and 4000 men. The loss, 
 as you may imagine I feel, is that of my poor friend Brickdale, who was a 
 lieutenant in Comus. His head was taken off by a 32-pounder at the com- 
 mencement of the action. Poor, poor fellow ! I am doomed to lose my 
 friends ! But how thankful I ought to be that I am myself spared, and how 
 ungrateful that last expression is ! 
 
 44 The Gorgon and Firebrand, from their distance, escaped with a few shot in 
 their hulls, and no killed or wounded. The Comus had 3 killed and wounded ; 
 Philomel, 7 ; Dolphin, 13, 5 killed. The San Martin, out of 100 men, had 35 
 
ii2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 killed or dangerously wounded, and 7 more slightly ! with 1 10 shot in her 
 hull, and both lower masts shot away. The other French vessels averaged 
 about 7 each. The Fanny, only 1 wounded slightly— your boy. When the 
 chain cable was shot away, it struck me in the ankle — quite trifling. 
 
 n I cannot say any more now concerning this affair. They all say it is the 
 sharpest thing since the war. Everybody tells me I am sure of my promotion ; 
 but do not build on it, as I do not. But I think if anybody is made, I shall be, 
 and they all expect a largo promotion for it. 
 
 " Fancy ! I am the junior lieutenant in the squadron !" 
 
 "Fanny, Esquina, ParanA, 
 "Jan. 20th, '46. 
 
 " Writing to you on notepaper ! But it is better than not writing at all. 
 
 "After our affair at Obligado I was sent to Monte Video with despatches, 
 and was then sent back to assist Dolphin to convey 70 merchant vessels up 
 the Parana to Paraguay; and pretty work we had with them, not only to 
 protect them against gunboats, etc. , but to heave them off the ground when they 
 were on shore. And besides that, the enemy take every opportunity of annoying 
 us with their field-pieces from the cliffs, when we can give them very little in 
 return. 
 
 " On my birthday (January 18th) we had four hours' work with 8 field-pieces. 
 They only succeeded in wounding 2 men, although they struck us often. I fired 
 51 shot at them, and, I may say, walked into a few of them ! 
 
 "We are now at Esquina, about 100 miles above Santa Fe\ and perhaps 
 may proceed to Assumption {vide map). Imagine ! 1400 miles up a river ! 
 
 " I can assure you fighting is great fun ; only, they fire a great deal too 
 straight, and fight much too well to please us sometimes. 
 
 "Do not think, my dear mother, that my thoughts are on that alone. 
 Death is brought too often before my eyes to prevent my thoughts being fixed on 
 worldly objects only. But I find I require a warning friend constantly near 
 me. Would that I could look on that One as the friend to whom alone I ought 
 to cling." 
 
 " Fanny, Esquina, ParanA, 
 "March 29th, 1846. 
 
 " I have just quarter of an hour to write to you, and as I am running amidst 
 shoals and dangers of every description, I have neither time nor attention 
 to spare. 
 
 "We are still up the Parana; plenty of amusement, plenty of fighting. 
 They are now preparing heavy batteries to meet us on our way down. Much 
 good may it do them, poor fellows ! At Obligado we killed and wounded 
 1200 or 1400 of them, and now, I suppose, we shall have to do the same again. 
 
 " I cannot write you details of our proceedings up here. I must recount them 
 viva voce at our tea-table at The Lawn ; will that do as well ? We have been up 
 to Corrientes — 1400 miles inland ; on my return I had a long letter written to you, 
 but when I arrived at Santa Fe the vessel had sailed, so I tore it up in disgust. 
 
 "The last news I had from England brought three mails at once, and such 
 delightful letters ! I also got one from Holland, as you know ; one from 
 Burrows, and two from other messmates. My thoughts now are full of one 
 subject. I dare not mention it to you, but naval officers are ambitious creatures, 
 
FANNY AND GORGON— i 845-1846 113 
 
 and you can imagine what it is. You know by this time whether I shall be dis- 
 appointed or not. . . . 
 
 44 1 am now, more especially, always dreaming of home, but I do not like to 
 hold out any hopes. I trust you have sufficient confidence in me to know that, 
 even if I voluntarily stay on the station, it will be for my own advantage in the 
 service. At times I get completely home-sick, and think that no professional 
 advancement can compensate for my spending the best of my years away from 
 all I love." 
 
 " Fanny > Esquina, ParanA, 
 
 "Commenced May 14th, 1846. 
 
 11 Your letter announcing the receipt of the private accounts of the Obligado 
 
 affair I have just received, and the evident pleasure with which A and all of 
 
 you heard the news has delighted me. I trust the official accounts will please 
 you as well. You cannot imagine the effect of your letters on me. 
 
 "I think I told you by my last letter that we were waiting to escort a 
 convoy of merchant vessels past some batteries that have lately been erected. 
 Since that, I have been continually on the move up and down the river, and am 
 now, I flatter myself, a pretty good pilot for the navigation of this intricate river. 
 I commenced under the auspices and tuition of my friend Captain Sulivan (of the 
 Philomel)^ one of the best surveyors and practical seamen in the service. He is 
 lately gone home, and I have lost a valuable friend indeed — a man I have looked 
 up to as a model for my future professional career. To our Parana squadron his 
 loss is irreparable. 
 
 11 Since he left the river we have suffered a terrible misfortune. You will no 
 doubt have seen the accounts in the papers, but I will tell you the true one, 
 because although it could not be made worse than it really is, yet all sorts of 
 exaggerated reports go home. You remember, we burnt all the vessels con- 
 necting the chain at Obligado with the exception of one, a very pretty little 
 schooner. Captain Hotham fitted her out, and at the admiral's request gave her 
 to Fegen, a lieutenant of Philomel) and assistant surveyor. This Mr. Fegen was 
 ordered, about a month ago, to take despatches from Santa Fe to Monte Video, 
 thereby involving the necessity of passing the batteries on the cliffs at San 
 Lorenzo. This he was ordered to do at night, as the passage is easy, and under 
 cover of the darkness he might pass without being perceived by the batteries. 
 
 "It appears that, at about IO p.m., he grounded on a bank a mile above 
 the batteries. He attempted during the night to heave her off; failed. Next 
 morning the enemy, seeing his position, brought four guns down abreast of him 
 and opened fire on him. The first four struck his hull, the last between wind and 
 water. He then went into his boat with his men and shoved off, pulling up the 
 river, leaving his vessel, gun, arms, ammunition, Flag, mail-bags, etc., unburnt 
 and entire, at the disposal of the enemy ! ! Not a man killed or wounded. 
 
 11 Picture to yourself our horror on hearing of this. I make no remarks on the 
 conduct of Mr. Fegen till a court-martial has decided that ; but imagine : a flag 
 —a British Union-Jack— and a gun taken from us, the Parana squadron, by 
 these scoundrels. What an indelible disgrace ! Not indelible ; I trust not. I 
 hope yet to see it restored to us before we leave the Parana, however dearly we 
 may pay for its restoration. 
 
 " The Lizard steamer has arrived from England, and on steaming upwards to 
 join us, when passing the batteries at San Ix>renzo, had the misfortune to have 
 8 
 
ii 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 four men killed and four wounded out of a crew of thirty-five ; two of the killed 
 were officers. 
 
 " But to change these melancholy subjects. How I long to see The Lawn and 
 all the happy faces it contains, and walk with my father and a cigar on Saturday 
 evenings. I have plenty of yarns stored up for these occasions. And Holland — 
 
 how I long to see him ; is he recovered ? In A 's last letter she tells me he 
 
 has dislocated his knee-cap again, and was dangerously ill at Haslar. In this 
 letter I hear of him 'rushing into a room' calling out 'good news.' I can't 
 reconcile these counter-statements. . . . 
 
 " Most likely I shall have no opportunity of sending this letter till our arrival 
 at Monte Video ; I will therefore not close it till after the Rubicon, i.e. San 
 Lorenzo, is passed ; and should the Almighty be pleased to spare me on that day, 
 I will give you an account of our proceedings there. . . . 
 
 " Do ask H to write to me. At present he has, I am sure, more spare 
 
 time than I have. Tell him, if he will write I promise him a trip to sea in the 
 first ship I command, without paying his mess — and I have a shrewd suspicion 
 that is not very far distant. 
 
 " Captain Hotham's kindness to me is more than I can express. . . . 
 
 " How kind of Holland to take such interest in me ! I suppose he has given 
 up any idea of serving for the present. I expect to see his promotion in the 
 papers daily. They must give it to him after the persevering zeal he has shown 
 to be actively employed. 
 
 " We are now at Esquina with most of the ships of the combined squadrons. 
 I am waiting for a fair wind to pilot them down to La Bajada. We shall pass 
 the cliffs of San Lorenzo about the 25th of this month (May). 
 
 "My friends Mr. and Mrs. Turner have taken a passage with Captain 
 Sulivan ; they are very nice people. All my friends are leaving this station, so 
 I must leave it myself soon. You will imagine by my writing that I am very 
 anxious to go home, and think of it continually. I grieve to say that is not the 
 case. My thoughts, to my shame do I say it, are more continually on myself 
 and our present occupation. My whole time, both of action and reflection, is 
 engaged on this service, and I am far too selfish to sacrifice the various feelings 
 of vanity and ambition to those which would be more worthy of me, namely, the 
 softer feelings of benevolence and the domestic affections. These I trust, how- 
 ever, will return when the present exciting cause is removed. A few days at 
 home will restore my mind to its proper tone. 
 
 "There are times, however, when I converse with men like Captain Sulivan, 
 who can enter into my feelings and sympathise with me, that my thoughts are 
 drawn more especially towards home, and peace, and retirement ; and then I feel 
 disgusted with this stirring, ever-changing life. 
 
 " They say that several large steamers are on their way to this station ; among 
 them the Retribution is named, commanded by Stephen Lushington, and Story 
 is first-lieutenant. . . . 
 
 "May i$th. — I have to-day arrived at Santa Fe with the convoy, and 
 you must imagine my feelings, for I cannot describe them, on receiving my 
 commander's commission l and all your delightful letters. . . . Thanks to you 
 all. . . . 
 
 " To-morrow, or the day after, we shall pass the cliffs at San Lorenzo ; I shall 
 
 1 His promotion was dated 18th November 1845. 
 
FANNY AND GORGON— 1845-1846 115 
 
 write no more till then. I, as Captain Key, command the third division. Eh ! 
 Miss A ! I shall get my head on a 'bus yet ! 
 
 " May 3 1 st. —We have been anchored a little out of range of San Lorenzo for 
 three days, waiting for a fair wind to pass them ; but an obstinate southerly wind 
 continues to blow. Awfully cold ! Thermometer 36 . 
 
 " I may as well give you an idea of the guns, etc., in these formidable cliffs I 
 have talked so much about — vide annexed elegant diagram. 1 We cannot get 
 any true account of the number of guns. The cliffs are about 60 feet or so high, 
 and the guns are drawn back from the edge so that we cannot count them. 
 From A to B is about 3 miles, the breadth across about 800 yards. We are 
 obliged to pass nearly within musket range, while we can hardly elevate our guns 
 to hit them. To pass them we have to protect a convoy of 120 merchant vessels 
 of all nations and of all sizes. Our plan is this : the steamers weigh first from our 
 present anchorage ; two of them anchor above the cliffs, say at about X ; three 
 steamers pass the forts and anchor below them, within shelling range, at about 
 V. In the meantime we, the sailing men-of-war, weigh with the convoy and 
 push down past the batteries, shelling as we pass. In addition, in the night we 
 land a brigade of rockets on the island {a). These rocket-tubes are masked till 
 just before the convoy arrives. Then they open a shower of rockets on the forts. 
 I think we shall walk into them, but they have a great advantage in pouring 
 down such a volley of grape and musketry on our exposed decks. Nous verrons ! 
 They have, we believe, about 30 guns. 
 
 " You see by the above arrangement the sailing men-of-war will not be much 
 exposed. 
 
 "The night before last I was on board the Gorgon, which is anchored \\ 
 mile from the cliffs, when, as we were smoking a cigar on deck, we heard a shot 
 whiz close over our heads, and to our surprise we found that our friends on shore 
 were amusing themselves by firing red-hot shot at us. They continued the game 
 for two hours. It was pitch dark, so it was not a game at which two could play. 
 We found, after they had fired about 40 shot, that there was no appearance of 
 cessation, and, it being useless to expose the men's lives for a mere bravado, 
 we therefore got the steam up and steamed out of range — red-hot shot are no 
 joke ! 
 
 "June nth. — On the 4th June we passed the batteries with a fair wind ; the 
 arrangements exactly as I have before detailed. We escaped wonderfully, two 
 men only wounded, and three merchant vessels driven on shore, which we burnt. 
 Poor Fanny had more shot in her little hull than any vessel there, but not a man 
 touched. 
 
 "I am sending this letter to Monte Video two days before my own arrival 
 there, and I think, my dear mother, that even if I do not bring this home myself, 
 you may expect me very soon after. May I find you all well and happy ! " 
 
 " Monte Video, 
 
 "July 28th, 1846. 
 
 " I have a very bad headache, but I must write to you. It was, I suppose, 
 by an oversight that your letter did not reach me by the last packet. You know, 
 I suppose, that Sir Charles Hotham is appointed commodore on the coast of 
 Africa ; he immediately offered me the vacancy as commander of his ship. I 
 
 1 The diagram is not preserved. 
 
u6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 jumped at the offer, of course, as it would be sure promotion in about three 
 years. But, although the admiral and Sir Charles tried their utmost to get over 
 the difficulty, they could not, as the Instructions say that no one can be appointed 
 as commander under a commodore, who has not served three years first-lieutenant 
 of a rated ship. I have not served a day, but the offer was made so handsomely, 
 and the admiral appeared so interested, it pleased me much. 
 
 "I feel now satisfied that I have thrown nothing in the way of my own 
 advancement, and therefore I shall go home with additional pleasure, knowing 
 at the same time that you and my father will be pleased at my not going to the 
 coast of Africa. And, although I may not get my promotion so soon as I should 
 have by going there, yet I am sure it will prove for the best. 
 
 "You may now, then, certainly expect me home in the Gorgon. She is 
 ordered home immediately, and unconditionally, and will sail as soon as Sir 
 Charles can exchange into Devastation, his future ship. 
 
 "Captain Crouch, of Devastation , will take us home, so on the receipt of this 
 letter you had better not write any more. 
 
 " Oh ! what happiness ! " 
 
 After his return home Key wrote and published his 
 work on the Recovery of the " Gorgon]' already alluded to. 
 In December 1846 he followed what was then the usual 
 course in memorialising Lord Auckland, the First Lord of 
 the Admiralty, for an early appointment. Admiral Henry 
 Eden, then a Lord of the Admiralty, wrote by Lord Auck- 
 land's direction to inform the young commander that his 
 name " would be entered on the list of officers who were 
 desirous of employment, and who were well qualified for 
 the command of steamers." Admiral Eden at the same 
 time thanked Key for the present of his book — an act 
 which natural motives of policy had no doubt dictated. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BULLDOG — I 847 
 
 KEY did not long remain in idleness after his return to 
 England. Officers were then appointed at their 
 own request to study their profession, when other- 
 wise unemployed, at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, 
 as they now are at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. 
 Key was appointed to the College on the 1 8th of January 
 1847, and on the 3rd of May he got a sudden order to 
 take command of the Bulldog at Devonport. 
 
 The remarkable position which Key had now attained 
 in the navy is shown in nothing more strongly than in this 
 appointment to the Bulldog, even though it was generally 
 understood that the men at the College were in a good place 
 for sudden appointments. She was a new ship, a par- 
 ticularly fine and handsome paddle-wheel steamer. Her 
 sister vessel, the Gladiator \ was made a captain's command. 
 Key had only been some six months at home, and was 
 only of seventeen months' standing as a commander, and 
 yet he was selected for what was, in some sort, a special 
 command. 
 
 It was not only that he was distinguished as a naval 
 officer for conduct in action; that might have given him 
 the early command of a smart sailing sloop. But these 
 were the days when the navy was divided into two parts — 
 the sailing and the steam navy ; and the majority did not 
 see what was coming, and sought for distinction on the old 
 lines. At the Admiralty, " scientific " men were looked for 
 to command the steamers, and, however unwilling individuals 
 at the Board might be to admit that the best men should 
 go to swell the ranks of the approaching steam demon's 
 
 117 
 
n8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 hordes, the Board as a whole looked the facts in the face. 
 In Key it had a young officer who had deliberately cut himself 
 off from the old lines of the sailing navy, and had not only 
 shown, in the recovery of the Gorgon^ that mechanical capacity 
 which it was thought should distinguish the steam officer, 
 but had, by force of circumstances, been placed in the posi- 
 tion of having to take a sailing vessel into action, which he 
 had done with infinite credit to himself. 
 
 It followed, almost of course, that he should, as early as 
 possible, be given the command of some specimen steamer 
 where he could show how to develop the steam navy. 
 
 The Bulldog was near about the size of the Gorgon. 
 She was 1 1 24 tons ; that would be 1 5 5 5 tons displacement 
 according to present reckoning. She was nominally of 500 
 horse-power, which would be perhaps 1 900 as at present 
 reckoned. Nominally she was what was then a fast ship, 
 her speed being 10.2 knots, but in reality she could keep 
 up 1 1 knots for some continuance ; and, what was then 
 looked upon of immense importance, she could sail well. 
 She only dated from 1845, and she carried the usual six 
 guns. She was regarded as economical in fuel expenditure. 
 These qualities peculiarly fitted her for the services she was 
 destined to carry out, and made her, as it were, a very perfect 
 ship with a very perfect commander. 
 
 Key joined his ship at Devonport immediately after his 
 appointment. She had already served part of a commis- 
 sion; she was very disorganised, ill-manned, and hurriedly 
 prepared for sea, but she was required to proceed at once 
 with despatches for Lisbon. Key's sensations on surveying, 
 under pressure of time, his new position, are given in words 
 written on the 5 th of May 1847 — 
 
 " Little did I think what an awful responsibility I was taking on myself till 
 I found myself left alone on board Bulldog. She is in a dreadfully disorganised 
 state ; I daresay it will be for my good, — I hope it may. I never felt so weak, or 
 so conscious of my own insufficiency. 
 
 M I shall have plenty of work. She is a truly noble ship." 
 
 The despatches to be carried related to disturbances in 
 Portugal. The rebellion of Count Sa da Bandiera against 
 the Queen of Portugal was in full swing, and Lord Palmer- 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 119 
 
 ston, at the Foreign Office, was keenly watching its develop- 
 ment, ready and willing to strike it down when it had come 
 to a head. Admiral Sir William Parker was in the Tagus 
 with a considerable force, and Oporto, the headquarters of 
 the main body of insurgents, was watched by British ships. 
 This outbreak in Portugal was a sort of overture to the 
 great series of insurrections and revolutions which character- 
 ised the years from 1847 to 1850. The match maybe 
 said to have been applied by Pope Pius IX., whose liberalism 
 was of that unballasted and sentimental character which is 
 called amiability in private life, but generally signifies blood- 
 shed and misery when it governs the public acts of a ruler 
 or a statesman. Great stretches of the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean became charged with political electricity at high 
 tension, and most of the inhabitants of the Italian States 
 took to indiscriminate shooting, incited by the waving of 
 tri-coloured flags and the refrain — 
 
 Viva Pio Nono 
 E basso Metternich ! 
 
 The subject of our Memoir was destined to be in the 
 very thick of it all, and practically to be trusted as highly 
 as, if not more highly than, any naval officer under the 
 commander-in-chief, Vice- Admiral Sir William Parker. The 
 peculiar qualities of the ship he commanded, her mobility, 
 her offensive powers, and her small draught of water (15 ft. 
 4 in.), singled her out for services that only her sister 
 vessel the Gladiator could have as well performed. But 
 it is plain upon the record that the character of her com- 
 mander was entirely in consonance with the character of 
 the ship, and personal and material considerations com- 
 bined to place Commander Key as the most active and 
 prominent agent in a set of circumstances altogether unique 
 in naval life. 
 
 A general survey of that part of Key's life which is 
 embraced in his command of the Bulldog shows us first 
 that new experiences developed new qualities and tastes 
 which were latent and entirely unsuspected by himself. 
 Otherwise, we may say we observe that the character we 
 have noted in its growth is here matured. 
 
120 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 In his private letters from the Bulldog we lose most of 
 the traces of that process of self-education which is perhaps 
 the leading feature traceable in those of the preceding years. 
 Introspection becomes rare ; the appearance of new feelings, 
 new tastes, or new determinations are noted and accepted 
 as they arise, but with less analysis of their sources. Public 
 life and public questions of European if not of more widely 
 spread importance, press firmly, but in no case distressingly, 
 on the young naval officer, who had made his character for 
 mechanical instinct, for personal dash and daring, and for 
 zeal. He was now to show how, in the words of his com- 
 mander-in-chief, he was " prudent," l able to " acquit him- 
 self very judiciously," 2 acting so that he could " very much 
 approve of all his proceedings," 3 acting " with great judg- 
 ment," 4 and being "of the greatest service," 5 and in 
 every case, where the diplomatist and the statesman were 
 to show out as something apart from the whole of his 
 apparent training as a naval officer. 
 
 In this active life Key's interest in materiel naturally 
 wanes. It was there all the same, and we occasionally 
 come across its traces. But steam, ordnance, and the other 
 material objects and developments which have hitherto 
 been his study, have been now, it is seen, sufficiently 
 mastered for the practical purposes of his naval life. 
 Possibilities in the future of these things are not greatly 
 the subject of his speculations. If the times had been 
 quieter they would have been. But the present out- 
 weighed the interest of the future, and the protection of 
 British life, property, and welfare were almost all in all to 
 the young commander. 
 
 But, in the general turmoil, war on a great scale was 
 anticipated, and the naval mind was fully made up as to 
 how steam and sail were to combine for the purpose of 
 the general action at sea. Lord Auckland, the First Lord 
 of the Admiralty from 1846 to 1849, thus threw the 
 general view into shape. 
 
 1 Life of Sir William Parker ■, by Vice- Admiral Sir A. Phillimore, iii. 431. 
 * Ibid. p. 375. 8 Ibid. p. 300. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 298. 3 Ibid. p. 297. 
 
THE B[/LLDOG~iS 47 
 
 121 
 
 "You know how favourite a notion it is with me that every strong ship should 
 have her attendant steamer, and I think that your squadron may consist of- 
 
 Hibernia 
 Trafalgar 
 Rodney . 
 
 Albion . , 
 
 Terrible, 800 h.p. 
 Retribution, 800 ,, 
 Sidon, 560 ,, 
 
 Avenger, 650 ,, 
 
 Canopies . 
 Superb . . 
 America . 
 Thetis. . 
 
 Dragon, 560 h.p. 
 
 Centaur, 540 ,, 
 
 Gladiator, 430 ,, 
 
 Scourge, 420 ,, 
 
 "I attach infinite importance to the combined movement of steamers and 
 sailing vessels, not only for mutual support, but also in the economy of means by 
 the management of fuel. 
 
 " We must have some strength at Lisbon, and I propose to send there at the 
 end of April the Queen or Si, Vincent, with one or two steamers. 
 
 " There may be altogether in the channel— 
 
 St. Vincent .... Bulldog. 
 
 H°™ Sphynx. 
 
 Britannia Gorgon. 
 
 Caledonia Geyser. 
 
 Vengeance .... Stromboli. 
 
 2nd Rates. 
 Blenheim and Amphion." 1 
 
 The settled views of the navy as thus put forward 
 postponed most of the material questions with which Key- 
 was afterwards to be so closely identified, and facilitated, as 
 it were, the efforts by which he threw himself wholly into 
 all that was immediately before him as commander of the 
 Bulldog. 
 
 Hints have been given, in previous passages, of Key's 
 susceptibility to the influence of the passion of love. He 
 was, it has been said, " the most susceptible of men." Not, 
 however, that there was inconstancy in his nature ; quite 
 
 1 Lord Auckland to Sir William Parker, 22nd March 1847 {Life of Sir 
 William Parker, iii. 158). How the old and the new were mixed up in these 
 lists, and how the future was foreshadowed slightingly at the end, is worthy of 
 notice. All the ships in the left-hand column were sailing ships, and all but 
 America and Thetis were line-of-battle ships of the old war pattern. The 
 Canopus was the Franklin, one of Nelson's captures from the French at the 
 battle of the Nile. The Hibernia (I recollect it well) retained the spritsail-yard, 
 which was a new invention a hundred years before, and carried "flying" royals. 
 The America and Thetis were sailing frigates, and the first-lieutenant of the latter 
 ship was the reputed " seaman " par excellence of the place and time. A man of 
 great energy and gallantry, Boyd wrote afterwards The Naval Cadet's Manual, 
 in the pages of which the seamanship of the day may be studied, and which was 
 for years the young officer's text-book. The author perished as a captain in a 
 gallant and daring attempt to save life from shipwreck at Kingstown, in Ireland. 
 The last names upon the list — the Blenheim and Amphion — were pioneers. The 
 first was a cut-down line-of-battle ship ; the second a new frigate, to be closely 
 drawn into the story I am telling ; and both were being fitted as screw steamers. 
 
122 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the other way. But it was with him, as with others of 
 warm temperament, the course of true love did not always 
 run smooth ; and while the public life, during the later days 
 of the Mediterranean service, was full of activity and vigour,* 
 the private life was teeming with a sorrow which was not 
 to be removed for years. 
 
 Those who look closely into the life of Nelson may 
 observe how, from first to last, his tender and affectionate 
 nature was driven to fix itself on something reciprocal in 
 some one woman, and to anchor there. Key was made of 
 the same sort of stuff in that way. The passion of love 
 was able to master his private life for years at a time, 
 though possibly it never showed through or even touched 
 his public acts. In these, his whole Mediterranean service 
 was a triumphant march from success to success, until the 
 saying on board the Hibemia — Sir William Parker's flag- 
 ship — was verified : that he was born, " not with a silver 
 spoon, but with a whole dessert service, in his mouth." 
 
 Whatever Key might have felt within himself on taking 
 command, we may be very certain that no one in the service, 
 outside himself, had any inkling of such a thing. His 
 despatches arrived the same day, and he quitted Plymouth 
 Sound and made at full speed for Lisbon. He ran at once 
 into a strong south-westerly gale, which cost him his jib- 
 boom, jib, and gear, and a great part of the forecastle 
 hammock nettings. 
 
 He was a cautious navigator, and would not run risks 
 even when bearing immediate despatches. The deep-sea 
 lead was in use on approaching Finisterre in the dark, 
 and, as the weather was thick, soundings in seventy fathoms 
 caused him to turn his head off shore, and to go slow till 
 daylight. But he anchored in the Tagus at 4 p.m. on the 
 1 oth of May — a five days and three hours' passage, which 
 was at this date remarkable speed in foul weather. In 
 Key's language, it was " a splendid passage." 
 
 Key had come away without personal supplies of any 
 kind. There had not been time to furnish his cabin, and 
 in those days Government did not take any account of the 
 difficulties and inconveniences which surrounded an officer 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 123 
 
 so placed. Nowadays, a commander situated as Key was 
 would have found nearly everything ready to his hand 
 except food and wine. Under the circumstances, Key was 
 not sorry to find himself steaming full speed back again to 
 Portsmouth on the 1 8th of May — 
 
 "I am quite delighted with the ship," he writes. " She is a magnificent 
 steamer, and I trust will shortly prove an efficient man-of-war. I like all the 
 officers. . . . But everything smiles at present. 
 
 "It is hard work, and anxious, being captain in a gale of wind, more 
 
 especially just entering the (May 19th), while I was writing last night, a 
 
 light was reported right ahead. We, by our reckoning, being eighty miles from 
 any land, but from the hazy weather we had had we had not had an observation 
 for two days. I immediately hauled right off at a slow speed, and soon came to 
 the conclusion that it was the light on the Penmarcks rocks, south of Brest, and I 
 shaped a cautious course for the night accordingly. 
 
 " It was a very near chance for us. We were within five miles of the rocks, 
 going 1 1 knots. We had just had soundings, and the master and myself this 
 morning, on looking back, have nothing to blame ourselves with ; not a single 
 precaution omitted. Of course, carrying despatches, I am obliged to go full 
 speed. 
 
 "We shall anchor at Spithead to-morrow morning (20th) — a passage of four 
 and a half days, though I touched at Oporto, and lost all last night." 
 
 The despatches spoken of by Key were of really great 
 importance, as they showed the wide spread of the insur- 
 rection in Portugal, and shadowed forth the necessity for 
 interference by independent Powers if anarchy was to be 
 avoided. The day that Key arrived at Portsmouth, Sir 
 Hamilton Seymour, our minister-plenipotentiary at Lisbon, 
 and Sir William Parker, took personally on themselves to 
 interfere, and to demand an armistice from the insurgents. 
 
 Time pressed, and Key was to be hurried back to Lisbon 
 with Lord Palmerston's instructions to the minister — 
 
 " I am full of business," Key writes, "as usual. You know, I daresay, that 
 I am ordered off again to Lisbon. Sharp work ; but I am doing my best to get 
 my ship ready, and have scarcely time to think of myself. Burrows gave me a 
 delightful account of his visit ; the happiest days he ever spent. . . . 
 
 " This is dreadfully hurried work, but Lord Palmerston is very anxious, so I 
 must do my best." 
 
 The Bulldog received her despatches and a Queen's 
 Messenger on Sunday, 23rd May, and immediately proceeded 
 to sea. Key writes in the Bay of Biscay : — 
 
 "I was hurried away from Portsmouth without time to say a word, and I 
 have not much more now. . . . 
 
i2 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 "We have some chance, I believe, of a brush with the insurgents at Oporto. 
 What a splendid thing for us ! I wish I had a little more time to get the Bulldog 
 into the state I should wish to see her in. But she is improving. The men are 
 willing, though not very bright. 
 
 " How kind Captain Hamilton x has been to me ! On arriving in England I 
 merely expressed a wish for having some alterations made in Bulldog, and 
 down came an order to the admiral at Portsmouth to make any alterations I 
 wanted. . . . 
 
 " Everybody agrees that she [his ship] is the handsomest steamer they have 
 seen. (The wretch ! she is rolling about so now that I can hardly write. ) . . . 
 
 "Charley Napier is coming out to Lisbon as commander-in-chief. He is 
 the man to take Oporto. He will find a casus belli if he can." a 
 
 Arriving at Lisbon on 27th May, Key was ordered at 
 once to prepare for sea again. He writes — 
 
 " May 281/1. — ' There is no peace this side of the grave ! ' We anchored last 
 night in Lisbon, and are off somewhere to-day. Here we are, coaling, provision- 
 ing, and watering in a dreadful hurry ! " 
 
 The " somewhere " was immediately disclosed, and 
 promised that " brush " which Key had hoped might be 
 " splendid." The Bulldog was ordered to make the best 
 of her way to Oporto ; and Key was informed that " Her 
 Majesty's Government, in conjunction with those of France, 
 Spain, and Portugal, had determined on active intervention 
 for the purpose of terminating the civil war in this country, 
 and it became an object of much importance that the 
 steam and all other vessels in the service of the provisional 
 junta should be seized wherever they might be met with, 
 to be delivered over to the Queen's Government." 
 
 As a consequence, Key was ordered to " look along 
 the coast for the Mindello y an armed steam vessel in the 
 hands of the insurgents, which might perhaps be found 
 near Peniche." If he fell in with this or any other insur- 
 gent vessel he was to seize them accordingly and bring 
 them to Lisbon, taking care not to use force until mild 
 persuasion had been tried in vain, and even then he was to 
 fire wide and over before guns were pointed directly at 
 
 1 Captain W. A. B. Hamilton, Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty. 
 
 2 Sir C. Napier never, I believe, bore the reputation amongst his naval con- 
 temporaries that he bore— previous to the Crimean War— with the public and the 
 junior officers of the navy. Lord Auckland thought Sir Wm. Parker would be 
 "startled" by the appointment, and the latter was very distinctly begging that 
 he might not be called on to meet him. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 125 
 
 them, to avoid, if possible, the shedding of blood. But as 
 it was yet doubtful whether the Gladiator and a Spanish 
 brig of war, Sobrano, had cleared the bar of the Douro, 
 it was advisable that Key should not commit any hostile 
 act within sight of Oporto — which was in the hands of the 
 insurgents — that might compromise the safety of these 
 vessels. In such a case he was to keep company with the 
 insurgent vessels, and not attempt to seize them until they 
 were at a desirable distance from Oporto. It was of im- 
 portance that the insurgents should not be permitted to 
 land troops from vessels of any description on the coast of 
 Portugal. 
 
 If nothing interfered with his reaching Oporto, Key 
 was directed to place himself under the orders of Captain 
 Sir Thomas Maitland, who commanded the America frigate 
 as senior officer off the Douro. 1 
 
 In accordance with these orders, Key reconnoitred the 
 coast of Portugal to the northward, but discovered nothing 
 of consequence, and at 3 a.m. on 30th May he hove to, 
 and communicated with Sir Thomas Maitland. 2 
 
 I have a very vivid recollection of that morning. I 
 was then a naval cadet in the Sidon, and our ship had 
 weighed about the time of the Bulldog's arrival. We had 
 had notice of the probable attempt of the insurgent squad- 
 ron, commanded by a man named Salter, whom we under- 
 stood to be an American, and carrying about 4000 troops 
 under Count Das Antas, to put to sea for an attack upon 
 Lisbon. The Gladiator and the Spanish vessel were still 
 inside the bar, but it was hoped that the exceptional height 
 of the tide might permit of their escape. The card the 
 insurgents were supposed to be playing was their power of 
 retaliation by the batteries of Oporto upon these two ships, 
 if the insurgent squadron was interfered with at sea. 
 
 I recollect the fresh morning air, the breaking daylight 
 showing the Portuguese vessels in motion, and the anxiety 
 which the least of us felt as our ships steamed slowly up 
 to take final orders from Captain Maitland, which he 
 
 1 Sir Wm. Parker to Commander Key, 29th May 1847. 
 
 2 Afterwards Admiral the Earl of Lauderdale. 
 
126 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 shouted from the stern of his ship. Whether my memory 
 here betrays me or not I cannot be sure, but it tells me 
 that the language of Sir Thomas was strong, and decreed 
 the wholesale destruction of the Portuguese squadron. 
 
 Presently, in the dim dawn, the Gladiator was seen to 
 pass out safely over the bar, and then it seems the insur- 
 gents made some demonstration of return into port, which 
 was frustrated by the manoeuvres of Sidon, Gladiator, and 
 Bulldog. The Portuguese insurgents had three armed 
 steamers, with a barque, brig, two schooners, and trans- 
 ports. 
 
 We in the Sidon, and those in our other ships, were at 
 " general quarters," and as day broke, the British steamers 
 each singled out a rebel and summoned her to surrender. 
 I recollect how we lay, rolling a little, close alongside the 
 Mindello crowded up with troops, and how we looked down 
 the muzzles of her guns as they looked down ours, and 
 considered what a terrible smash there would be if the 
 rebel colours did not come down in the few minutes allowed 
 by Captain Henderson, who stood on the paddle-box, watch 
 in hand. 
 
 But resistance by the rebels would have been worse 
 than absurd. A few minutes before the time allotted was 
 up, we saw the colours slowly descend, and at the same 
 time Salter hailed from the paddle-box of the Mindello to 
 announce surrender, but to say, in language somewhat 
 brusque, that if it had rested with him, things would have 
 been different. 
 
 In the meantime Key, in the Bulldog, had been taking 
 possession of the Oporto, while the Gladiator had captured 
 the third steamer. The other ships were likewise handed 
 over to the English; and, after putting prize crews on 
 board them, and relieving their overcrowded state by 
 transferring considerable numbers of the troops to our own 
 ships, we took the sailing vessels in tow and proceeded to 
 Lisbon with the whole insurgent expedition as our prize. 
 
 The greater part of the prisoners were afterwards trans- 
 ferred to Fort St. Julian, at the mouth of the Tagus, and 
 were guarded there by the Superb (Captain A. L. Corry), 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 127 
 
 Sidon, and Bulldog. Afterwards terms were made with the 
 Portuguese Government for "these vexatious prisoners," 
 who were " harassing " Sir Wm. Parker " out of his life," 
 and they were dispersed. Key had already received, 
 through Sir Thomas Maitland, Sir Wm. Parker's " highest 
 approbation of his conduct on the occasion of the capture 
 of the insurgent forces and subsequent escort of them to 
 the Tagus." 
 
 The town and harbour of Setubal, or St. Ubes, a little 
 to the south of the Tagus, were at this time in the hands of 
 the insurgents under Count Sa da Bandiera, and it was 
 determined to demand their surrender. On 14th June Sir 
 Wm. Parker hoisted his flag on board the Sidon, and with 
 six English men-of-war (including the Bulldog), two Spanish 
 and one French, proceeded to the port and anchored in line 
 of battle off the town. The insurgents formally surrendered, 
 but most of them broke their word and escaped into the 
 country; 475 were taken on board the ships and, with Sa 
 da Bandiera, were conveyed to Lisbon. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that I first came to 
 know Commander Key and his ship the Bulldog. I very 
 well recollect the peculiar air of brightness that he carried 
 with him, and how we midshipmen recognised him as 
 something above the ordinary commanders of ships, and 
 the Bulldog as something different from the ordinary steam 
 sloops. We understood her to be in what was called 
 " beautiful order," and there was a look of grace about her 
 which is in some way now mixed up in my mind with the 
 look of grace which it was Key's fortune to carry about in 
 himself. I recollect also how we understood that Key and 
 the Bulldog were always expected to take distinguished 
 places. 
 
 As affairs in Portugal grew settled, Key was hoping 
 that he might be ordered home again. And this not alone 
 from his affectionate desires towards his family, but from 
 the more prosaic fact that he had been all this time living 
 from hand to mouth in his own cabin, which was not fitted 
 or furnished, and was without any of the conveniences of 
 life on board ship. This was on account of the hurry which 
 
128 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 had been pressing upon him from the moment he set foot 
 on board his ship. " I am not," he said, " exactly on Lord 
 Collingwood's ' tin-pot and spoon/ yet I am very hard-up. 
 I have borrowed paper and envelopes from every captain 
 in the squadron, till I am ashamed to look them in the 
 face." 
 
 The inner life of his ship is occasionally indicated in 
 his letters of this time, as when, speaking of a proposed 
 visit of a friend (a clergyman) and his wife on board his 
 ship, he writes — 
 
 " In earnest, I should be delighted to have them with me for the passage out. 
 
 B would do duty on Sunday and assist me with my school as I hear the ship's 
 
 boys read the lessons and psalms in my cabin, and I am soon going to catechise 
 them. The alteration in church is quite delightful. The way all the ship's 
 company repeat the responses is so cheering. You can, I daresay, imagine the 
 effect it has on me while reading the service." 
 
 But he had his doubts about getting home. " Sir 
 William Parker," he says, " finds the Bulldog useful. I fear 
 he will not part with her. What a fortunate fellow I am ! " 
 
 After the destruction of the insurgent hopes, Bulldog 
 was sent to lie off the bar of Oporto to prevent ingress of 
 vessels in the service of the insurgents, and she was there 
 for some weeks. Lying there he writes : — 
 
 " I am leading a strange, artificial life, but it is very beneficial, I feel. P'or 
 the last three weeks or a month I have been alone ; that is, in our little world, 
 the world of which I am the absolute monarch, shut out from your great Babylon. 
 No one present to control me except God and my conscience. Apparently no 
 employment, yet not a moment unemployed in thought ; in guarding carefully 
 my words, my manner, my very expression of countenance. And this, though 
 artificial, is good for me. It gives me great command over my passions ; it is 
 continued self-denial. You would not know me now. I often think how very 
 a propos my disposition is to my situation in life. Had I lived on shore, exposed 
 to the temptations of society (unless withheld by my one dreadful blight *), I 
 should have been a thoughtless nobody, but now I trust some future day I shall 
 soar above the common herd. 
 
 "All the occupation and anxiety I have about my ship leave me but little 
 time to think of home and all the dear ones it contains, but every evening some 
 time is devoted to you when I am alone. . . . 
 
 " How constant I am to my bride (my ship) ! We have been lying off this 
 place nearly a month, and I have been to the town but once. I have an invitation 
 to a ball on the 19th, but my wife won't let me dance ! " 
 
 1 That is his stammering, which, however, was not at this time so serious as 
 he made it out. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 129 
 
 On the 1 7th July, Key writes that, 
 
 "A vessel has just arrived from Lisbon and brought me . . . orders to 
 proceed to Lisbon to join the admiral, and then I am told, privately, we shall 
 go up the Mediterranean ; but I will tell you more by the next vessel that goes 
 to England. . . . 
 
 " It will be very annoying if we go to the Mediterranean without going to 
 England, but I must make the best of it. Will you tell Smith & Elder to send 
 six copies of that ' valuable and entertaining work ' 1 to Gillott for me. Here I 
 am without one. 
 
 "Have you the fourth volume of Nelson? What a noble fellow he was! 
 What a pity that my favourites, Nelson and Byron, should be so unpopular. 2 
 The latter, I fancy, is my favourite from a spirit of contradiction. People have 
 underrated him (his private character), and I overrate him — perhaps. . . . We 
 sail for Lisbon to-morrow morning at daylight." 
 
 Then from Lisbon, eight or ten days later — 
 
 • I am botiafidt off for the Mediterranean. Is it not delightful? The com- 
 mand of a steamer, and such a steamer ! in the Mediterranean. I shall sail in 
 one or two days for Gibraltar, where I shall complete provisions and coals, then 
 go to Malta. There I await the arrival of the admiral. Now, this is delightful 
 as far as it concerns the ship, but not quite so as concerns myself. I am all 
 adrift ! No nothing ! Never mind, we must see what can be done. . . . How 
 glad I am . . . that we did not know I should not return when I took leave at 
 The Lawn. It is better as it is. I look back on that half-hour with pleasure, as 
 it is ; had it been otherwise I should not. 
 
 1 ' The mere fact of serving under Sir Wm. Parker is in itself an honour. The 
 first living admiral ! He is very kind. He has a very nice family at Malta, I can 
 tell you — four very pretty daughters. 
 
 " Monday ', July 20th. — The Jackal has just come in. Her engines are all 
 adrift, and I am to put her to rights with Bulldog's engineers. This, I fear, will 
 detain us some days." 
 
 The Bulldog finally sailed from Lisbon for Malta on 
 29th July, and at Gibraltar it was her fortune to come 
 again into favourable notice — 
 
 11 Gibraltar, August 3rd— I ^have been delayed at Gibraltar [writes her 
 commander] one day longer than I expected, by a Spanish steamer which 
 foolishly ran herself on shore on Europa Point. I got her off after a few hours' 
 work. She came off very prettily ; nearly all the garrison turned out to see it, 
 and the governor, Sir Robert Wilson, has been very kind, and behaved very 
 handsomely about it." 
 
 By the 10th of August the Bulldog was at Malta, where 
 
 1 The Recovery of the Gorgon. 
 
 2 This is a very remarkable statement as to Nelson ; and yet in days when 
 there was no comprehension at all of our naval position, and what we owed to it, 
 it may have been true. 
 
i 3 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 she lay a month re-fitting, and; then on 7th September 
 she sailed on the first of many protective and diplomatic 
 expeditions, which were to establish Key's character for 
 judgment, prudence, and decision, in a way and to an 
 extent which surely have fallen to few other officers of his 
 standing. But it cannot be forgotten that the whole of 
 the success which attended Commander Key's actions in 
 the Bulldog were the direct result of the decision come to 
 in the Curagoa, to abandon present comfort for the chance 
 of future distinction. 
 
 The Mediterranean Fleet was now under command of 
 Rear-Admiral Sir Lucius Curtis, but Sir William Parker 
 was on his way from the Tagus, little foreseeing the 
 turmoil and anxiety which was before him on his return 
 to his proper command. 
 
 The prelude was played at Messina on the 1st Septem- 
 ber, and on the 2nd the leading British merchants of the 
 place wrote as follows to Mr. W. W. Barker, the British 
 Consul — 
 
 "Sir, — We, the undersigned British merchants and residents in Messina, 
 taking into consideration the disturbance which took place yesterday evening 
 at 6 o'clock between the populace and the military, and the present unsettled 
 state of the city, beg you to represent the case .to H.B.M. Minister at 
 Naples, and to the admiral commanding the Mediterranean fleet at Malta, 
 soliciting the presence of a vessel of war in the port of Messina, as we con- 
 sider our property and lives may be placed in peril on the continuance of such 
 disturbances." 
 
 The Consul forwarded the request to the Hon. 
 William Temple (afterwards Sir William), our Minister at 
 Naples, observing that the disturbance which took place 
 cost a great number of lives to both parties, and that a 
 gendarme was shot to death under his windows by the 
 revolters. Lord Napier, as Charge d'Affaires, who had 
 taken Mr. Temple's place at Naples, sent the papers to 
 Sir Lucius Curtis for his favourable consideration — 
 
 "Considering the present state of political excitement in the Sicilian ports, 
 the appearance of the British flag might not be without utility, especially at 
 Messina, from whence complaints have more than once reached Her Majesty's 
 Legation of the disorderly conduct of the populace." 
 
 Sir Lucius Curtis selected the Bulldog for this duty, 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 131 
 
 and Key sailed from Malta on 7th of September, under 
 orders to proceed to Messina for the purpose of obtaining 
 from the Consul every information relating to the dis- 
 turbances reported, and such other information as he might 
 be able to obtain relating to the existing political excite- 
 ment. Having completed this service with the least 
 possible delay, he was to return forthwith to Malta and 
 make a full report of the result. 
 
 The Bulldog arrived at Messina on the 8th, and 
 anchoring for two hours only, was back at Malta on the 
 9th, and Key made the following report next day — 
 
 " I. I have the honour to inform you that, in pursuance of your orders, I 
 left Valetta harbour in H.M. steam sloop under my command on September 7th 
 at 5.30 p.m. for Messina, at which place we anchored on the following day at 
 I p.m. 
 
 " Placing myself in communication with Mr. Barker, H.M. Consul, and one 
 or two of the principal merchants, I learnt the following particulars : — 
 
 " 2. The disturbance that took place on the 1st September was unexpected, 
 but not unpremeditated. It appears that the insurgents, who muster in con- 
 siderable force in Calabria, had succeeded in gaining over a small party in 
 Messina, and had agreed to co-operate with that party if they would rise at a 
 certain time on the 1st September. This they accordingly did, by signal of a 
 gun, but by some misunderstanding they were not joined by the Calabrians ; 
 their number therefore did not exceed 50. They were immediately routed by 
 the troops, who killed about io, but took no prisoners, having 4 or 5 of their 
 own number killed. In a few hours all was quiet ; people naturally kept 
 within doors for a day or two, but without any apprehension of a second out- 
 break. The British Consul and merchants were alarmed at the time, from the 
 sudden nature of the disturbance, and, as many parts of the kingdom are in a 
 state of partial revolt, they were fearful lest this was the forerunner of a revolu- 
 tion. Their alarm soon subsided, and has now changed to a feeling of perfect 
 security. 1 
 
 " 3. The Government has doubled the number of troops in the town and 
 suburbs ; there are now nearly 3000. Thirteen individuals have been arrested, 
 chiefly priests, the others are people of no note ; it is generally supposed that 
 they are not connected with the insurrection. 
 
 "4. Among the insurgents on the 1st September were two young Englishmen 
 named John and Charles Pierce, aged 20 and 15 years. Some say that they 
 were forced to join at the risk of their lives, having arms put into their hands } 
 others, that they had been seduced by some priests (which I believe). However, 
 they were seen to be with the insurgent party, and, having escaped, they are now 
 concealed. I was requested to give them a passage to Malta if they could 
 smuggle themselves on board ; but as their lives were not in danger, and I 
 
 1 Nevertheless it was the beginning of a revolution during which Messina, all 
 but the fort, passed into the hands of the rebels. 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 considered that I should be assisting them to evade the laws, I refused to 
 consent, but, on their requesting it, told them that I would represent their case 
 to you. 
 
 "5. With reference to that part of the kingdom in general, I was informed 
 that discontent and disorganised revolts are frequently occurring in many parts. 
 On the 1st September the insurgents gained possession of the town of Reggio in 
 Calabria (nearly opposite Messina), and hoisted their colours, a tri-colour, and 
 their emblem, a cross. On the 3rd September three Neapolitan steamers of 
 war proceeded off the town, and, after summoning them to surrender, fired 
 on the fort ; the insurgents returning one or two shots, and then, opening 
 the prison and releasing about 500 prisoners, fled into the country and 
 encamped on a hill called Santa Stefano, where they are now, in number about 
 2500. 
 
 "6. The cause of the discontent appears to be the heavy taxes, especially the 
 land-tax, which it is said is very unpopular. The priests take advantage of 
 every opportunity to increase the ill-feeling towards the King of Naples and his 
 Government, and have succeeded in many places in rendering the mild constitu- 
 tional Government of the present Pope very popular, and much wished for by 
 the lower classes. 
 
 " 7. The British merchants seem to consider that there is now nothing to 
 fear ; the revolters, of whom there are very few in Messina, have no recognised 
 head. The disturbance on the 1st September was the only one that has occurred 
 for years, and the English are much liked by all classes. The appearance of the 
 Bulldog so soon after their application has given them great confidence, and 
 H.M. Consul is very grateful for your promise of sending a vessel of war to visit 
 them occasionally when you have one at your disposal. 
 
 "8. Having obtained the above information, I left Messina at 4 p.m. on 
 September 8th for Malta, where I arrived at 8. 30 a.m. on September 9th." 
 
 I have given this letter in full, as illustrating the solidity 
 which appears in this first official despatch of importance 
 from Commander Key's pen. Recollecting his age — only 
 26| — and his standing as a commander, one is easily struck 
 by the breadth and clearness of the views expressed, when 
 we know that they were gathered in the space of a couple 
 of hours' conversation. There is also the decision come to 
 about the two young Englishmen, so judicious and distinct. 
 It is singular that though Sir Lucius Curtis and Sir William 
 Parker both approved of Key's action in this matter, Lord 
 Palmerston disapproved of it later. 
 
 In his private letters Key is brief — 
 
 " I was suddenly ordered away to Messina the other day, as they had an 
 insurrection there. I went; inquired into it; frightened them a little; and 
 returned to Malta in a day and a half." 
 
 And then three months later, when his report had been 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 133 
 
 through the Foreign Office, and Lord Palmerston's opinion 
 had been expressed : — 
 
 "I have just received a reprimand from Lord Palmerston about an insurrec- 
 tion at Messina that I was sent to inquire into. My proceedings were approved 
 of by Sir William Parker in writing, immediately after I returned. And now, 
 even in the face of Lord Palmerston's letter, the admiral says I acted perfectly 
 right, and hopes I will act in the same way again if I am similarly situated, So 
 much for my Lord P." 
 
 The following letter is notable for another reason, as 
 disclosing the blindness of political mankind, and its in- 
 ability to read the signs of the times. Key reported the 
 general view when he assumed that no further disturbances 
 were to be apprehended. In a private letter Key seems to 
 show more insight as a looker-on than those who were 
 more closely mixed up with affairs. His experience in 
 Portugal had perhaps opened his mind and enabled him 
 to detect one at least of the operating causes — 
 
 " The scenery in the Pharos of Messina is magnificent. The country people 
 are much inclined to revolt. Their king is not popular out of Naples. The 
 Pope is, I imagine, endeavouring, through the priests, to create a feeling in his 
 favour, and is succeeding. His Government is popular everywhere in Italy." 
 
 By the middle of September the Bulldog was in all 
 respects, except as to his own cabins, as her commander 
 wished her to be — 
 
 " I wish you could see the Bulldog now," he writes ; " I may say she is the 
 admiration of everybody. French and English all say she is the most beautiful 
 vessel that ever was seen. . . . 
 
 "The admiral and his squadron returned here the day I returned from 
 Messina, and are now re-fitting preparatory to a cruise. Bulldog accompanies 
 him. Malta at present, therefore, is dreadfully gay ; nothing but dinners and 
 tea-fights (as they are called), — at all of which I am, of course, obliged to attend. 
 A dangerous place is Malta, I can tell you, for a young commander. The winter 
 season is, I hear, something tremendous ; parties every night without any inter- 
 ruption. ... Oh dear ! those horrid balls will ruin me ! I was dancing till past 
 three this morning, and have been drilling the Bulldogs at their guns for two hours 
 (9 a.m.) — my head is all adrift. . . . Pray for me. I fear my head is turned at 
 times by prosperity." 
 
 His destination was, however, not to be for the present 
 that which he anticipated. A time of great delight was 
 immediately before him, and his mind was about to be 
 awakened to joys and marvels which had not yet been 
 
i 3 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 thought of in his philosophy. A whole series of new con- 
 sciousnesses were on the eve of breaking forth, and tastes 
 were to spring up that he had no conception of when on 
 the 4th of October he found himself steaming for Genoa, in 
 obedience to orders — 
 
 " I am now clear of the whirl of Malta, and will therefore endeavour to give 
 you a sober letter. I am on my way up to Genoa, ordered there to convey the 
 Earl of Minto whither he will ; the said Earl being ordered on a special mission 
 to the King of Sardinia and the Duke of Tuscany. It is probable, therefore, 
 that from Genoa I shall take him to Leghorn and see Pisa and Florence ; then 
 to Civita Vecchia, and see Rome. There is a pleasant trip chalked out ! 
 
 "With one drawback, however, which is this: the day I sailed from Malta 
 (October 2nd), the captain of an English brig that was undergoing quarantine 
 from Alexandria, from ignorance, as I believe, came on shore, thereby putting 
 the whole island in quarantine until October 15th. I shall arrive at Genoa on 
 the 6th, and shall have to endure nine days' quarantine. In the meantime, if Lord 
 Minto is ready to leave Genoa, he may go by land to Florence, and I shall follow 
 to Leghorn. 
 
 "You cannot imagine what pleasure it is to serve under Sir William Parker. 
 He is so kind and considerate ; so devoted to the service ; and though so strict, 
 yet he carefully distinguishes between errors from inexperience and those from 
 carelessness. . . . 
 
 " I have just finished Arnold's life. What a glorious example of a man 
 keeping the one object before him — steadily all his life ! 
 
 " October $th. — It is now blowing a gale ; we shall be at Genoa early to- 
 morrow morning ; Genoa the superb ! 
 
 " I must own that I have not that ardent longing to see Italy which is so 
 general. But, now that I am on the eve of visiting it, my anxiety is greater. 
 Venice and Pisa, I know not why, are the two places I am most anxious to visit, 
 even more than Rome or Naples. How dear A would enjoy this trip. 
 
 " October i^th. — Not yet out of quarantine, yet I have enjoyed my fortnight's 
 solitude. We shall be released on Sunday, and on Wednesday, Lord Minto, two 
 sons (one of whom I know), and four daughters, come on board. They first go to 
 Leghorn. My cabin will be pretty full. It is rather a pity my things are not yet 
 come; plate, etc., will be in request. They must be at Malta by this time, I 
 fancy, as I see by the papers that the Antelope had left some time. 
 
 " October i$th. — It is Lady Minto and three daughters, I find, that are coming. 
 I did not know the former was in being." 
 
 Key was ordered to furnish the admiral with " any 
 information that he might be able to collect relative to the 
 state of public affairs and passing events at the places he 
 might visit." Sir William Parker, in writing to Lord Minto, 
 said — 
 
 " I have selected the Bulldog to attend you, in the belief that you will find her 
 not only a very swift and clever steamer, but every disposition in Commander 
 Key to meet your wishes. He is a very intelligent and amiable young officer, 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 i 35 
 
 and I believe has had the gratifying reward of promotion for his merits and 
 scientific acquirements, which he bears with very becoming diffidence, displaying 
 only a most praiseworthy zeal for his profession." 
 
 The specially fine character of Key's ship is indicated 
 by his power of accommodating so large a number of 
 persons in his cabins. Hardly any other " sloop " in the 
 service could have done the like ; and, generally speaking, 
 the accommodation of officers in command has been con- 
 sidered of much less importance in late years than it was in 
 Key's time. 
 
 His views on what was to be seen in Italy underwent a 
 most marvellous change when he came face to face with the 
 glories of her art. Writing from Malta after the cruise was 
 over, about 4th November, he says — 
 
 " I have just concluded such a delightful week. A few days after my last 
 letter Lord Minto arrived at Genoa, remained there three days, during which 
 time I lived with him ; then embarked with Lady Minto, two sons, and three 
 daughters. I took them to the Gulf of La Spezzia, then to Leghorn. On our 
 arrival there they asked me to go to Florence with them. I went, and remained 
 eight days at Pisa and Florence. They are such a delightful family. I have 
 never met anyone more kind and warm-hearted. Then the places we visited 
 together made us more intimate. 
 
 "The magnificent palaces, churches, and, more than all, the paintings, com- 
 bined with the society I was in, threw a charm over the week at Florence that I 
 shall never forget. The three girls are the most simple-minded, amiable trio I 
 have ever known, especially the youngest, for beside those qualities she is sweetly 
 pretty. We parted on October 30th with, I think, mutual regret, — they for Rome, 
 I for Malta ; but I am in hopes of seeing them at Rome soon. . . . 
 
 " You cannot imagine a greater pleasure than the ' Galleria Imperiale ' of paint- 
 ings and sculpture afforded me. I had no idea before that I should be able to 
 appreciate them, but the pleasure is indescribable. The Venus di Medicis, 
 Rafael's Madonna, and one or two others among the thousands I have seen, 
 have pleased me most ; the paintings more than the statues, — the Venus, the 
 Knife-Grinder, and Niobe being about the only three I could appreciate. 
 Canova's Venus I should also mention. How you would enjoy Florence ! And 
 
 amid my whirl of pleasure I often longed to have you all, — A , and H . 
 
 and my dear father." 
 
 All through this earlier part of his career Key seems 
 to have been a perfect martyr to headache. His letters 
 constantly break off abruptly from inability to stand the 
 pain, and " Oh ! my poor head ! " is a frequent ejaculation. 
 Work or excitement always seemed to set it going. Thus 
 the above-quoted letter goes on — 
 
 * l *Vov. 5///.— At Malta. My head aches dreadfully. We sail to-morrow 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 morning at daylight with all the squadron for Naples— Oh ! my poor head ! I 
 have had tremendous work for two days. I have received all my things, and am 
 delighted with all, — plate especially. Yesterday I had 32 private letters and 
 12 public ones." 
 
 Cruising with the fleet gave him some, but not much, 
 leisure to recall the delights of Italian art — 
 
 "I can write now a little more quietly, although this cruising with the 
 squadron does not give me much leisure. Sir William Parker gives us plenty to 
 do by signalling day and night — the more the better ! Lord Minto told me that 
 I stood very well with the admiral, and I promise you I do my best to keep so. 
 
 "We left Malta on Saturday, November 6th, and are bound, we believe, for 
 Naples. We have the Hibernia (flag), Trafalgar ; Albion, Rodney, Superb, 1 
 Thetis? Gladiator and Bulldog.* All the admiral's family are on board the 
 flagship. The knocking-about we have had the last two days have, I expect, 
 rather sickened them of the sea. The admiral keeps his future movements a 
 perfect mystery. I am still in hopes that I shall yet see Rome. The taste I had 
 at Florence of the fine arts has made my mouth water for more. 
 
 " I forget what I said in my last letter, but I don't think I could have 
 told you much. We had three days at Genoa after our quarantine expired ; I 
 expended them in sight-seeing. Notwithstanding pouring rain, we went every- 
 where — Captain Elliot, the ladies Elliot, and myself. The palaces, of which 
 the finest are the Brignoti and Durazza, are magnificent. The beautiful marble 
 floors and frescoed ceilings far surpassed anything I had imagined. Vandyke's 
 pictures are very numerous at Genoa ; it would appear that a lifetime was hardly 
 sufficient for one man to paint those we saw. There is something very peculiar 
 in Vandyke's portraits ; I admire them excessively ; one can never mistake his 
 sombre colouring. . . . 
 
 11 1 think I told you that Lord Minto and his family embarked at Genoa ; I 
 took them to Spezzia, where I nearly ran his lordship ashore, running into the 
 harbour on a dark night, and a very serious mistake in the chart ; but, however, 
 keeping a weather eye open saved us. 
 
 "The next day we sailed for Leghorn. They landed ; I spent the evening 
 with them, and they asked me to go to Florence. That was the commencement 
 of the most delicious week, — the happiest, I think, as far as pleasure will make it 
 so. Erskine, a son of Lord Erskine, is attache to Lord Minto ; he has been 
 many years in Florence and other parts of Italy, and therefore acted as our 
 'cicerone.' He was in our carriage, and on approaching Florence his lectures 
 on every hill, house, and tree were delightful. . . . 
 
 "The railroad (imagine a railroad in Italy !) is open from Leghorn, through 
 Pisa to Empoli, about 19 miles from Florence. The roads are remarkably 
 good, as I believe they are all over Italy. We, the young ones, remained three 
 hours at Pisa, and had barely time to examine that beautiful group of buildings — 
 the Cathedral, Baptistry, Leaning Tower, and Campo Santo — all equally fine. 
 The frescoes at the Campo Santo were the finest I had seen ; and I must own I 
 was a little disappointed. The fact was, I could not see to appreciate their 
 beauties. I soon learnt that at Florence. I could not have conceived that the 
 
 1 Sailing line-of-battle ships. 2 Sailing frigate. 
 
 8 Paddle steamers. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 137 
 
 sight of paintings and statues could afford anyone so much pleasure as I 
 experienced from it at Florence. But I believe the frescoes at Pisa have been 
 much injured by an attempt at their restoration. . . . 
 
 " But what we enjoyed more than anything at Florence were the Palazzo 
 Pitti and the Galleria Imperiale. The former we visited the second day. In this 
 palace is said to be the finest collection of pictures in the world — more than 500, 
 all first-rate, by the old masters. The luxury of it — I mean passing through it — 
 you cannot imagine ; one feels transported to another world. My favourite was 
 Rafael's Madonna Leggiola ; it is exquisite. Guido's Cleopatra, some smaller 
 pictures by Christofano Allori, all those by Andria del Sarto, and Rafael's (of 
 course), pleased me most. I did not admire Titian so much as I wished, or 
 Guido. Altogether, I think two of the latter in our own National Gallery better 
 than any I saw at Florence of his. 
 
 " Oh ! the Venus di Medicis in the Galleria Imperiale in the Uffizzi Palace is 
 perfection. That, Rafael's Madonna Madorina, and a little child by Correggio, 
 are the only three I thought perfection, but they are. Canova's Venus is much 
 inferior, I thought. The Knife-Grinder is very fine. . . . 
 
 "The Museum of Natural History is well worth seeing; the representations 
 in waxwork of the magnified parts of insects and fibres of vegetables are curious ; 
 but the representations of the human frame are more than curious — disgusting ! 
 So true to life ; I mean, death. The different stages of the plague are shown in 
 wax. Ladies, of course, do not see these things ; even I could not stand it. . . . 
 
 " I could talk for ever on Florence, notwithstanding I have very hard work. 
 No bed last night, and I fear none to-night, as the admiral has ordered us to 
 keep close to him all night — within hail. He is a most kind-hearted man, but 
 uncommonly strict. It is quite a privilege to serve under his orders. He is so 
 far superior a commander-in-chief to any we have in the service. Nelsons nowa- 
 days are rare. Lord Minto used to tell me such delightful stories about Nelson. 
 His (Lord Minto's) father was Viceroy of Corsica, and Nelson was in the habit of 
 staying with him. The present lord, then a boy, remembers how they used to 
 laugh at him about Lady H , etc. . . . 
 
 " I left Florence on Saturday morning,— Lord Minto for Rome, I for Malta. 
 Poor me ! The evening before, the three young ladies had, without my know- 
 ledge, gone in a body to Lord Minto to beg him to detain the Bulldog, and to 
 take me to Rome. But he was conscientious, and could not trifle with the 
 service. He told me of it the next morning at breakfast. . . . 
 
 "We are within 100 miles of Naples, and yet we do not know whether we 
 are going there. Lady Parker declares she knows nothing ; you may therefore 
 imagine that the rest of the squadron are in ignorance of our future movements. 
 
 "Oh ! for Rome ! But I must not think of it. . . . 
 
 " I have not smoked a cigar in the Bulldog— yes, ! one. But at Florence I 
 used to indulge. Erskine and I would roam out at twelve till past two, enjoying 
 our weeds by moonlight on the banks of the brown Arno. 1 
 
 1 This note about smoking has a special significance. Sir William Parker 
 had a distinct bee in his bonnet on the subject. All officers joining his flagship 
 were obliged to sign an undertaking not to smoke ; and he carried his prejudices 
 so far that, in giving a captain's commission to Commander Robert Tryon of 
 the Mutine, in Captain G. W. Willes' death vacancy, he exacted the condition 
 that he should abjure smoking altogether as long as he was under the admiral's 
 
138 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 " Oh ! There's that horrid flagship making signals ! — False alarm ! 
 
 "November iSlh. — Oh dear ! a week has elapsed since I wrote the above, and 
 what have we done since that — Cruise, cruise, cruise ! The admiral. is looking 
 for a gale of wind, and has found a sneezer at last. 
 
 "We have been to and fro between Sicily and Sardinia. Vanguard sprung 
 her foremast, and has gone to Malta. The admiral made a signal for me yesterday, 
 and asked me a good deal about Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Rome, etc. I rather 
 think he has his eye on Her Majesty's steam sloop to take him to the entrance of 
 the Tiber ; and I rather think, if he goes to Rome, the commander of the said 
 vessel accompanies him. Notts verrons. Think of going to Rome and meeting 
 those delightful creatures again ! And here am I, wet through ! My poor 
 men are suffering from influenza. Fifteen of them taken ill to-day. The 
 Rodney has sixty-seven. I saw the admiral's female arrangements yesterday ; 
 decidedly seedy. 
 
 " I wish you may some day know the Elliots. You will laugh at me, I know. 
 I am always in raptures about somebody ; but they are the most amiable, simple- 
 minded people. Lady Harriett is one of those artless, open-minded, yet thinking 
 girls that you would take to directly. Think of me entertaining these people at 
 my table ! . . . 
 
 "November 10th. — We have had a tremendous gale these last two days. 
 Still off the south coast of Sardinia. Gladiator, our sister vessel, and therefore 
 rival (though commanded by a post-captain of seven years' standing), has lost 
 sight of the squadron during the gale, much to Sir Wm. Parker's disgust. We 
 have now a dead foul wind for Leghorn, 300 miles, where I fancy the admiral 
 goes first. . . . 
 
 " November 24th. — A seventh sheet of trash! Beating up the east coast of 
 Sardinia and Corsica, somewhat in the vicinity of dear Lord Nelson's exertions. 
 What an admirable commander-in-chief he was ! I admire him the more now I 
 can appreciate his exertions, and on reading the lives of Lord St. Vincent, 
 Collingwood, and Exmouth. I feel his superiority as a commander and hero, to 
 any man the navy has, or ever will possess ; for, besides his qualifications, the 
 same fortuitous circumstances can never again combine to establish one man's 
 fame. I love him. I know him thoroughly — his vices and foibles. Dear, dear 
 fellow ! We ne'er shall see his like again ! 
 
 "Sir Wm. Parker is a worthy follower of Lord St. Vincent, his uncle. He 
 is a first-rate commander-in-chief, and I am sure would fight a good action had 
 he the chance. We shall fall in with the Prince de Joinville at Leghorn. I 
 hope we shall fall out with him too ! 
 
 " Sir William has been so kind to me. He twice has made the signal to me 
 — ' Will you breakfast with me ? ' and I am the only officer in the squadron he 
 has asked on board in any way. This is complimentary, considering I joined 
 him as a perfect stranger. 
 
 " He is so very considerate to young officers — always seeking an opportunity 
 to approve and not to reprove them, but never omitting either when re- 
 quired. . . . 
 
 command. No professed smoker had the least chance of the admiral's favour ; 
 and, apart from this, his known wishes governed many officers as to smoking on 
 board their ships. This idiosyncrasy of the really great admiral had a corrupting 
 effect, but it made several men non-smokers for the rest of their lives. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 139 
 
 \\ I have every probability of going to Rome with the admiral. . . 
 
 ' ' There are three books I should like very much : Vattel's Law of Nations, 
 Ekins' Naval Battles, and M 'Arthur on Courts- Martial. . . . 
 
 "November 241/1.— The admiral has just made the signal— 'An opportunity 
 of sending letters to Civita Vecchia. 5 I presume Bulldog will go. . . . If Bull- 
 dog goes, I shall go to Rome with despatches for Lord Minto, and see . 
 
 "As they say on board the flagship, I was born with a whole dessert service 
 in my mouth ! . . . 
 
 " I am going to Rome. I shall be there to-morrow with despatches for Lord 
 Minto. How delightful ! " 
 
 Bulldog accordingly went round the fleet, collected the 
 letters, and at half-past nine next morning was inside the 
 little harbour of Civita Vecchia. Key at once proceeded 
 to Rome — 
 
 "November T]th. — I have just returned from Rome. I had but one day 
 there, but I did not let the grass grow under my feet. 
 
 "The kindness of the Elliots was beyond anything. I arrived, of course, 
 quite unexpectedly at 6 p.m. They had a dinner-party. Directly they heard I 
 was in the house, they sent to ask me to dinner, and waited for me. I found 
 there, besides their own party, Lord and Lady Milton, Lord and Lady Conyng- 
 ham, Mrs. Cadogan, Mr. Liddell, and Erskine. . . . The next day — for Lady 
 Minto asked me to remain with them during my stay at Rome — they gave wholly 
 up to me, taking me everywhere, the young ladies and Erskine. We went to 
 St. Peter's, the Vatican, Capitol, Coliseum, Forum, etc. 
 
 " It was a tremendous day — gave me a dreadful headache in the evening. I 
 cannot describe anything now." 
 
 The swell was breaking so heavily across the mouth of 
 the harbour that the pilot would not take Bulldog out till 
 the afternoon on the 29th of November, and she rejoined 
 the fleet, now at anchor in Leghorn Roads, next day. Key 
 presently had an opportunity of returning some of Lord 
 and Lady Minto's kindness to him, which he was very 
 glad to avail himself of. He got the admiral's permission 
 to offer a passage to Mr. and Lady Mary Abercromby (the 
 latter Lord Minto's eldest daughter) from Leghorn to Civita 
 Vecchia, which they gladly accepted. 
 
 A new arrival excited some curiosity in the fleet at this 
 time. The paddle steam frigate Odin, under the command 
 of Captain Hon. Fred. Pelham, joined the fleet. She was 
 another of the attempts to apply the paddle-wheel to the 
 frigate-built ship carrying guns on her main-deck. In those 
 days special builders fathered the designs. The designer 
 of the Odin was Mr. Fincham, who was at that time master 
 
i 4 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 shipwright at Portsmouth. She was not altogether a suc- 
 cess in carrying her intended armament. There were at this 
 time several paddle frigates pierced for main-deck guns, but 
 not canying any. The only two that carried a full main-deck 
 armament were the Terrible^ designed by Oliver Lang, and 
 the Sidon, designed as a sister vessel to the Odin> but 
 altered by Admiral Sir Charles Napier, chiefly by adding 
 depth to the design. The Odin carried twelve guns in all. 
 But the Sidon carried four 56-pounders on the upper-deck, 
 fourteen 3 2 -pounders on a regular frigate's main -deck; 
 and those who served in her were not a little proud of 
 showing, I believe, the most powerful armament that had 
 ever been put on a steamer's deck. The Sidon was also 
 most successful in a larger proportionate coal-supply, but 
 she was, so to put it, top-heavy, and was rarely known to 
 sit upright in the water for many hours together. The 
 French navy had been busy over the same problem, and 
 had not really succeeded even as well as the English — 
 neither navy producing any type which it was thought well 
 to continue, even had the screw not come in to put the 
 whole idea to flight. But the Sidon and Odin carried 
 themselves frigate-wise by painting checkered sides. Other 
 steamers were painted black. 
 
 Little as appears in Key's writings at this time to 
 prove it, his eyes were keenly fixed on the question ; and 
 this will later on be shown. 
 
 In his official letter to Sir William Parker, after his first 
 visit to Genoa, Spezzia, and Civita Vecchia, he marks — by 
 a single stroke, as it happens — his watch on the material 
 change and progress in the navies of the day. Up to 
 about this date the method of weighing anchor by means 
 of a " messenger " was all but universal. The messenger 
 was an endless rope at first, and then an endless chain, 
 which was actuated from the capstan in the after-part of 
 the ship, and passed round rollers in the fore-part. The 
 messenger being set in motion by the power of the men 
 at the capstan-bars, the incoming cable was continuously 
 lashed to the part of the messenger which was travelling 
 aft by means of soft pieces of rope called " nippers," and 
 
THE BC/LLDOG—iStf HI 
 
 it was a consequence of this method that when the strain 
 became great the cable " slipped through the nippers " and 
 ceased to come in, relieving, of course, the strain on the 
 capstan, but really failing to do the work. When Bulldog 
 was at Genoa, the French line-of-battle ship Jena, during a 
 strong south-east breeze, struck the ground abaft, "and," 
 says Key, in reporting the occurrence, "while attempting 
 to shorten in cable, a heavy swell crushed the paul of 
 the capstan, swinging it round and severely wounding 
 twenty-two men. Her cable is brought directly to the 
 capstan? 
 
 The fact was, that the Sidon, and perhaps other of the 
 new steam ships brought under Key's notice, had capstans 
 fitted which took the cable direct, its links fitting into 
 suitable beds round the barrel so as to grip it without any 
 slipping or yielding such as the messenger system allowed. 
 Whether the new plan was good or bad was a matter in 
 immediate debate. In underlining the words above printed 
 in italics, Key withheld his opinion on the point, but allowed 
 it to be inferred that the want of slipping or yielding 
 was the cause of the accident. Another man might readily 
 have condemned the new system on such a ground. Key 
 kept his mind open, and lived to see the " messenger," on 
 his own advice, absolutely disappear from every ship in the 
 service. 
 
 After a short stay at Leghorn, Sir Wm. Parker hoisted 
 his flag in the Bulldog and took her to Civita Vecchia, 
 where he disembarked, and, taking Key with him, proceeded 
 to visit Rome. 
 
 Key was again full of rapture over his closer acquaint- 
 ance with Italy and Italian art. With St. Peter's he was 
 absolutely satisfied, and did not feel, as some do, that orna- 
 ment and gorgeousness confused the mind, lowered it, and 
 forbade its understanding the grace and wonder of the 
 building itself. With the Coliseum he was much disap- 
 pointed at first — 
 
 " It was only after passing it daily, and minutely examining the whole ruin, 
 that I could form an idea of its immensity as an amphitheatre 1 which in its 
 public days unpeopled Rome.' The baths of Caracalla gave me, I think, a 
 
i 4 2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 greater idea of the magnificence of the Romans in their luxuries than even the 
 Coliseum." 
 
 Falling back on art, he writes — 
 
 " The Vatican itself is the study of a month. My time was so limited that I 
 determined I would not lose time over minor interests. I therefore begged to be 
 taken at once to what I was most anxious to see — Rafael's Transfiguration. It 
 is sublime ! It strikes one at once as the finest picture in the world. Every 
 part of it is beautiful, notwithstanding his odd fancy of introducing two distinct 
 subjects, viz., on the mount the transfiguration, and at the foot, the boy pos- 
 sessed with a devil, with a multitude, and the apostles. They would have 
 pleased me more as two pictures." 
 
 He thought the Communion of St. Jerome by Domen- 
 chino was second only to the Transfiguration; was enraptured 
 with the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoon, but complained 
 of the galleries in which they were placed. The Dying 
 Gladiator in the Capitol was his third favourite — 
 
 "It would make a good pair with a Sophocles in the museum of St. John 
 Lateran, a magnificent antique statue discovered about eight years ago, I think, 
 in the neighbourhood of Ostia. 
 
 " In the Capitol there is a horrid copy of the Venus di Medicis, which I was 
 prepared to admire, having heard much of it — disgusting ! Where shall I go to 
 now? Guido's Aurora in the Rospigliosi Palace, a fresco on the ceiling — 
 delicious ! His Beatrici di Cenci in the Barbarini Palace is quite fascinating ; I 
 was obliged to be dragged away. 
 
 "The Borghesi Palace has a fine collection of paintings, and to my delight 
 some very fine Andria del Sartos. We went over several of the artists' 
 studios. . . . 
 
 "One of the most striking features of modern Rome is the beauty of its 
 fountains. At every turn you hear the gush of water ; they are in every variety, 
 and always in keeping. 
 
 "The last time I was in Rome I divided my time between the admiral and 
 the ladies Elliot. You can guess who had the largest share. The morning 
 after my arrival I received a kind note from Lady Minto begging me to consider 
 myself engaged to dine there every evening while I remained at Rome. Such 
 delightful evenings ! Such cheerful, simple-minded people ! The last evening 
 they had a reception, with which you may imagine I was rather disgusted. No 
 end of princes and princesses. I wonder when I shall meet them again. I 
 really think they were sorry to part with me. There's vanity for you ! 
 
 " I told you of our presentation to the Pope ; it is an interesting occurrence, 
 is it not ? Naval officers coming from their ships to kiss His Holiness's toe ? Not 
 quite that ; but I shall not forget it soon. I daresay some wiseacre will think it 
 his duty to bring it before the House, unless Parliament is prorogued before it 
 gets home. Fred. Stanley has been hitting Lord Minto hard, though to little 
 purpose. . . . 
 
 "The admiral is so kind to me. This is better than the West Indies, is it 
 not?" 
 
THE BULLDOG— i^ H3 
 
 The sister art of music was not omitted from Key's 
 mind while wandering in the enchanted lands of painting 
 and sculpture. He had heard the song " Pestal " for the 
 first time, and was deeply struck with it. The line of his 
 taste was shown by his calling " The Better Land " and 
 " Ruth " his favourite songs. 
 
 The fleet spent their Christmas in the Gulf of Spezzia. 
 From one of the neighbouring heights, on which Napoleon 
 had built a fort, Key saw Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Car- 
 rara, and not only saw them, but could with a telescope 
 make out the buildings in each place. 
 
 The fleet afterwards visited Pal mas Bay, and the 
 admiral went to Cagliari in the Bulldog. On the way 
 there Key wrote — 
 
 "I am reading Corinne for, I think, the third or fourth time, but never 
 before in French ; and having just left the scenes, of course I read with the 
 greater interest. I hardly know what to think of it. Sometimes I am quite 
 disgusted, at others charmed. Oswald is a selfish brute, without a redeeming 
 quality. I think his character, as far as I have seen of it as yet, is mean and 
 pitiable in the extreme, and, if I remember right, the worst part is to come. 
 But yet, I should think Mdme. de Stael did not intend him to appear as a 
 despicable character." 
 
 This was written on the last day of the year 1847, and 
 Key fitly closed it with the following general sketch of the 
 political situation — 
 
 "I wonder whether you know anything about Italian politics? I daresay 
 not, which is the reason I have not mentioned them, but they are, at this 
 moment, deeply interesting. The Pope, by his establishment of the ' Consulta 
 dittato,' composed of two or more representatives from each State, followed by 
 many other liberal measures, has raised a great cry throughout the other Italian 
 States for constitutions, freedom of the press, reduction of duties, etc. Sardinia, 
 Tuscany, and Modena have given in on many points ; Lucca has abdicated, and 
 the Duchess of Parma is just dead, the State reverting to Modena. Austria, of 
 course, will not yield an iota for the Venetian States, neither will the King of 
 Naples for the Sicilies ; the consequence is that Sicily is, I imagine, on the verge 
 of a revolution, and if it does take place the King will have no friends." 
 
 And then the summary for the ship came in- — 
 
 " My dear Bulldog is, I am happy to say, improving. She has the name of 
 being in the best order of any in the station. I know that she is not that, but 
 still, considering our wretched crew, she is very fair. She is very pretty — every- 
 body agrees — the prettiest in the service, and I think the fastest. That remains 
 
i 4 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 to be proved. How my dear father and H [his brother] would enjoy a cruise 
 
 in her. She is well known on this station already. . . . 
 
 " New Year's Day. I went to bed last night at about ten minutes to twelve, 
 leaving word with the officer of the watch to call me at one. I had just fallen 
 asleep when down he came to tell me it had struck twelve, and to wish me a 
 happy New Year. It pleased me so much, so very much. 
 
 " I had all the officers to dine with me to-day, at least eight of them, as many 
 as my table will hold comfortably, and shall have the rest on Monday. There is 
 the difficulty in commanding a ship — the management of the officers — especially 
 in my case, where the whole of the gun-room officers 1 are older than myself. I am 
 learning the lesson daily. In the meantime I am very distant with them — that 
 must be, though I find it hard, very hard, at times. 3 Many and many a lonely 
 hour do I spend in my cabin, and often do I long to have more familiar inter- 
 course with the officers, but I could not do so without partiality, I am sure, and 
 therefore I refrain. . . . 
 
 "January yd. — This is tedious work, though I am really enjoying the rest and 
 relief from excitement. We have been three days off the same spot (Cape Car- 
 bonara), attempting to work to windward against a fiery breeze. Though I call it 
 rest, I suppose it is because I get none, not having been to bed for three nights. 
 The admiral every night makes my signal to go in-shore, and carry a light, to act 
 as a warning to the squadron. It's a regular case of ' the boys and frogs ' — fun to 
 them, but death to me. I have to go creeping close to the rocks and islands these 
 dark nights, while they are dancing along, two or three miles from the shore, 
 
 1 i.e. the lieutenants, master, doctor, purser, etc., now called "wardroom 
 officers" in all ships, as they were then called in line-of-battle ships. 
 
 2 Whatever Key might have thought on this matter, it is almost impossible 
 that he could ever have been "distant" with his officers in the full sense of the 
 word. Undue familiarity was impossible with him, but his manner on all 
 occasions was the very reverse of "distant." The officer of the watch would 
 never have ventured to awake a really "distant" commander to wish him a 
 happy New Year. No doubt the " distant " school was that of his commander-in- 
 chief, which he was likely to imitate ; but Key could scarcely have laid down its 
 principles as Sir William Parker himself did in the latter part of the following 
 
 "I feel more than ever the necessity of judicious, steady, and firm officers 
 being kept afloat, who will, on the one hand, check the absurdities and pre- 
 sumption of modern innovations which are undermining the discipline of the 
 service ; and, on the other hand, avoid the severity and harshness which character- 
 ised the organisation of some ships in former days. The midshipmen, mates, and 
 junior lieutenants, all require a strict but courteous control ; and if a stand is not 
 made against their flippant and conceited demeanour, we may witness a navy as 
 brave, but in its efficiency lamentably degenerated, from the days of Nelson and 
 our successful leaders during the revolutionary war " {Life of Sir W. Parker, 
 iii. 261). Key would have agreed to the general necessity of discipline, but he 
 would not have seen that the junior officers were either more flippant or more 
 conceited than formerly — as indeed they were not. If Sir William Parker some- 
 times imitated too closely the rigid side of St. Vincent's method, Key would 
 have been more likely to have exaggerated the cordial side of Nelson's method in 
 his imitation. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1847 145 
 
 knowing that when I get ashore it will be plenty of time for them to look out. 
 However, I enjoy it. It keeps me on the qui vive, and I get many a nap in my 
 delightful armchair. . . . 
 
 "Will you get someone to overhaul the official Gazettes of September (I 
 think) for the report of the San Lorenzo affair in the Parana, with the convoy 
 (if Charlie Hotham had mentioned our names there— Levinge and myself— we 
 should have been posted when we had served our time) ; when found, will you get 
 me two copies ? — send one to me, and keep one at home. . . . 
 
 " How quickly the last eight months have passed ! How I look forward to 
 paying off my first ship as captain, and then living on shore. Shall I ever 
 marry ? It is getting less likely every day. I find each year makes one more 
 fastidious, and I suppose at last I shall find one to please me, and I shall not 
 please her. . . . 
 
 "You cannot imagine the effect that the occupation of the last two months 
 has had on me. The many new subjects for thought and objects of interest in 
 reading that my visits to Florence and Rome have opened to me. I remember 
 one of the ladies Elliot saying to me at Rome, ' Now we are wasting our time, 
 we rarely open a book.' I could not help answering, ' It appears to me that 
 we are reading a better book than any yet printed, and one that will create a 
 more lively and more lasting impression.' I cannot imagine any worldly study 
 that will tend so much to enlarge the mind, give a higher tone to the feelings, 
 temper the passions, and — it is needless to add — improve the taste, than the 
 actual contemplation of works of art in their perfection. I may be enthusiastic, 
 but it is difficult to describe the effect they had on me. They, as well as I, were 
 visiting these scenes for the first time, and some of them experienced as much, if 
 not more, pleasure than I, their minds being better prepared to appreciate them 
 at once. But the effect is not at the time ; it is afterwards. For instance, while 
 looking at the Apollo Belvedere one feels speechless ; really entranced ; it is not 
 reality you are looking at, it is a magnificent idea, the highest conception of the 
 highest order of poets. There is no imitation ; it is not an object at the sight 
 of which one would say, ' How like life ! ' It is a distinct art. Even the Dying 
 Gladiator, exquisitely beautiful as it is, does not raise in my mind the same 
 ideas. In looking at this, I could go close to it and examine each part ; the 
 expression of the face, which shows, as Byron so truly says, that he ' consents 
 to death, but conquers agony ' ; the position of his limbs ; the form of his arms : 
 all are exquisite, all evidently the successful results of the study of man's form 
 as he is. The other I could imagine wrought by one who had never seen a man, 
 but depicted him as his imagination pictured that he should be. These, to my 
 mind, form two distinct classes of statues. This is the work of genius ; that the 
 result of labour and talent. But I think it is not at the time that you can arrange 
 any of your ideas of what sort of pleasure you are deriving from their contempla- 
 tion. It is afterwards, on reflection, that the real pleasure comes. But perhaps 
 this would be the case only with those who were hurried as we were, and saw so 
 much in so few days. 
 
 " I think I am glad that I did not see any of their most solemn religious 
 services, although I am curious to know how I should have been affected by 
 them. I can hardly make up my mind whether the feeling raised by these 
 solemnities is likely to be beneficial or hurtful. To a lively imagination, I should 
 fear the latter ; for though one's heart is open then to receive the slightest impres- 
 sion — especially of love, or adoration — yet I should think it would be more the 
 effect on the senses than on the mind. I always— or frequently— when I see the 
 IO 
 
146 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 priests performing mass, especially if accompanied by music, feel inclined to fall 
 on my knees ; but this is not devotion — merely veneration ; and this is no nice 
 distinction, I should fancy, but is, in fact, the basis of the difference between the 
 two religions. 1 
 
 "With what increased pleasure I shall visit our cathedrals at home. There 
 we excel. How superior is the Gothic to the Grecian for church architecture ! 
 Nothing can be more beautiful than the latter for a pagan temple. Do you not 
 agree with me ? 
 
 " The Pantheon, which was actually built and used as a temple, and is now a 
 Christian church, is the most beautiful building I have seen ; so exquisitely pro- 
 portioned (saving two modern excrescences behind the portico of Urban vin., a 
 wretch who was the first to use the Coliseum as a quarry to build his palace from, 
 and was followed by many others). . . . 
 
 The close of the year 1847 was the close of Key's 
 schooling in the world of art. Henceforth the Bulldog and 
 her commander were to spend a time of incessant and 
 ever-changing excitement. The world in the first weeks of 
 the year 1848 took a plunge into the caldron of political 
 unrest, and insurrection and war was to be for months its 
 normal condition. 
 
 1 I recollect, in a conversation I had with Key some seventeen or eighteen 
 years after this, his recurring to some cognate ideas. Of the effect of ornate 
 ritual, etc. And then I remember his somewhat surprising me by saying, that of 
 all ritual ceremonials that which most fitted his taste was the Irvingite practice. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BULLDOG 1848 
 
 1 f~\N the 1st January 1848 Sir William Parker received 
 \^J from a private source an intimation that on the 
 1 2 th of the month an insurrection would take 
 place at Palermo. He despatched the Gladiator thither to 
 ascertain the correct state of affairs. She returned on the 
 8 th, reporting that the Consul gave no credence to the 
 rumour, but with a communication from the merchants 
 that they did. Sir William thereupon sent the Bulldog 
 to Palermo, which fortunately arrived on the 12th, when 
 the revolt broke out." x 
 
 The fleet was at Nelson's old anchorage in Palmas Bay, 
 in the south of Sardinia, when Key got his orders for 
 Palermo. These pointed out that the 1 2th January was the 
 birthday of the King of the two Sicilies, and that the 
 apprehended rising was expected on that day, because it 
 would be understood that if the King did not on that day 
 grant the concessions in the direction of Pio Nono's changes, 
 they would not be granted at all. 
 
 But the following passages in Sir William Parker's 
 orders to Commander Key would seem to show that even 
 now there was not much apprehension in the official circle 
 of what was about to transpire, and none of the tremendous 
 European convulsion which was to follow 2 — 
 
 ' ' You will on your arrival confer with the Consul, and apprise him of the 
 object of your visit, that he may communicate the same to the merchants. And 
 
 1 Life of Sir William Parker ; iii. 285. 
 
 1 Key himself was of opinion that nothing would follow. Writing to Captain 
 Codrington of the Thetis, at Naples, on the nth January, he says : " From all I 
 have heard, I should imagine there is but little chance of anything taking place 
 
 147 
 
148 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 you will remain at Palermo with the Bulldog until accounts are received from 
 Naples which may lead you to anticipate disturbances at Palermo. You will 
 then rejoin my flag at Malta, looking out for the squadron on your route. But 
 should it appear desirable to you, from the state of affairs, to prolong your stay at 
 Palermo in support of British interests, you will apprise me thereof by the earliest 
 opportunity for Malta." 
 
 Sir William Parker also wrote thus — 
 
 ' ' Much circumspection will be necessary at this crisis, in the conduct of the 
 officers and men of Her Majesty's ships who may land at Palermo, not to inter- 
 fere in the political dissensions of the country, or give cause for the belief that 
 the Bulldog is sent with the view of taking any part therein." 
 
 But there was a secret memorandum put into Key's 
 hands authorising him to afford political refugees " the means 
 of escape from the vindictive measures of the Government," 
 after satisfying himself that they were " deserving of protec- 
 tion before such refuge was afforded." 
 
 So Key sailed away from Palmas Bay to Palermo, 
 arriving there at 2 p.m. on the 12th of January, and 
 plunging at once into a series of exciting and totally new 
 experiences. He writes home on the 17th February — 
 
 "Here I have been in the middle of a revolution, as I daresay you have 
 heard before this. I am always in for something ! But it is a long story, and I 
 cannot tell it to you now. The revolution began the instant we arrived at 
 Palermo — the very hour ! In two days they began to bombard the town from 
 the castle ; I then embarked all the British subjects. Five thousand fresh 
 troops and seven steamers were sent from Naples, making in all n,ooo. 
 Nevertheless the people have continued to gain ground, and finally, having 
 beaten the troops from the palace, the bank, and the barracks, they made 
 a resolute attack on the castle. After the engagement had lasted three hours, 
 an order came from the King at Naples to surrender the castle. We — the 
 Vengeance l and Bulldog — made them cease firing, and the troops embarked. 
 
 " The Sicilians have now nearly possession of the whole island, and it 
 rests with themselves whether they will remain united to Naples or not. The 
 King, by falling into their views, can keep possession of it. He is an ass, 2 and I 
 fear will not see clearly. 
 
 " I have been trying in my small way to get England to mediate, and I begin 
 to think it will be done. I am now carrying an application from the committee 
 
 either at Palermo or any other part of the kingdom, from want of leaders, and 
 from the watchful eye kept on any movement by the Government. Is not this 
 the case?" But Lord Napier at Naples saw more clearly. He believed, on 
 5th January, that revolt in the Neapolitan kingdom was much nearer than was 
 generally supposed. 
 
 1 Captain Stephen Lushington (Key's old captain in the Cleopatra). 
 
 2 The expression is justified by Lord Napier's terse estimate of his character. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 149 
 
 or junta to Lord Minto and Lord Napier to use their influence to obtain 
 England's mediation. 
 
 "Think of me for three weeks with Lord Mount-Edgcumbe and his family 1 
 and fifteen other ladies in my cabin. It is all over now. 2 We shall be in Naples 
 in an hour, and return to Palermo to-morrow, then to Malta." 
 
 The following is Key's official narrative, which, with 
 later letters, was sent home to the Admiralty and the 
 Foreign Office — 
 
 " H.M. Steam Sloop Bulldog, 
 
 "Palermo, 171k January 1848. 
 
 "Sir, — All communication by land with Messina being cut off, and the 
 steam-packet from Naples having ceased to run, I take advantage of the Fair 
 Rosamond, R.Y.C. (Captain Lyons), to send this to Naples, from there to Malta. 
 
 "As I have but a short time, I can do no more than endeavour in a few 
 words to give you an outline of my proceedings since my departure from the 
 squadron on January 10th, reserving the details for the next opportunity. 
 
 "The Bulldog arrived at Palermo soon after noon on January 12th (the 
 King's birthday). A few minutes after the ship was anchored a boat pulled 
 alongside with a Sicilian in a state of great excitement, who, I learnt, had that 
 morning been the leader of a partial rise against the Government. He had 
 been disappointed of the arrival of confederates from the country, and therefore 
 had been overpowered, and barely escaped with his life into a boat. I received 
 him on board. On proceeding on shore and communicating with H.M. Consul, 
 I learnt that this insurrection had been published by printed bills as to take place 
 on the 1 2th. Being put down so soon, he considered it over. On the night of 
 the 1 2th a large body of armed people came in from the country, and on the 
 evening of the 13th made themselves masters of the police office, public con- 
 veyance office, the Porto Termini, and then proceeded to attack the bank. 
 They were repulsed. They then barricaded the main streets, the troops firing 
 down the Toledo or principal street. 
 
 " I then (the forenoon of the 13th) sent round to the British merchants and 
 residents to meet me for a conference. I found considerable alarm prevailed 
 among them, not against either party, but in case large bodies of armed people 
 should come from the country, they being not under the control of the leaders of 
 the movement, and, the town being in the hands of the populace, would probably 
 resort to their custom of pillage. 
 
 " I then took the following measures for their safety : — 
 
 " I offered to take the valuables, money and jewels, of any of them on board 
 at once. I offered the Bulldog and the British merchant vessels as an asylum 
 
 " It is impossible to predict political issues, especially when they are regulated by 
 a sovereign so obstinate, so mysterious, and yet so inconstant, that it is impossible 
 to conclude from his previous conduct what course he will pursue in future. He 
 might rise a reformer to-morrow morning, and be a despot again next week. 
 Lord Napier to Sir William Parker.— Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 290. 
 
 1 He had made their acquaintance at Leghorn in the previous October. 
 
 2 It was, in fact, only beginning. 
 
i 5 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 should any wish to embark with their families, establishing a signal at the 
 Consulate for them, in order that they might call our boats on shore when they 
 wished to embark. I then looked for any position that might be easily defended 
 by a small body of men, to serve as a rendezvous should the British residents be 
 seized with a sudden panic. This, I found, might be done in the block of 
 houses inhabited by the Consul, the Earl of Mount-Edgcumbe, and several 
 British subjects ; I therefore sent Lieut. Swinburne with sixteen men for that 
 purpose. This house is close to the sea ; at the back is a terrace, the gate of 
 which opens close to the landing-place. Of this gate I secured the only key, 
 intending it not only as a means of egress for the people embarking, but also a 
 sure passage to communicate with my own men. I established signals with 
 Lieut. Swinburne by night and by day. 
 
 "On the 14th the Castel-a-Mare commenced to throw shells into the town ; 
 I immediately went to the palace to remonstrate : they only promised to spare 
 the English quarter. * 
 
 "During the night of the 14th and morning of the 15th the shelling con- 
 tinued at intervals ; killing the helpless, destroying the houses, and endangering 
 the foreigners, without any other result. At noon on the 15th I again went to 
 the palace to represent this, and to demand a notice before the town was bom- 
 barded. The notice they gave me was that ' the bombardment shall be discon- 
 tinued, and shall not be again commenced until the people advance in masses to 
 attack ; then they will be the objects for the shells, not the town.' With this I 
 was forced to be satisfied. On my return through the town (a walk of a mile) I 
 found the feeling of the people greatly changed towards me. Instead of the 
 enthusiasm and vivas with which I had been greeted both times on my way 
 to the palace, I saw discontent and disappointment. They stopped me and 
 demanded what the English were going to do for them. I told their leaders 
 that I had no authority to interfere, or to take any part with either party. There 
 was then a general murmur of 'The English have deceived us.' They allowed 
 me, however, to return to the Consulate ; the leaders came there, and said that 
 until now they had promised and had sufficient influence to protect the foreigners, 
 but now they could promise no longer ; and if the English quarter was spared, 
 the people would take possession of the British residents and keep them as 
 hostages while the town was being shelled. 
 
 "At about 3 p.m. on the 15th, the people, having made a general attack on 
 the bank, the shelling recommenced, and, as a proof that the alarm of the 
 British subjects at this time was not without foundation, a man was killed in 
 Lord Mount-Edgcumbe's house while I was there, and a shot passed through the 
 room in which were two English ladies. 
 
 " Mr. Franc, a British merchant, had two shells burst in his house, and I 
 could quote several other cases of the same kind. At 4 p.m. I called a meeting 
 of the merchants ; found them all agreed with me in the propriety of an 
 immediate embarkation. I instantly sent round to the American and English 
 merchant vessels to prepare to receive anyone I sent to them, and to send their 
 boats at 6. This they did most readily. I sent to all the British subjects (whose 
 
 1 Consul Goodwin wrote one of many hurried notes: — "DEAR Sir, — Great 
 alarm prevails in this quarter owing to shells having fallen here. Would it be 
 possible to induce the commander of the castle, Colonel Gross, to spare this 
 quarter from bombardment ? 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 151 
 
 names I obtained from the Consul) to be at the landing-place between 6 and 
 9 p.m. Before 8, in spite of wind and rain, all the British subjects were em- 
 barked, excepting the Consul and one or two who wished to remain till the 
 latest possible moment. 
 
 "At the same time a squadron of Neapolitan steamers arrived with 5000 
 troops, and on the morning of the 16th I called on Prince Louis, the Commodore 
 of the squadron, to ask his intentions. He trusted that there would be no 
 occasion to bombard the town, but that when the troops had landed they in- 
 tended to march straight to the relief of the royal palace, which was now cut off 
 from all communication with any other part of the town." 
 
 To Lord Napier, at Naples, Key wrote on 18th 
 January — 
 
 "The squadron with 5000 men arrived here on the evening of the 15th, and 
 they were disembarked before daylight the next morning. On that day many 
 Sicilian noblemen and gentlemen sought refuge on board the Bulldog. We 
 learned that many of the country people had returned to the country with their 
 arms ; this, showing an evident loss of confidence in their strength, gave me 
 reason to expect that the troops would instantly march to the relief of the 
 palace. On the afternoon of the 16th a detachment of troops, who had advanced 
 for that purpose, were beaten back by the populace. On the 17th this was 
 repeated and followed by an attack on part of the barracks, which they carried, 
 and captured 200 or 30x3 men, marching them out with their band playing in 
 advance. 
 
 "The troops appear completely paralysed. All their positions are cut off 
 from each other ; the country people are re-entering the town, and the people are 
 so firmly established that nothing but a general bombardment can dislodge them ; 
 and should that be resorted to, the only effect would be to destroy the town, as 
 they have possession of all the gates, and can leave the town therefore with 
 their arms. The local government has no power to grant concessions ; the 
 leaders of the people feel sure that those under them will listen to no reasonable 
 terms. 
 
 " From all these circumstances it cannot but appear that the ultimate success 
 of the people is almost inevitable ; and this, in their present exasperated and 
 uncontrollable state — that would no doubt increase with each day's resistance 
 and success — would, it must be feared, not only cause much bloodshed, but ruin 
 their own cause by their excesses and unreasonable demands. 
 
 " This I conceive to be their present position, from which I cannot foresee 
 that anything can rescue them but the interference of a third party powerful 
 enough to give both Government and people confidence in the guarantee that any 
 terms consented to should be strictly complied with. 
 
 " I trust you will pardon me if I am presuming in thus expressing my opinion ; 
 but I am urged to it by the sight of so much bloodshed, both at present and that 
 to come. . . . 
 
 " The prince sailed this morning, I know not whither. I requested warning 
 of the Neapolitan Commodore before he opened fire on the town. This morning 
 he came on board to tell me they should open fire if they observed large masses 
 of the populace collected ; but he would send me word before he did so. This 
 I must consider sufficient warning. 
 
i 5 2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 On the 20th of January he recapitulated to Sir William 
 Parker the contents of his letter on the 1 7th, and went on — 
 
 " The present actual position of the two parties is this : — 
 
 "The Government hold the palace, the forts, and the barracks, but cannot 
 communicate with either. The supplies of water are cut off from each ; the stock 
 of provisions is fast failing them. The troops will not fight, or those who do 
 march out, fight unwilling. The populace hold the town and country, are 
 increasing in strength daily, and I imagine cannot be dislodged from the town 
 but by a general bombardment ; were they so dislodged, they would still retain 
 their arms and original strength. The Consuls have made a formal protest against 
 the bombardment under any circumstances. 
 
 "Situated thus, the Luogotenente has consented to despatch a steamer to 
 Naples to represent the desires of the populace to the King. These are : A con- 
 stitution founded on that of 1812, and I firmly believe that they will accept 
 nothing less ; meanwhile the populace will not consent to an armistice. 
 
 " I have this day received a letter from Lord Napier enclosing a proclamation 
 from the King of Naples granting some concessions, and promising others, but 
 not sufficiently substantial to satisfy the people ; of this I am so convinced, that 
 I will not detain this letter to see the result of it. I cannot but think that 
 unless H.M. will agree almost entirely with the wishes of the people, that he 
 will find himself in danger of losing Sicily. The people have no faith in his 
 promises without a guarantee ; they cannot, from past experience. Their laws, 
 as they exist at present, are nearly sufficient to satisfy them, were they put in 
 force ; they will not, I fear, be contented without some security for good faith, 
 and this, I foresee, can be obtained but by a third party, who will guarantee 
 that the people shall have the power to carry on negotiations in their present 
 relative position without the necessity of constant hostilities ; in fact, a pledge 
 for mutual good faith, thereby establishing confidence on the part of the people 
 in the Government, which at present does not exist, and this, not to be a 
 guarantee for the future, for that the people must themselves provide. The 
 guarantee will be that they shall actually obtain the terms resolved on : they 
 must learn how to retain them. 
 
 "The moderation of the people is beyond praise. The well-established 
 characters of the leading men, the Prince Scordia, Due di Monteleone, and, I 
 may add, every Sicilian noble of the popular party, is the best security against 
 excesses. 
 
 ' ' I fear I may appear to write too freely, and with a partial view. My opinion 
 has been formed while witnessing disinterestedly every step of this movement, and 
 from intercourse directly or indirectly with the leading men on both sides. 
 
 "I hope my account of proceedings will show that I have never in the 
 slightest degree committed a breach of neutrality, but I cannot help forming an 
 opinion, and I think I should not be doing my duty did I not express it now. 
 
 " I have some reason to believe that vocabulary P.I.Q., geographical A.D.I., 
 is thought of for some ultimate purpose. I should think merely usated [?] ; but 
 K.F.L., P.H.N, would have the worst possible effect. 1 
 
 "The Gladiator arrived this evening from Messina." 
 
 1 The letters employed as a disguise refer to the signal-books of the day, to 
 which reference must be made in order to ascertain their meaning, and no copy 
 remains. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 153 
 
 Captain Robb of the Gladiator \ being Commander 
 Key's senior officer, took the control of affairs and the 
 responsibility from Key's shoulders. But it is manifest 
 from these excellent letters, that wisdom, judgment, and 
 clearness of view, were his in a remarkable degree. It is 
 almost impossible, in reading these able papers, describing 
 acts characterised by such decision, coolness, and modera- 
 tion, to realise that the whole was the work of a naval 
 officer only just completing his twenty-sixth year, and still 
 in all the pride and unsettled eagerness which are the 
 heritage of the naval commander in the first few months 
 of his first command. Reflecting upon the suddenness 
 with which he had found himself placed as the leading 
 man, and the leading mediator, between the infuriated 
 parties contending for the control of a great city, we 
 cannot but be struck by the aplomb of the tone of his 
 letters. They read as if he had been all his life in the 
 midst of revolt, and understood all the courses of it from 
 the results of a long experience. No wonder that Sir 
 William Parker should write home that Commander Key 
 "appears to have acted with the greatest judgment, and 
 with the most benevolent feelings and attention to all 
 parties in the trying position in which the British residents 
 were placed from the bombardment of the city by the 
 Government forces." * 
 
 Another illustration of one of the features of Key's 
 character which has been before noticed comes out in this 
 correspondence. His public despatches are, as we have 
 seen, long, lucid, and full. His private letters to his 
 family, which were so full and so varied as long as he 
 was under the enchantment of Italian art, fall at once to 
 be the merest scraps, dashed off at odd moments, and in 
 the most perfunctory way. It was the same throughout 
 the whole process of recovering the Gorgon, and betokened 
 
 1 The admiral wrote directly to Commander Key, under date, Malta, 29th 
 January, saying : "I cannot let the Porcupine proceed to Messina and Naples 
 without thanking you for your letters of the 18th and 20th inst., and assuring 
 you that I very much approve all your proceedings; and your benevolent 
 exertions and kindness appear to be properly appreciated by all parties.' 
 
i 5 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 that oneness of purpose and concentration of the entire 
 soul on the business in hand. To my mind this quality 
 is one of the signs of greatness, and I have always regarded 
 it as a principal element in the great side of Nelson's 
 character. 
 
 Key himself apologised to his home circle for the 
 meagreness of his reports, and said, under date 29th 
 February — 
 
 " This must be very vexing to you, receiving a letter from me like this when 
 there is so much of interest going on round me, and in which I have been so 
 actively engaged. I can act, but I cannot think or write." 
 
 It has, however, been made clear that he could both 
 think and write, but in such times only for the good of 
 the public service, and on that which demanded his whole 
 attention. 
 
 While the Bulldog was at Malta, news arrived of the 
 successful revolt of Catania. The terms offered to the 
 Palermitans being, as Key had surmised, rejected, there 
 was further conflict and bombardment on the 22nd. On 
 the 23 rd and 24th the troops were worsted in two attacks. 
 The bombardment was renewed, but on the 26th the 
 troops at the palace surrendered, and on the same day the 
 Vengeance arrived. 
 
 "At midnight on the 28th January, King Ferdinand 
 proclaimed a constitution for his subjects of a more liberal 
 character than that of any other Italian State ; but no hope 
 was held out of a separate Government for Sicily according 
 to her former constitution." x 
 
 On the 29th of January the revolt broke out at 
 Messina, and in the course of time the whole of Sicily 
 passed out of the control of the King, except the fortress 
 at Messina, which his troops never lost. 
 
 On the 5 th of February the Bulldog sailed for Naples, 
 bearing, as Key's letter home has already mentioned, a 
 request from the provisional committee of government at 
 Palermo for the mediation of England through Lords 
 
 1 Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 300. "Early in the year the King of 
 Sardinia had promulgated a new constitution, beginning with an announcement 
 that the times were ripe for greater changes " (iii. 287). 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 155 
 
 Minto and Napier. On the same day the royal troops 
 wholly evacuated Palermo, and sailed for Naples. Nothing 
 came of Key's mission for the time. Lord Mount- 
 Edgcumbe had greatly exerted himself at Palermo as an 
 independent intermediary between the Government and 
 the revolters, counselling the latter to moderate their 
 demands, because it would be impossible for them to 
 gain more than could be accorded to the other Italian 
 States, and that such demands would meet the disapproval 
 of any mediating powers ; and that, if the King's concessions 
 were accepted on the continent and rejected in the island, 
 the King's troops, including the Swiss (about 6000), could 
 be concentrated on Palermo, which would suffer all the 
 horrors of bombardment and blockade. It was true that 
 the acts and conduct of the revolters had placed them in 
 a very strong position, but it was not to be supposed that 
 such success would attend them against the whole force 
 of the kingdom. It would be wise to accept offers made 
 with proper guarantees. Otherwise their holding out might 
 drive the King to extremities, prevent mediation, and 
 prolong a struggle full of horrors, and uncertain in its 
 issues. 
 
 A little amusing byplay is discoverable here and 
 there in the correspondence which has been preserved 
 relating to this time. Key's refugees seem to have given 
 a good deal of trouble, finding themselves masters of the 
 situation with so kind-hearted a man as the Bulldog's 
 commander. Some were invalids — or pretended invalids — 
 who possibly required more attention than it was con- 
 venient to give them. So Captain Lushington one day 
 gave Key leave to go alongside the Mole for a few hours, 
 using the weather as his excuse. " The devil's in it," 
 said a postscript, " if this does not clear off some of the 
 invalids ! " 
 
 An assault on the Castel-a-Mare being expected on the 
 30th of January, Captain Lushington ordered Key to be 
 ready to take the armed boats of both ships for the rescue 
 of the women and children in that fortress ; but it was not 
 necessary to put this measure in force. 
 
156 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Captain Lushington had induced the commandant of 
 Castel-a-Mare and the committee of the insurrectionists 
 to abstain from firing from or at the batteries on the 
 Mole, in order to secure the safety of the shipping within 
 the latter. Key was ordered to enforce this agreement 
 so far as the Mole was concerned, using his discretion as 
 to means, but avoiding the use of force until all other 
 means had failed (30th January). 
 
 On the 1st of February, Key received orders to dis- 
 charge all the refugees into vessels about to sail for 
 Malta, or otherwise, as there was not room in the ship 
 for more than the British merchants and their families, 
 and "as Her Majesty's Government could no longer be 
 at the expense of retaining them on board a man-of- 
 war." 
 
 When Commander Key got to Naples on the 6th of 
 February, he found that Lord Minto had arrived there 
 from Rome. Key had been ordered to return at once to 
 Palermo, "only waiting for such immediate answers as 
 Lord Napier might please to give him " ; but he took on 
 himself to postpone his return, at the request of Lord 
 Minto, " until the King had decided on the steps he should 
 take regarding the constitution of Sicily, a point then 
 under the consideration of H.M. Council. On Tuesday, 
 8th inst, nothing having been determined, his lordship 
 said he would no longer detain him, but expressed his 
 anxiety to hear as early as possible from Palermo." Bull- 
 dog accordingly was back at Palermo on the 9th. 
 
 Key seems to have had no less than twenty-seven 
 persons entertained in his own cabin, and at his own 
 table, for periods varying from two to twenty-two days. 
 
 On 1 2th February Bulldog was ordered once more to 
 Naples to be at disposal of Lord Minto, and she got there 
 next day, not leaving again till 7th March. While there 
 Key wrote — 
 
 " I am keeping H.M. steam sloop under my command in readiness to convey 
 the Earl of Minto to Palermo when he can obtain terms for the Palermitans 
 sufficiently advantageous to enable him with confidence to undertake a mediation 
 between His Majesty and his Sicilian subjects. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 157 
 
 " A universal feeling in favour of the King prevails at Naples, and tranquillity 
 is everywhere restored. The Neapolitans are now complaining of the obstinacy 
 of the Sicilians — that is, they, having gained all their present advantages at the 
 expense of Sicilian blood, are willing now to prevent the Sicilians from sharing 
 what they alone have struggled to obtain." 
 
 Naples was now the centre of the political storm, which 
 was exhibited to the naval world by the influx and efflux 
 of a continued stream of warships of all nationalities. 
 There were fears that Austria might step in with an army- 
 coming by sea, and assist or compel King Ferdinand to 
 revert to reactionary measures. The bustle of the arrival 
 and departure of English, French, Austrian, Spanish, Nea- 
 politan, and even Swedish men-of-war, was constant, and 
 culminated in the arrival of the Hibernia, flying Sir William 
 Parker's flag, the Trafalgar and Superb line-of-battle ships, 
 with the Hecate steam sloop, making up the numbers of 
 ships which treaty allowed to appear off the city of Naples — 
 
 "Yesterday," writes Key on 29th February, " I was presented to the King, 
 with the admiral and his captains. The King complimented me on my ship, and 
 said how much he had heard of her and her exertions at Palermo. This must 
 have been meant ironically, as my exertions, if any, were against him. 
 
 "The work I had at Palermo has been an enormous expense to me. The 
 Government, I hope, will repay me ; Lord Minto and Sir Wm. Parker have both 
 written very strongly about it. 
 
 " Many thanks for the books — Vattel," etc. 
 
 After a change of ministry at Naples, the Government 
 agreed to the sitting of a Sicilian Parliament, as well as to 
 other concessions, and Lord Minto embarked on board the 
 Hibernia for Palermo to act as mediator. Key assisted to 
 tow the fleet to sea, and then accompanied them, towing 
 the line-of-battle ships individually into Palermo Bay on the 
 10th. But on the 6th of March the news of the outbreak 
 and completion of the French revolution had reached Naples, 
 and it was like the fiery cross in its effect everywhere. The 
 revolutionary caldron boiled over. The Sicilians at Palermo 
 repudiated King Ferdinand, and declined the terms they 
 had been expected to accept. Lord Minto in consequence 
 at first refused to land, but, a compromise being effected, 
 proposals were drawn up and sent to Naples. 
 
 On the 24th March letters arrived at the British Con- 
 sulate, Palermo, representing that the town of Marsala was 
 
158 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 in the hands of an armed mob by whom the National 
 Guard had been overpowered, and large sums of money 
 levied on the native inhabitants. The British merchants, 
 whose property, consisting of buildings and machinery, was 
 of great value, were desirous that some force should be 
 sent thither for their protection, and one of them had 
 suggested that a small war steamer drawing not more than 
 12J feet water should be employed for that purpose. 
 
 The Bulldog drew more than this, but she was other- 
 wise available, and her commander had been tried and not 
 found wanting in similar service. She was now despatched 
 to Marsala, and arrived there on 26th of March. Besides 
 affording the general protection of the man-of-war's pre- 
 sence, Key was authorised to act with regard to British 
 residents and political refugees as in the case of Palermo, 
 but he was also directed to obtain a correct list of the 
 numbers of British residents at Marsala, and the extent of 
 their property which could not be easily removed in case 
 of necessity. He was to return to join the flag as soon as 
 he could quit Marsala without subjecting the residents to 
 danger, and was to examine the anchorage and the capa- 
 bility of the Mole for sheltering a small steamer. 
 
 A few hours after his arrival, Key sent the following 
 letter by courier to Sir William Parker — 
 
 " Owing to a strong head wind and sea we were unable to reach Marsala 
 before dark on the 25th. I therefore hove-to off Farignemo until daylight, and 
 anchored at Marsala at 7 p.m. to-day. 
 
 "The alarm which appears to have existed amongst the British merchants I 
 find was caused by a disturbance which took place on Monday last, the objects 
 of which were the release of four prisoners who were confined for robbing a con- 
 vent, and the change of some objectionable members of the committee. 
 
 f* Both of these purposes were effected by the "paid guard," joined by some 
 of the lower orders of the town and country people ; not a shot was fired. They 
 surrounded the Town Hall, and, after declaring the committee dissolved, pro- 
 ceeded instantly to elect new members, who appear not only more popular but 
 more respectable than their predecessors. The P.H.R. was re-D.Q.K., which, 
 combined with other circumstances, places it nearly beyond doubt that he was 
 D.Y.K. the change of D.Q.K. 1 The National Guard did not make their appear- 
 ance, nor have they since, though they exist to the number of 200 or 300 ; but 
 they are unorganised, unofficered, and their arms are private. 
 
 1 The meaning of these letters, taken from the vocabulary signal-book of the 
 day, is lost, as no copy of it is to be found. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 i 59 
 
 M On the occasion of this disturbance, many of the Marsalese came forward 
 with subscriptions that they had before withheld ; the money thus collected is 
 used by the committee in paying the Guard (which appears to correspond to 
 Scordato's troops at Palermo) and labourers for repairing the roads etc. This 
 Guard, which is the existing power, consists of 60 men ; and on the 20th about 30 
 of the mob joined them. They have committed no excesses, and but one man is 
 known to have been stabbed. Since the 20th they have not appeared except 
 to preserve order in the town ; and though the security of such Guards must be 
 rather doubtful, yet, as long as they are paid regularly, the merchants consider 
 there is nothing to fear. The wine establishments of our merchants, of which 
 there are four, are close to the beach at a short distance from the town, distinct 
 from each other, and each surrounded by a wall. The valuable part of their 
 property being Marsala wine, which the Marsalese will not touch, they have no 
 alarm for the safety of that. As regards their persons, the usual feeling towards 
 the English exists here, increased by the fact of their employing large numbers 
 of the working classes, with whom they are very popular. 
 
 " I have obtained lists of the British residents and property at Marsala and 
 Mazarra ; at Trapani there are more. 
 
 "I have also copied a plan of the port, and corrected it by our own 
 observations." 
 
 There being thus nothing to detain the Bulldog at 
 Marsala, she was back again at Palermo on the 28th, when 
 Key sent in a further report — 
 
 " On Sunday afternoon I despatched a courier with an account of the present 
 position of affairs at Marsala, since which all I have seen confirms what I therein 
 stated. On Monday morning I went to the committee and told them what I 
 naturally supposed they were aware of, that they were responsible for the safety 
 of the British residents, and that I reminded them of it, not as showing a want 
 of confidence in them, but with the hope that it would be an additional reason 
 for them to exert themselves to maintain order. The points which appear to me 
 to require immediate attention are — the formation of the National Guard, a means 
 of raising money for their present use, and measures to be taken for supplying 
 the town with a sufficient quantity of wheat. Considering that by drawing the 
 attention of the committee to these points I should best secure the interests of 
 the British merchants, whose property I was sent to protect, and which property 
 could not be removed if danger should be apprehended, I urged them, on the 
 plea of their responsibility, to take steps for the adoption of the measures above 
 mentioned. For the first, they called out the National Guard and marched 
 them round the town with music, etc. I saw them armed, 78 in number. 
 For the second, they propose a small and equitable tax on the natives, besides 
 obtaining the promise of several voluntary contributions. For the third, they 
 have sent inland, and have taken up vessels to send to Malta for wheat. The 
 President appears to be against these measures ; the rest of the committee are 
 anxious for them, but are miserably indolent. The President is, of course, 
 obliged to adopt the opinion of the majority. If they succeed he will, I think, 
 resign, which is much to be wished for by all, his only support being the ' paid 
 guard,' who at present can carry everything with a strong hand. 
 
 " On the evening of Monday, 27th, a message came from the towns of Trapani 
 and Salemi, to the effect that, ■ Hearing the National Guard in Marsala had ceased 
 
1 60 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 to act, they offered to send Guards from their towns to assist in maintaining order 
 should the Marsalese require it.' This offer will, I think, be accepted from 
 Salemi. 
 
 "Ona better examination of the port by Mr. Ball, the master of this sloop, 
 he reports that no vessel drawing more than 9 feet would be safe to anchor 
 inside." 
 
 The Bulldog's next service was conveying Lord Mount- 
 Edgcumbe and family to Civita Vecchia ; this passage in 
 a man-of-war being offered to him as some return for his 
 great services as an intermediary during the disturbances 
 at Palermo. 
 
 The King of Naples had meanwhile positively rejected 
 the Sicilian ultimatum, and Lord Minto gave up all idea 
 of further intervention for the present ; the squadron 
 sailed for Naples, arriving there on the 2nd of April. 
 Bulldog anchored at Bahia Bay — so as not to contravene the 
 terms of the treaty regarding the number of ships which 
 might anchor off Naples — on the 4th. Next day she sailed 
 over to Castel-a-Mare, and on the 9th joined Sir William 
 Parker's squadron, now under way for Malta, although, as 
 Sir William Parker wrote on the 3rd of March — 
 
 " The rapid succession of events in this quarter seldom gives me a moment's 
 repose, and we are again astounded by the intelligence just received from Naples 
 of the insurrection in Austria, and the threatened movements in Lombardy, 
 Sardinia," etc. 
 
 Bulldog called in at Palermo with despatches, and then 
 followed to Malta, arriving there on the 1 2th, and finding 
 present the whole fleet, consisting of the Hibeniia (flag), 
 Queen, Trafalgar, Rodney, Vanguard, Superb, and Vengeance 
 — all sailing line-of-battle ships — with the steamers Terrible, 
 Volcano, and Oberon. 
 
 But there was no rest for the sole of Key's feet in 
 these times. The admiral was obliged to keep vessels 
 localised, as it were, at the different Sicilian ports, to watch 
 over British interests in a country where things were every- 
 where going from bad to worse. The sailing brig Harlequin 
 was at Syracuse, the sailing frigate Thetis at Messina, and 
 the steam ship Gladiator at Palermo. These ships all re- 
 quired constant recruitment and supply, and their presence 
 was more than ever called for since the Sicilian Parliament 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 161 
 
 at Palermo, 1 3th of April, had voted the deposition of King 
 Ferdinand and his dynasty, the decree being signed by the 
 presidents of both chambers and by Don Ruggiero Settimo 
 as the president of the kingdom. Marsala, too, was again 
 in a state of agitation. The merchants wrote on the 2nd 
 of April, thanking the admiral for the " efficient protection " 
 afforded by the Bulldog, but regretting that the effects were 
 now wearing off, that they could not hope that local order 
 would be preserved, and asking again for the presence of a 
 warship. 
 
 In the result Bulldog was off again on the 1 5th of April 
 to Syracuse, Messina, Palermo, and Marsala, — to the three 
 first-named places to convey orders and supplies to our 
 ships, as well as to gain information as to political affairs ; 
 and to the last, to endeavour to secure the safety and calm 
 the fears of the British merchants, while informing them 
 that there was no steamer available to be stationed at their 
 port. 
 
 Bulldog was back at Malta on the 1 9th, and reported 
 the news of the acts of the Sicilian Parliament, which 
 was heard at Messina, but no other grave political in- 
 telligence. As to Marsala, he found confidence restored 
 in consequence of the change of president. The new 
 man, 
 
 " Don Marie Milo, had completely reorganised the National Guard, and had 
 succeeded entirely in restoring tranquillity to the town and its environs. The 
 farmers and country people had made a firm stand against the robbers who 
 have lately pillaged the country, and they were fast disappearing. The vice- 
 consul and British merchants stated that for the last fortnight they had felt them- 
 selves in perfect security, and considered Marsala at that moment as less liable 
 to disturbance than any town in Sicily." 
 
 It had been a sort of reward held out to the wearied 
 and now somewhat worn Bulldog, that at the conclusion of 
 this last cruise there should be a rest. Sir Wm. Parker 
 had said that on her return from Marsala she would " require 
 three weeks to put her tubular boilers in order." She now 
 had this rest until the middle of June. 
 
 Single words are often potent in meaning, even when they 
 drop from the pen almost inadvertently; and the admiral's 
 word "tubular" denotes Key's ever-fast connection with 
 11 
 
162 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 material progress. The tubular boiler was then, in fact, a 
 new development, which has since overspread the whole 
 field of steam machinery, and only now shows signs of 
 yielding to other plans. 
 
 The remarkable change in the personnel of the engine- 
 room complements since these days comes into note at this 
 period. 
 
 Key reports in May, that 
 
 "One second-class and two third-class engineers having been appointed to this 
 steam sloop in March 1847, to be borne as part complement, in addition to the 
 four engineers usually borne by sloops of this class, I beg to request that you will 
 be pleased to sanction the erection of cabins for their accommodation in such 
 places as may be found suitable without inconvenience to the service." 
 
 It has been constantly pointed out that when we do 
 not find Key's mind working in the direction of the material 
 progress of the navy, it is merely that other more pressing 
 ideas are wholly occupying it, and that the tendency is 
 dormant. So soon, then, as the Bulldog gets fairly into 
 dockyard hands at Malta, we find his mind back in its 
 normal groove, and busy with suggestions for the improve- 
 ment of his ship. 
 
 The coal capacity of H.M. steamers was just about as 
 burning a question in 1 848 as it was for long after, and 
 Key, in his continual full-speed passages and eternal coal- 
 ings afterwards, could not but draw conclusions favourable 
 to the increase of coal supply. The Bulldog measured 
 1 1 24 tons (about 1555 tons displacement), and she was 
 calculated to stow 300 tons of coal, her full speed being 
 estimated at 10.4 knots. The great feature of the Sidon 
 — constantly in company with the Bulldog — was her pro- 
 portionate coal capacity. She measured only 205 tons 
 more than the Bulldog (about 1840 tons displacement), but 
 she carried 626 tons of coal. So we find Key writing to 
 request that alterations made by his predecessor in the 
 stokeholds, which were intended to, but did not, improve 
 the ventilation, and yet curtailed the coal stowage by fifteen 
 tons, should be withdrawn and the extra stowage of coal 
 gained. 
 
 And then the boilers: the new-fashioned "tubular" 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 163 
 
 boilers, which were so much the object of Sir Wm. Parker's 
 solicitude. The Bulldog's repairs — chiefly replacing tubes 
 in the boilers — were estimated to take twenty-one days to 
 complete. But when the examination began, it was found 
 that the method of securing the " stays " of the boilers was 
 so defective that 452 had to be replaced and re-secured, 
 necessitating the lifting of the boilers and the removal of 
 the funnel, and occupying fifty-four days before the defects 
 were made good. 
 
 Key thereupon writes a lucid letter, with diagrams, ex- 
 plaining the nature of the disease and the remedy, which 
 no doubt became the basis of the future method of boiler- 
 making. 
 
 Just before Key's arrival at Malta, and his ship being 
 so dismantled, he had written of her as " a yacht," which is 
 the highest form of approval known to the naval vocabulary, 
 and his heart was set on a full-speed race between the 
 Terrible and his own ship, in which he hoped for victory, 
 though the estimated speed of the Terrible was 12.8, while 
 that of the Bulldog was only 10.4. 
 
 The state of Europe was such, and the arrogance of the 
 new French Republic promised to be such, as to make a 
 great war inevitable. The whole navy looked for it with 
 enthusiasm, and no one with more delighted forecast than 
 Commander Key — 
 
 " What do you think of our chance'of a war ?" he writes ; " I think it inevit- 
 able in the course of a year. I should like to get my promotion first. People 
 tell me I have a good chance of it, but I can't see any." 
 
 This thought of promotion followed on the fact that on 
 the 3rd of May he had concluded that year's command of a 
 sea-going ship, which made him eligible for captain's rank 
 if it should come into the hearts of the powers at Whitehall 
 to grant it to him. His hopes were founded on his war 
 services in the Parana River subsequent to the battle of 
 Obligado, and on his certainty that under Sir Wm. Parker's 
 command he had attained all the distinction which had 
 been open to him under the circumstances. 1 And at this 
 
 1 He was sure also of what in those days was powerful support— the good word 
 of Lord Minto and Lord Mount- Edgcumbe. 
 
1 64 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 time promotions were so numerous, and so free from arti- 
 ficial trammel, that Key's hopes were by no means un- 
 reasonable. There rested in the hands of the Admiralty 
 an ability to advance the best men with a free hand, which 
 they have long since parted with, — whether for the weal or 
 the woe of the navy remains yet to be seen. 
 
 But there was a terrible spur at this time urging on 
 Key's hopes. He had spoken of the fatality of Malta 
 to the young naval bachelor, without apprehending that to 
 one so warmly affectionate as himself escape was unlikely. 
 And the terrible spur now was that his affections were 
 strongly engaged, while the circumstances made fruition 
 almost impossible. Yet the spur acted, and on the I 5th of 
 May he wrote — 
 
 " I have just done rather a cool thing: written to Lord Auckland (the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty) to ask him for my promotion, telling him that I want it 
 very much, and therefore I hope he will give it me. But the truth is, that pro- 
 motion to me at this moment would be everything. I should be ready for the 
 coming war, which / think inevitable, and for which I want to command the 
 Dauntless} And then I feel I might succeed in placing myself in a position to 
 obtain that which is uppermost in my thoughts, and to gain which I would 
 willingly sacrifice everything in the world but my dear home." 
 
 Meantime things in the Mediterranean world showed no 
 signs of a return to normal conditions. There was war 
 between Sardinia and Austria, in which the Pope had been 
 forced by the populace to join. The Grand Duke of 
 Parma had abdicated, fled, and put himself under British 
 protection, and the Pope's own flight with the same object 
 was anticipated. A bloody but abortive insurrection had 
 taken place at Naples on the 1 5 th of May. Sicily remained 
 — all but the fort at Messina — absolutely in the hands of the 
 insurgents. There had been in places, especially at Palermo, 
 great disorganisation and excesses, and an almost constant 
 battle between the town and the fort at Messina, to which 
 was added the guns on the Calabrian side of the Faro. The 
 interference of the French Republican Government through 
 its fleet, and also of the United States, complicated matters, 
 
 1 Still bent on that which was foremost and newest. The Dauntless was a 
 new pattern screw corvette then at Glasgow, and of which great things were 
 hoped. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 165 
 
 and seemed to put the end farther off. But no vigorous 
 effort was made by the King's Government for the recovery 
 of the island, and British trade remained hampered by want 
 of regular communications. 
 
 Bulldog being ready for sea on the 15th of June, she 
 sailed from Malta under orders to go to Palermo, to receive 
 the merchants' correspondence and specie for conveyance to 
 Naples, there to supply the Thetis with provisions, and then 
 to return to Palermo, relieving the Hecate in the duty of 
 protecting British interests, in the still unsettled state of 
 affairs. 
 
 In a letter dated 24th June, Key describes the situa- 
 tion — 
 
 " Here we are again at Palermo ; but what a change ! The people are as 
 gay and lively as if they had never had anything to trouble them ; and, in fact, 
 their affairs are looking very promising. They have long discussions in the 
 chambers about their constitution, and the powers they intend to grant their 
 King — when they find him. But in the meantime their National Guard is in good 
 condition, their taxes are coming in, their navy growing up, and everything gives 
 the appearance of order and content. English influence still carries the day, 
 and a word of advice from us will do anything. How glorious is the title of 
 * Englishman,' — and yet we are not loved. How is it ? Is it our national 
 conceit ; our self-confidence and supercilious bearing — the consciousness of 
 superiority that we show ? Or is it jealousy ? It is gratifying to think the latter, 
 but I fear it cannot be that altogether. 
 
 "lam likely to remain at Palermo about a month or more, perfectly alone. 
 I look forward to it with real pleasure, after the whirl I have been living in. . . . 
 
 11 What would I give for my promotion at this moment ! I have received the 
 usual official answer to my memorial to Lord Auckland, ' that it has been received, 
 and my claims (?) will be taken into consideration.' So I must give up all 
 thoughts of it until Bulldog is paid off. Meanwhile I am very happy in my 
 ship. She is in fair order, and everybody, I believe, comfortable. I have lately 
 had a third lieutenant appointed — Hobart 1 — connected with the Halseys. . . . 
 
 " Now I am my own master at Palermo, I keep regular and early hours. To 
 bed at half-past ten, up at six, and go on shore to bathe in the most picturesque 
 little grotto that can be imagined. It is a bathing-place fit for a queen. I will 
 try to sketch it for you some morning. . . . 
 
 " The accounts of the insurrection at Naples were very much exaggerated. 
 Some dreadful atrocities were committed by the troops after the disturbance was 
 quelled, but it was soon over. All is now apparently quiet. The chambers 
 meet on ist July, and after that, I think, a revolution may be daily expected. 
 The King deems his crown safe,— I think it is not worth two months' purchase at 
 the most. I am in constant communication with Lord Napier at Naples, who 
 tells me of all his interviews with H.M. and correspondence with Lord Palmer- 
 
 1 The late Hobart Pacha. 
 
1 66 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ston, so as to keep me au fait. Will a European war spring out of this ? Yes, 
 within six months." 1 . . . 
 
 Key was now about to exercise his discretion in the 
 matter of an international act, which showed great decision 
 and considerable enterprise, and might have had — as he 
 very well knew — the most important political effects. He 
 had had directions from his Commander-in-Chief to recognise 
 the de facto Government of Sicily so far as to return salutes 
 made to him under the Sicilian flag, but he was without 
 orders as to offering salutes himself; and, though he was 
 informally acquainted with the favourable views towards 
 the independence of Sicily entertained by the Queen's 
 Government, he had no authority to give currency to those 
 views by any overt act. 
 
 But, on the ioth of July, the Sicilian Parliament decided 
 to offer the crown of Sicily to the Duke of Genoa. On the 
 1 1 th, Key took on himself, as the representative of Great 
 Britain, to approve of the act by offering a royal salute to 
 the Sicilian flag. Having so committed England, he had 
 the address to commit France, by inducing the captain of the 
 French 90-gun ship Inflexible — Captain Guyet — to follow 
 his example. The smoke of the guns had scarce time to 
 clear away, before Sir William Parker with his four sail-of- 
 the-line and steamer Hecate put in an appearance. This 
 young commander was, however, master of the situation, 
 and in sporting phrase " had forced the running." Sir 
 William must either repudiate the act of his subordinate, 
 and so express a disapproval of the Sicilian choice, which 
 did not in fact exist, or else he must follow his subordinate's 
 lead. There was no alternative, and the British flagship 
 saluted the Sicilian flag with twenty-one guns at eight 
 o'clock the next morning. 
 
 Key's official account of his proceeding, which was 
 accepted, read as follows : — 
 
 "I have the honour to inform you that I have this morning received an 
 
 1 All the captains of ships now in Italian or Sicilian waters had orders to 
 keep themselves in thorough cognisance of political movements, and Lord Auck- 
 land, referring to their action, wrote: "It is gratifying to see with what dis- 
 cretion our officers almost invariably perform the diplomatic duties which devolve 
 upon them." 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 167 
 
 official communication from the Sicilian Government, through H.M. Consul, to the 
 effect that the Duke of Genoa had been unanimously chosen by the Parliament 
 to fill the throne of Sicily. 
 
 "Being aware of the expressed intention of Her Majesty's Government to 
 recognise this kingdom when any member of the reigning Italian House should 
 be called to the throne ; and also that the King of Sardinia had expressed his 
 readiness to accept it for his son, if selected : — 
 
 "I deemed it my duty to publish this recognition without delay by 
 saluting the Sicilian flag with twenty-one guns at 8 a.m., which was returned 
 by the castle." 
 
 What Sir William Parker thought of this energetic and 
 decisive junior commander for thus forcing his hand is not 
 on record. The admiral said nothing to Key himself, and 
 only admitted to Lord Auckland, that 
 
 "As Commander Key, with the knowledge of Lord Palmerston's letter to 
 Mr. Abercromby in May last, and of Lord Napier's views from subsequent com- 
 munications, had taken the initiative in saluting the Sicilian flag, which was 
 followed by the French ships, I deemed it best on my arrival not to require the 
 compliment of a national salute in the first instance to us, and both the president 
 of the Senate and members of the Government expressed themselves very grateful 
 fork." 1 
 
 But he must have become aware that the commander 
 of the Bulldog was every whit as bold and decided as he 
 was prudent and amiable. 
 
 Key's private account of this and other matters was 
 given later in a letter not finished till the 31st July, when 
 the Bulldog was at Naples — 
 
 " I have been lying at Palermo as senior officer, and have been much 
 interested in the Sicilians' selection of a king. As you know, a republic never 
 was their aim. We have used our influence to hasten a selection, as it was 
 important to us to keep down any republican feeling, which is so prevalent in 
 these times. A son of Charles Albert was chosen by a large majority, and I 
 think he appears to be every way suited. Charles Albert is considered the 
 rising star ; I very much distrust him, nevertheless. His ambition may be of 
 advantage to the Sicilians, if they only know how to make proper use of it. 
 The morning after the king was chosen I saluted him with twenty-one guns, 
 thereby publicly recognising this kingdom in the name of England, without orders I 
 I know I have done good, but I hope I shall not be blamed by my commander- 
 in-chief. Sir William Parker has not told me he approves ; but the fleet arrived 
 a few days after, 2 and he saluted the Sicilians with the same number of guns, 
 which looks very like it. 
 
 1 " These formal and public acts of recognition of the Sicilian flag, which 
 gave rise to an animated debate in the House of Lords, had only anticipated 
 orders from England. "—Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 349- 
 
 3 It was the same day. 
 
1 68 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 " There is now a row at Naples ; the King has been levying contributions on 
 the British merchants against the treaty, and our admiral is very irate. We 
 were all lying comfortably at Palermo with the French fleet — with which we 
 have been fraternising to an immense extent — when the signal was made to 
 weigh ; and as Odin has broken her machinery, I am again in luck, and proceed 
 with the admiral, leaving Odin at Palermo. We are now on our way. 
 
 11 The Howe joined us yesterday from England and Malta. She brought me 
 a book from Burrows, and a letter — later than any I have had from you — The 
 Life of Mrs. Godolphin. He showed it to you, he says. 
 
 "My old friend Trehouart 1 is rear-admiral of the French fleet. I saw a 
 great deal of him. He was very cordial. It is astonishing how disgusted all 
 the French navy are with the late doings in France. They are all warmly in 
 favour of Louis Philippe — and say so ! They say the republicans make them 
 ashamed of their country. 
 
 "As you may imagine, I am very anxious to know if the recognition of this 
 Sicily is approved of by Lord Palmerston. . . . 
 
 " I would give much — very much — for my promotion just now, but of that 
 there is no chance. 
 
 " July 31 st. — We arrived at Naples two days ago, and as we anchored the 
 fleet in line before the town, H.M. of the two Sicilies (as he still styles himself) 
 soon came to terms, humbly apologised for all his misdeeds, and offered us boxes 
 at the opera. We then saluted him, and all was over." 
 
 At Naples the Bulldog lay until the 21st August, then 
 weighing to enable Key to proceed on what he well calls 
 " the most important and delicate secret mission . . . that 
 had fallen to the lot of a naval officer for some years." A 
 certain dramatic melancholy hangs over this moment of his 
 life, noticed by himself in saying that " as to-morrow will 
 see the most important act of my public life, so is this 
 letter the most important of my private life." 
 
 The attachment already spoken of was, in short, now 
 to be declared, and request made to his parents to assist in 
 bringing it to an issue — a request which could not be met, 
 and never was met. The nature of what was said it is not 
 necessary to repeat, but readers of Nelson's earlier letters 
 can easily put their hands on parallel passages. 2 
 
 1 He was the officer who commanded the French squadron at Obligado. 
 
 2 A whimsical antithesis to the seriousness of Key's position, public and private 
 at the moment, is worth noting, as showing the many-sidedness of the naval 
 officer's work, and the pitfalls that surround his career. Key had just received a 
 letter from the accountant-general of the navy, telling him that the bills he had 
 drawn on Government account were charged against his pay, and that all future 
 bills arriving with his signature would be similarly treated, because his purser's 
 accounts had not been received in office. The accountant-general " begged to 
 request that he would have the goodness to explain why he had not compelled 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 169 
 
 The mission Key had now embarked upon was the 
 following. The state of Rome had been growing more 
 and more critical. All the Pope's benevolent intentions 
 had miscarried. He had added his yeast to the political 
 wort, in the hopes that the ensuing fermentation would be 
 of the right kind, and that, in the battle of germs to follow, 
 those capable of pressing it on to the vinegar stage would 
 be beaten. But it was all a miscalculation, and the fermen- 
 tation went on to putridity. 
 
 Sir William, on the 21st of August, had received from 
 the Governor of Malta, the Right Hon. More O'Ferrall, a 
 letter enclosing one from Dr. Nicholson, the Roman Catholic 
 Archbishop of Corfu, who was then at Rome, and in close 
 and confidential communication with the Pope. This letter 
 represented that " not only did His Holiness and his people 
 require protection from a violent, though small, faction, but 
 British subjects stood in need of it. One of the priests of 
 the English mission, the Rev. Mr. Hearne, was stabbed in 
 the most public street of Rome about nine o'clock on the 
 Thursday night previous." The object of the letter was to 
 get an English ship of war at Civita Vecchia as soon as 
 possible. The Pope could not himself make such a request, 
 but it was clear that it really came from him. It was also 
 clear what was to be read between the lines, and what 
 had indeed been for some little time apprehended, namely, 
 that preparation for the sudden flight of the Pope was 
 necessary. 
 
 Accordingly, Commander Key received public orders to 
 the effect that the political agitation at Rome might affect 
 the safety of the persons and property of Her Majesty's 
 subjects there, and that he was to take the Bulldog without 
 loss of time to Civita Vecchia for the purpose of affording 
 them due protection. But secret orders, enclosing to him 
 extracts from Dr. Nicholson's letter, informed him that 
 
 the purser to send home his accounts ? " to which there was nothing to be said 
 but that the purser ought to have sent them in, and had neglected to do so. 
 This custom of whipping up captains of H.M. ships by charging the pecuniary 
 laches of their subordinates against them personally has very ancient roots, and is 
 not, I believe, even now extinct. 
 
i 7 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 news had just been received at Naples that commotions 
 had actually commenced at Rome. He was told — 
 
 "You will gather from this the desire that Her Majesty's steam vessel should 
 reach Civita Vecchia as soon as possible, and, in the event of the Pope wishing to 
 take refuge on board her, you will receive His Holiness with all the attention you 
 can show him, and place the Bulldog at his disposal for his conveyance to any 
 part of the Mediterranean station. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Petre, 1 I believe, holds a demi-official diplomatic position at Rome, 
 and I know not on what footing he may stand with Mr. Freebome a and Dr. 
 Nicholson respectively ; but it will perhaps be advisable for you to communicate 
 with them separately, and be cautious in your observations that you do not excite 
 expectations which it may be difficult to realise." 
 
 Key reached Civita Vecchia on the afternoon of the 
 22nd of August, and at once proceeded to Rome. On 
 communicating with Mr. Freeborne and Mr. Petre, he found 
 that, though tranquillity was in a precarious state, there was 
 no occasion to expect any immediate disturbance. There- 
 fore, after making himself master of the situation, he returned 
 to the admiral at Naples on the 28th, and then made the 
 following report — 
 
 " With reference to your confidential letter of 21st August, I have the honour 
 to inform you that, after having ascertained the posture of affairs as known 
 publicly by Mr. Petre and Mr. Freeborne ; and perceiving that Mr. Petre had no 
 knowledge of any wish having been expressed by the Pope for the appearance of 
 an English ship of war, and did not think such a request probable, I did not feel 
 myself at liberty to inform him. I called the next day on Dr. Nicholson (Arch- 
 bishop of Corfu), and told him of my arrival and its purpose. He said how 
 delighted His Holiness would be ; that he would acquaint him with it through his 
 confidential secretary as early as possible ; that at present there was no fear of per- 
 sonal danger to the Pope or those round him, but he knew the anxiety of His 
 Holiness to have the countenance of a British ship of war. 
 
 "The next morning I saw — at his own request — the confidential secretary, 
 Monsignore Cobboli Russi, who told me His Holiness had desired him to present 
 me to him at a private audience that evening. 
 
 11 1 then acquainted Mr. Petre that you had desired me to ascertain if there 
 was a probability of the Pope being in personal danger, and to offer a refuge in 
 Bulldog, and that, hearing of my inquiry through his secretary, he had sent to see 
 me privately. 
 
 "On Friday evening I was presented to H.H., and communicated to him 
 your instruction to me in nearly the following words, — the substance of it I had 
 before told to his secretary and to Dr. Nicholson : — 
 
 " * I trust H.H. will perceive how highly Sir William Parker appreciates the 
 confidence that has been placed in him, by sending so immediately a vessel of war 
 
 1 The Hon. Win. Petre. 3 H.M.'s consular agent at Rome. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 171 
 
 on hearing that it was H.H.'s wish— although at this moment the disturbed state 
 of Europe requires so many ships to be detached at different points for the protec- 
 tion of British subjects. 
 
 "'Sir William Parker sent the Bulldog, with the idea that the personal safety 
 of H.H. — of such importance to the peace of Europe — was in danger, and that 
 he might afford him a refuge. But as I perceived from the existing state of Rome, 
 and had been informed by his secretary, that no immediate danger was to be 
 apprehended, I considered it my duty, if H.H. would acquaint me with his 
 wishes, to return with them to Sir William Parker, trusting that the appearance 
 of the Bulldog might already have had a beneficial effect by showing the cordiality 
 existing between the two Governments. If at any time H.H. may feel that the 
 presence of a British ship of war would be of immediate service to him, and would 
 notify the same to Sir William Parker in any manner H.H. might think proper, 
 though I am not acquainted with the commander-in-chiefs instructions, yet from 
 his high regard for the person of H.H. I feel sure that Sir William Parker will 
 meet his views as far as is consistent with those instructions.' 
 
 "H.H. then said that he desired me to express his gratitude and thanks most 
 warmly to Sir William Parker for sending the Bulldog. Her arrival at Civita 
 Vecchia will of itself have a beneficial effect, and if a vessel of war could now and 
 then look into Civita Vecchia it would give H.H. very great confidence, and tend in 
 a high degree to the tranquillity of Rome. H. H. has reason to expect that instruc- 
 tions will be sent to Sir William Parker from England for him to assist in main- 
 taining the external and internal tranquillity of those Italian States that require 
 assistance, and would ask the British admiral to send him information of his 
 instructions when he receives them, if it is consistent with his duty. H. H. would 
 feel obliged to Sir William Parker if he could send to England to ascertain 
 whether — in case a congress should be held for the pacification of Italy — a repre- 
 sentative from Rome would be received. H.H. then informed me that a few 
 days ago a Sardinian steamer of war had landed at Civita Vecchia (without per- 
 mission) 300 Venetian troops who had served with the Piedmontese, and then 
 returned to Genoa. These soldiers wished to march across the Papal States to 
 Ancona, thence to Venice, which the Pope refuses. They were fearful of going 
 by sea, as they had twice capitulated and then broken faith by fighting again. 
 H.H. wished to know if the admiral would assist in transporting them to 
 Venice. 
 
 "I then replied that I would inform the commander-in-chief of all H.H. 
 desired me ; I believed he had not received the instructions H.H. had spoken of, 
 but he knew the favourable disposition of the British Government towards H.H., 
 and had acted accordingly. But with regard to the Venetians, I thought I could 
 hold out no hope of the admiral giving assistance, but begged to ask if he had 
 taken any steps with the Sardinian Government on the subject ? H. H. said he 
 had sent to Genoa to ask for their removal, and was in daily expectation of the 
 answer. Again expressing his thanks very cordially, H. H. dismissed me. 
 
 " I could not directly ascertain the truth of the report that the French Republic 
 was about to send 2000 troops to Rome, but I think I could see that it had been 
 circulated by the Government for the purpose of intimidating the people. 
 
 "The reason that he did not send a request for a ship of war through Mr. 
 Petre was that he was anxious that the people should not entertain the idea that 
 he was asking for foreign aid, as had been said with regard to the Austrians. 
 
 " Rome, at this moment, is in a state of anarchy, though tranquil ; its 
 tranquillity being the result only of the personal regard which all classes still 
 
172 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 have for H.H. (though the prestige of his public character is lost), and a 
 desire to see the result of the impending mediation — as the Government have 
 not the shadow of power. The question at issue appears to be still, whether 
 they shall, or shall not, assist with arms in the expulsion of the Austrians from 
 Lombardy. The radicals wish to oblige the Pope to prepare an army of 
 20,000 men as a defensive army (as they term it), notwithstanding the em- 
 barrassed state of the finances. But, as they are expecting that the Austrian 
 expulsion is only delayed, and that if the mediating Powers do not succeed in 
 detaching Lombardy from Austria the Italians will again march against them, 
 this army is no doubt intended to aid. 
 
 " The Pope thinks he has no occasion to drain the country for this purpose ; 
 certainly not for offensive measures; and as for his own defence, he trusts to 
 his weakness, and the uprightness of his motives, for protection. 
 
 "The leaders of the popular party are Mamiani, an ex-minister in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, and Cicero Acchio, a well-known popular demagogue of 
 the lowest class, who has much influence with that class. The 'Vicenza 
 heroes,' who at present retain forcible possession of the Jesuit College, are 
 waiting to take a prominent part. 
 
 "Another guarantee for the continued tranquillity of Rome is the well- 
 ascertained cowardice of the people. The utmost, then, that is at this moment 
 to be feared, is a local popular tumult for the purpose of plunder ; or a reaction 
 in favour of the Pope, and an attack on the clubs in consequence. A re- 
 organisation of the National Guard is in contemplation, for the purpose of 
 dismissing those whose position does not give them an interest in the tranquillity 
 of the State. England appears to be in high favour with all parties." 1 
 
 But if there was to be, for the time, quiet at Rome, 
 and rest for the commander of the Bulldog in that direction, 
 there was to be none in Sicily. The Duke of Genoa had 
 refused the crown, and the preparations by the Neapolitan 
 Government for forcibly recovering the island had pro- 
 ceeded steadily. Two days after Key's arrival, 1 frigate, 
 9 war steamers, and 4500 troops quitted Naples to com- 
 mence the attack. It was not at first known at what point 
 the operations would begin, but Sir William Parker sent 
 the Porcupine to warn Captain Robb in the Gladiator at 
 Messina, and Captain Pelham in the Odin at Palermo, as 
 well as our Consuls, and therefore to warn the whole 
 island. 
 
 The first attack was directed upon Messina: 1500 
 men were thrown into the fort, still held by the Neapolitan 
 Government, and 2000 men were landed elsewhere. A 
 
 1 Sir William Parker's comment on Key's proceedings was: "He appears 
 to have acquitted himself very judiciously, and has given a very good account of 
 the present state of Rome." 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 173 
 
 vigorous bombardment of the town by fort, ships, and 
 troops, at once, began upon the 3rd of September, and 
 was continued. The whole of the British residents sought 
 refuge on board the Gladiator, and on the 4th, Commander 
 Key, in the Bulldog, was ordered to assist Captain Robb 
 in the duty of protecting British interests. 
 
 Bulldog spent a few hours only at Messina, and then 
 was sent to Palermo to be back again at Messina just 
 after noon on the 7 th, and was at once crowded with 
 refugees; forecasting the speedy fall of Messina. The 
 night of the 7th was an awful one for the unfortunate 
 Sicilians. By sunset the town was on fire; the batteries 
 on the Calabrian side joined in the din of the general 
 bombardment, and just before midnight three heavy ex- 
 plosions took place in the town itself. 1 Terms were 
 arranged between the contending leaders through the 
 mediation of the French and English commanders of the 
 ships of war, and Messina capitulated to the King. 
 
 The Bulldog remained at Messina till the 1st of 
 September, and then carried her unfortunate refugees to 
 Catania, when they were landed in a temporary security 
 destined to be disturbed by later and, if possible, greater 
 horrors. Bulldog was then back with all speed to Messina, 
 then to Malta, where she arrived on the 1 3th. She coaled, 
 watered, 2 and provisioned, and took in stores for the 
 whole squadron at Naples. Then, after much bustle, she 
 was back again at Catania and Messina, and reached 
 Naples on the 18th, where her proceedings were stayed 
 for the present. 
 
 About this time Key writes — 
 
 "I have barely time to write a line, but as a French vessel is going to 
 Marseilles I will tell you that I am at Messina. The Neapolitans have sent 
 2000 troops and retaken it. We have been giving succour where we can, and 
 have been crowded with poor starving refugees for some days. I do not think 
 the King will recover Sicily. Palermo will break him ; but these Sicilians are 
 
 1 According to Sir A. Phillimore, the whole of this destruction was in viola- 
 tion of an engagement to cease firing.— Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 378. 
 
 2 It must be noted that now, and for years afterwards, "watering" was, even 
 for steam vessels, a matter of precisely the same moment and importance as Key 
 had found it in the Russell when he first went to sea. 
 
i 7 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 only a few removes from the Neapolitans ; they are great cowards when danger 
 is nigh. ... 
 
 M Europe is run mad. I think France and Austria will fall out. 
 
 "Such ruining and bloodshed as we are witnesses to here make one's heart 
 bleed. 
 
 "Why do you wish the Sicilian flag hauled down after I have been working 
 night and day to get it hoisted, and at last risked my commission by saluting it 
 without orders ? — and, what is more, I persuaded a French commodore with two 
 line-of-battle ships to do the same four hours afterwards. My salute was 
 approved of, and the consequence is that when Ferdinand is on the point of 
 recovering the island — which I believe he could do — England and France say 
 'No.' He has retaken Messina, and there he must stop, while we mediate and 
 get abused by both parties for our pains. Italy is in a precious mess. Flaring 
 up from one end to the other. We helped to light the fire, and I should not 
 be surprised if we burnt our fingers in trying to extinguish it. 
 
 " I had a most interesting mission to His Holiness the other day ; was five 
 days at Rome, saw a good deal of him privately. I have just been to Malta 
 to coal, and am now on my way to the admiral at Naples. . . . 
 
 "You want to know about our 'evolutions'; I really have little to interest 
 you on that subject. We get the ashes up at the end of every watch, and poke 
 the fire in proportion to my impatience. The result of this scientific arrange- 
 ment is, that we have beaten everything we have yet seen. 
 
 " My Bulldog is allowed by everybody — French, English, and all — to be the 
 handsomest steamer in the world. . . . 
 
 " You cannot wish for my promotion more than I do." 
 
 Then from Naples, under date, 28th September 1 848 — 
 
 " Owing to a suspicion of cholera at Malta (which is all nonsense), they have 
 put me in quarantine here, much to the admiral's disgust, and mine also. Not 
 only that, but they will not admit me in any case. The admiral is going to 
 send me wildly about the world to seek admittance where I can. It is very 
 annoying to be avoided in this way like a pest. This wretch of a king owes 
 the Bulldog a spite for the many good turns we have done him, and he takes this 
 opportunity of revenge." 
 
 As early as the 6th of September, Sir William Parker 
 had been writing in some sort of regret at the absence of 
 the Bulldog, as if his dependence on her in times of trouble 
 and difficulty were something special — 
 
 " I shall be glad to know," he writes to Captain Robb at Messina, "the facts 
 of the past, and the prospects of future operations, and to have back Bulldog as 
 soon as she can be spared ; for I have just received accounts from Codrington, 
 dated the 4th, of an insurrection at Leghorn, by which the mob and republicans 
 have worsted the forts and strong positions from the dastardly authorities, and 
 they have proclaimed a republic. " 
 
 But Bulldog, as we have seen, could not be spared, 
 and another steam vessel was sent. Later, that is, on the 
 
THE BULLDOG~i% A % i 75 
 
 3rd of November, she went to Leghorn, and met on her 
 way a furious gale while she was under sail alone. She 
 lost sails, spars, a boat, and washed away much gear. 
 Contending thus for seven hours off the north-west point of 
 Elba, she finally struck her lower yards and topmasts and 
 pushed into Leghorn Roads under steam alone, dropping 
 both anchors for her greater security. 
 
 Meantime at Rome the troubles augmented and came 
 to a head. On the 15 th of November the Pope's prime 
 minister, Count Rossi, was assassinated, and Sir William 
 Parker at once sent orders to the Bulldog to proceed to 
 Civita Vecchia. 1 
 
 Key's public orders directed him to proceed to Civita 
 Vecchia, " for the purpose of affording such protection and 
 refuge to Her Majesty's subjects at Rome or in that vicinity 
 as might be in his power," and he had authority to repair 
 in person to Rome to confer with the Hon. Mr. Petre 
 and H.M. consular agent. But he had the following secret 
 orders — 
 
 " In the event of the commotions at Rome placing the person of the Pope in 
 jeopardy, and of exciting a determination in His Holiness to quit the Papal States, 
 you will be ready to receive him on board H. M. steam vessel under your com- 
 mand, for conveyance to any port to which he may desire to retire, in conformity 
 with my secret instructions to yourself of the 21st of August 1848, when the 
 Bulldog was last sent to Civita Vecchia. 
 
 " Dr. Nicholson is now here (at Naples), but he informs me that the 
 Very Reverend Monsignore Cobboli Russi will be the best person for you 
 to communicate with, for the purpose of ascertaining the wishes of the 
 Pope, but I sincerely hope His Holiness may not deem it necessary to quit his 
 territory. 
 
 " In any transactions of this nature, you will be governed by the instructions 
 given to you in the former case." 
 
 Bulldog arrived at Civita Vecchia on the 23rd of 
 November, and a strong breeze springing up with swell from 
 the south-east, showed that even the Bulldog was a trifle 
 too large for the harbour. She struck her rudder on the 
 ground and broke her tiller, but happily there was no more 
 damage, so Key was able to proceed to Rome next morn- 
 
 1 "As she is the only steamer of force," wrote Sir William Parker to Mr. 
 Petre, " at my disposal that can be got within the breakwater at Civita Vecchia." 
 — Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 430. 
 
i;6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ing. Bulldog returned to Naples on the I st December, and 
 Key made the following report to the admiral — 
 
 "According to your instructions on November 24th, the morning after my 
 arrival at Civita Vecchia I proceeded to Rome to ascertain the turn affairs would 
 probably take under the direction of the new ministry. 
 
 " The same evening I had an interview with Mr Temple. 1 He informed me 
 that he had that afternoon seen the Pope, who had then said ■ that he could not 
 now consider himself a free agent, but that he felt he was in the hands of Pro- 
 vidence, and he would calmly await the result ' (alluding to the assassination of 
 Rossi and the subsequent disturbances). From this I concluded that His Holiness 
 had no present desire to quit Rome ; but I intended the next morning to have 
 communicated the arrival of the Bulldog to him through his private secretary. At 
 noon on the 25th it was known generally in Rome, and confirmed from the 
 Quirinal, that His Holiness had left the palace during the night, and had pro- 
 ceeded, it was believed, in the direction of Civita Vecchia. 
 
 " The details of his flight, as far as could be ascertained at Rome, are these : 
 — The French ambassador called at the Quirinal in a close carriage early in 
 the evening, and about 10 left the palace with His Holiness, without exciting 
 the suspicion of the civic guard, who have been on duty at the palace since the 
 departure of the Swiss. They proceeded in the direction of Civita Vecchia, where 
 the Due d'Harcourt arrived before daylight, and went on board the French 
 steamer Tenare.* She then weighed and steamed about five miles to the south- 
 ward off Santa Maranella, where it is supposed that the Pope embarked. The 
 Tenare then proceeded to Gaeta. 
 
 " Various reasons are given for the Pope's departure. A large party attribute 
 it to the influence of the French and Spanish ambassadors to serve their own ends, 
 but they cannot give any plausible reason for the assertion. Others say it has 
 taken place at the instigation of the King of Naples ; it being his object to prevent 
 the Pope from appearing to lead or to countenance the still progressing march of 
 liberalism. Very few openly avowed what the consciences of the majority must 
 tell them is the true cause, viz., the ingratitude of a cowardly and short- 
 sighted people to a liberal-minded but weak prince. The Pope felt himself 
 no longer a free agent ; a ministry were acting as if sanctioned by him, against 
 whose formation he had protested in the presence of the Diplomatic Corps, and 
 had declared that any use made of his name by them was illegal. In this 
 ministry Count Mamiani refused to accept office unless the Pope would sign a 
 certain programme of a system on which they were to act. This contained many 
 projects which the Pope could not conscientiously sanction ; had he refused, 
 the people, in support of their favourite minister, would have repeated their 
 demonstrations before the palace, and the Pope — deprived even of his Swiss 
 guards, in fact guarded by the very people who would threaten him — would be 
 obliged to yield ; and this would be repeated at every step. 
 
 11 His Holiness therefore considered that by retiring from the capital he would 
 effectually deprive them of the appearance of legality which his presence would 
 afford to measures of which his conscience could not approve. He may consider 
 
 1 Hon. W. Temple, who had passed through Civita Vecchia on his way to 
 Rome the day before. 
 
 2 The Tenare was a 4-gun paddle aviso launched in 1840. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1848 177 
 
 also that by his withdrawal, thus leaving the ground to the adverse party, he 
 almost entirely precludes the possibility of a civil war ; and that, by leaving them 
 to their own devices, he hastens the moment when their eyes will be opened to 
 their folly, and unjustifiable treatment of their lawful sovereign. 
 
 " In the course of the afternoon of the 25th several proclamations appeared 
 from the ministry, the chambers, and the Circolo Romano (the Democratic 
 Club), their tendency being to impress on the people and the Diplomatic Corps 
 that the Government existed in the same form, and by the same legal authority, 
 as before the Pope's departure. The ministry seemed to lay great stress on the 
 Pope's autograph letter to the head of his household, in which (if it is correctly 
 published) he recognises them as a ministry and recommends to their care his 
 household, his palaces, and the tranquillity of the city. From the importance 
 they attach to this, it may be received as an acknowledgment that they felt that 
 he had not done so before. However, the proclamations had a very beneficial 
 effect, as the tranquillity of the city was in no instance disturbed. 
 
 " Count Mamiani accepted office as minister of foreign affairs ; the chambers 
 declared themselves sitting in permanence, and appointed a commission to punish 
 any attempt to disturb the public peace ; the civic guard was strengthened at the 
 different quarters ; all was carried on in the Pope's name ; no wish to proclaim a 
 republic, which had been talked of so much before the Pope's departure, has 
 been since shown. The existing ministry is supported by all ranks for the 
 present, as they are of the popular choice, and have had recourse to the usual 
 expedients for conciliating them by giving employment to the labouring classes, 
 and promises to the rest, both of which must soon fail for want of money and 
 means. 
 
 " Several of the leading Roman princes have left Rome. Among them those 
 of Borghesi, Doria, and Rospigliosi : their excuse is, that they cannot recognise 
 the existing ministry ; their reason is fear. 
 
 " During the three or four days succeeding that of the Pope's flight, no change 
 of consequence occurred in the city. Business, which had slackened, was re- 
 sumed, the populace continued quiet, the palaces were untouched, and the civic 
 guards on duty reduced to their usual number. The discussions in the chambers 
 were of little interest ; the law of primogeniture was declared to be abolished, 
 and an attempt made to pass a Bill for the confiscation of the property of the 
 noblemen who had left the city. On the 28th the Government determined 
 on the issue of treasury notes to the amount of half a million of scudi, to be 
 raised by a mortgage on Government property. But as this would not be legal 
 without the Pope's signature, a deputation was prepared to wait on His Holiness, 
 to ask him to return, or at all events to give them the money. 
 
 " The people, asking permission of the Government, deputed a body to wait 
 on the four cardinals who had remained in Rome, to thank them for the con- 
 fidence they had placed in them, and to assure them of their safety. 
 
 11 Intelligence was received from Bologna, that on hearing of the death of 
 Rossi, and subsequent coercion of the Pope, the Bolognese had declared General 
 Zucci dictator under the Papal Government, but refused their adhesion to the 
 ministry selected by the Roman mob. 
 
 "It seems difficult to foresee what may ensue from the present state of the 
 Papal Government, as it is certain that this state cannot continue. 
 
 11 If left to themselves, they have two courses open to them. To declare a 
 republic ; or to recall the Pope to the capital on his own terms. The ministry 
 and the middle classes would be against the former,— the ministry chiefly from 
 12 
 
178 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 knowing the difficulty that would arise in procuring money ; the middle classes, 
 from fear of foreign intervention. 
 
 "The step His Holiness has taken, by placing himself within the influence of 
 the King of Naples, may contribute to the extension of republican feeling. Of this, 
 Prince Camiro, the leader of that party, is taking every advantage, and is exerting 
 himself to forward his views among the soldiers and civic guard by means of his 
 money and personal familiar intercourse with them. 
 
 "The other course remaining to them may be followed when, after this 
 ministry and any other they may choose has tried and failed to satisfy them, 
 temporary expedients are all exhausted, and when, without bloodshed (for they 
 are undoubtedly too great cowards for that), the better feelings of the better 
 portion of the Romans succeed in persuading the mass that their folly and blind- 
 ness is leading to their own ruin. 
 
 "It is much to be feared that His Holiness and his personal adherents wish 
 for, and expect, foreign interference ; and if neither England nor France will 
 grant it, that he will have recourse to Austria — a measure that surely would be 
 likely to produce the worst results, not only to the Papal territory but in the 
 whole of the north and centre of Italy, and this is a step which I should think 
 may be rather encouraged in his present neighbourhood. 
 
 "If I might presume to pass an opinion on the Roman people, I should say 
 that a theoretical Italian league is their sole political object, and cowardice the 
 basis of all their actions." 
 
 In a private letter written at this time, Key says — 
 
 " I have never stood as I do at this moment, courted by everybody of all ranks 
 and classes. Directly the dreadful assassination of the Pope's prime minister took 
 place, the admiral, though he had six or seven ships with him, sent a steamer off 
 to the Gulf of Spezzia — nearly 400 miles — expressly for me to come down, to go 
 to Rome to comfort the Pope, and to endeavour to persuade him not to leave his 
 dominions. 1 I arrived at his palace only three hours before he left, and found 
 him completely under the influence of the French minister, the Due d'Harcourt. 
 He left Rome ; and Mr. Temple, Lord Palmerston's brother, who happened to 
 be in Rome en route for Naples (as minister), left the next day. I was then the 
 only official representative of England in Rome. You may imagine the work I 
 had. Rome was in a state of anarchy, but was soon tranquillised ; I had, how- 
 ever, as much on my hands as I could well get through. You cannot imagine the 
 effect of a British ship of war. I assure you, people wrote to the ministers at 
 Florence and Naples, and a large number said that my presence at Rome kept 
 the city tranquil, though my ship was fifty miles off ! I remained in Rome a 
 week, and then returned to the admiral. . . . 
 
 " The Pope remains at Gaeta, and I am only sorry that he has placed himself 
 under the influence of the King of Naples ; he could not have found a worse 
 adviser in Europe ! 
 
 "Poor Pio Nono ! His sun is clouded, I think not set; but it will never 
 shine brilliantly. 
 
 " His case shows clearly that good intentions with public men avail nothing. 
 A line of conduct is required, not a benevolent wish. A better-hearted man — 
 and a weaker — does not exist. 
 
 1 See note ante, p. 169. 
 
THE BULLDOG~i% A % l?9 
 
 "The Grand Duke of Tuscany is not very stable on his throne at this 
 moment. If we cannot succeed in reconciling Sicily to King Ferdinand, we 
 leave her to her fate ! " 
 
 Poor fellow ! This letter of Key's is full of moans, but 
 of resigned moans, over the adverse circumstances which 
 prevented the families on both sides from giving him any 
 hopes that his affections might reach their goal 
 
 " This letter," he writes, " is apparently hurried and unfeeling. Believe me, it 
 is not the latter. The subject of the former part of it is in my thoughts at all times 
 and in all places. The world here who think me so happy, and so envied, little 
 know how much I suffer when I am alone." 
 
 The Bulldog did not lie long at Naples. Fresh troubles 
 sprang up in Rome, and more persistent rumours of French 
 military intervention came to hand. On the nth of 
 December, Key was back again with his ship at Civita 
 Vecchia, and next day was at Rome. His orders were 
 thus now become usual : to offer support and asylum to 
 British residents, and to report on the state of affairs. On 
 the 20th he wrote privately as follows — 
 
 11 1 must write to you once more from Rome, although my time is so occupied 
 that I have not many spare minutes. Two days after I last wrote to you, we 
 received accounts of fresh disturbances having taken place since the Pope's de- 
 parture. The republican party had strengthened, and although the ministry still 
 carried on the government in the name of the Pope, yet they found that they must 
 soon yield to the voice of the people, and declare a republic. The prospect of 
 foreign intervention contributed much towards keeping all parties quiet, but as 
 this prospect appeared daily fainter, the moderate party became less able to hold 
 their ground. The admiral thereupon again sent me to Civita Vecchia, to proceed 
 from thence to Rome and keep him acquainted with the real position of affairs, 
 and in case of need to protect British subjects and property. Of danger to our 
 countrymen there has been no cause to fear, not only from the happy manner in 
 which we have been enabled to keep ourselves clear of being even suspected of 
 being concerned in any of the late intrigues, but also from our being held in very 
 wholesome respect and fear. 
 
 "I have, since I have been at Rome, been doing my utmost to induce the 
 admiral to persuade the Pope to come to Civita Vecchia ; there his person would 
 be safe and his judgment unbiassed. He would be in his own dominions, and 
 could act constitutionally as the head of the Papal Government. At present he is 
 at Gaeta, in the Neapolitan territory, surrounded by the people who advised his 
 flight, and who are each anxious to obtain possession of his person and to bias 
 his opinions, to serve their own ends and those of the countries they repre- 
 sent. The Pope, therefore, influenced by such advisers, has refused to hold any 
 intercourse with the existing Government in Rome. This ministry, though cer- 
 tainly much to blame, in the first instance, for allowing themselves to be forced on 
 
180 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the Pope by the people, have, since his departure, shown very great moderation 
 and forbearance. They have succeeded in preserving the form of government 
 intact, and have shown a disposition to conciliate the Pope, and to sacrifice much 
 for his return. It will be said perhaps, • No thanks to them ; it is for their own 
 interest.' Undoubtedly it is ; but they deserve credit for being able to see what 
 is for their own real interest, and for identifying their own interest with that of 
 their country, which at this moment I believe the ministry, and the majority of 
 the Romans, are doing. 
 
 " However, it is impossible for this state of things to continue. Either the 
 Pope must return to a part of his own dominions, or the form of government must 
 be changed. At present all legal business must be at a standstill, because the 
 Pope, being recognised as the sovereign, all documents requiring his signature 
 and sanction must either remain unexecuted or be illegally performed. The 
 chambers have certainly appointed a 'Giunta' to fulfil the office of regent, but 
 still it is doubtful how far that is a legally constituted authority, and people will 
 not be very ready to accept documents of which the legality may be doubted. 
 This can only be remedied, if the Pope still refuses to return, by declaring a 
 republic, which, as the probability of an intervention is decreasing, I think must 
 soon be done. The admiral has paid the Pope a ceremonial visit at Gaeta, but 
 little took place. 
 
 "Although I cannot but praise the conduct of the Romans in the present 
 crisis, their character I believe to be cowardly and contemptible. They are not 
 only cowards, but they are not ashamed to own themselves such ; and when a 
 people has fallen to such a depth there is but little hope of recovery. 
 
 "December 22nd. — I have to-day returned to Civita Vecchia. I persuaded 
 Lord Napier to come with me from Naples, and to accompany me to Rome, as, 
 Mr. Temple having arrived, he is an idle man and had never seen Rome. He 
 has been a most agreeable companion ; and although our acquaintance did not 
 open last year under very happy auspices, 1 yet we are now very great friends. 
 He will assuredly rise to be one of our first diplomatists. He has returned to-day 
 to Naples. I intend to spend my Christmas with my officers, and return to Rome 
 next week. I had two or three very pressing invitations to spend my Christmas 
 at Rome, — and indeed at the Mount- Edgcumbes I have truly a home. They 4 are 
 all, from the earl down to the dear baby, so truly affectionate and kind. Baby 
 wrote me a letter the other day, her first ; she is five years old, and her hand was 
 guided, — it is so sweet ! I have also very good friends in Lord and Lady Morton, 
 and Lord Aberdour, their son. He is my morning companion in Rome. They 
 are honest, single-minded Scotch people. 
 
 " I hope this long story about Rome will not weary you. I have said but 
 little about the fine arts, but I think there is little in Rome that Lady Mount- 
 Edgcumbe and I have not visited together. I spend my mornings in politics till 
 the post goes out at 2, then we ride or drive to a gallery, church, or studio. She 
 has very correct taste, and has much directed and improved mine. I find much 
 
 1 I do not know what this refers to, but I imagine the occasion is alluded to 
 by a letter of Sir William Parker to Lord Napier, of 23rd January 1848, in which 
 he says, " I cannot help feeling rather sensitively the censure which the early part 
 
 of your private letter to myself against Commander , who is one of the most 
 
 amiable, zealous, and intelligent young officers that I have ever met with." — See 
 Life of Sir William Parker , iii. 295. 
 
THE B ULLDOG— 1 848 181 
 
 enjoyment in, and that I have a much more just appreciation of, sculpture 
 painting ; > my organ of form predominates over that of colour. 
 
 more 
 
 than painting 
 
 " The mediation which we are attempting between Naples and Sicily proceeds 
 very unsatisfactorily. Russia and Spain have stepped in, and strongly advise 
 Naples to concede nothing. We shall therefore, I fear, be obliged to leave them 
 to fight it out. Russia has also decidedly said that if France enters Italy to 
 intervene in any way, she will do so too. This will tend, I presume, to preserve 
 peace." 
 
 Just at this time came the climax to the question of the 
 Bulldogs purser and his accounts — 
 
 1 ' I have had a little annoyance with my purser, who, from being very dishonest, 
 has gone mad and run away ; and has written to the admiral accusing me of 
 tyranny ! Poor fellow ! I am doing all I can to get him his arrears of pay, but 
 I fear I shall fail, as his accounts are much behind ; but the admiral is kindly 
 assisting me to do so. " 
 
 The two official reports on the Roman situation with 
 which Key closed the year 1848 — one dated 18th Decem- 
 ber, and the other 30th December — are of considerable 
 interest historically, as well as in relation to the character I 
 am endeavouring to picture, and as disclosing the extra- 
 ordinary and unique position that the young officer occupied. 
 The first report stands as follows — 
 
 ■ ' I fear there is much reason to apprehend that a change in the form of the 
 Papal Government must soon take place. 
 
 1 ' Since the departure of the Pope from Rome, the Romans have exhibited 
 very great moderation and forbearance ; the endeavours of the ministry have 
 been unceasingly directed to preserve the constitutional form of government, with 
 the Pope as their sovereign ; and various attempts have been made towards 
 reconciliation with His Holiness by letter, and by a deputation charged with a 
 conciliatory mission requesting his return, which was not admitted to the 
 presence of the Pope. Whether terms were proposed to which the Pope 
 could honourably accede or not, does not alter the fact that a means was thereby 
 offered to pave the way towards a reconciliation which was denied to the 
 Romans. 
 
 "The form of government still continues unchanged. Therefore all acts, 
 legal documents, issues of treasury notes, and other measures requiring the 
 sanction and signature of the Pope, and ministers appointed by him, must either 
 be postponed or be performed illegally. To remedy this, the chambers appointed 
 a council, consisting of the senators of Rome and Bologna and the Gonfaloniere of 
 Ancona, to perform the functions of their sovereign. This must, however, be but 
 a partial remedy, as there will naturally be a disinclination to accept documents 
 whose legality may be afterwards doubted. This cannot long continue, and 
 
 1 This was not his first conception. He believed, the year before, that he was. 
 more taken with painting than with sculpture. — See ante, p. 135. 
 
182 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 there are but two alternatives — the return of the Pope to his own dominions, or 
 a change in the form of government. 
 
 " Many circumstances tend to strengthen the republican party — the return 
 of the Roman legion from Venice ; the arrival of General Garibaldi in Rome ; 
 the approaching deficiency of money to pay the troops and labourers in the 
 public works ; the prevailing idea that foreign intervention will not take place ; 
 and the increasing dissatisfaction with the Pope for placing himself within 
 Austrian influence. These must soon produce a republican movement, which 
 can only be prevented or delayed by the establishment of an uninterrupted com- 
 munication between the Pope and his subjects, which cannot take place while 
 H.H. remains at Gaeta. 
 
 "With due deference, therefore, I conceive that those who have the honour 
 and welfare of H.H. at heart should in most forcible terms urge him to leave his 
 present residence and proceed without delay to a part of his own dominions, 
 where he might enter into conciliatory communication with the Romans. For 
 this purpose, no place would appear to be so well suited as Civita Vecchia, 
 where his person would be free from danger and his opinion uninfluenced. 
 
 " His Holiness is anxious to prevent anarchy and bloodshed. This step 
 would be the surest method. 
 
 "To-day, the Gonfaloniere of Ancona having arrived, the senator of Rome 
 (Prince Corsini) and he take upon themselves their office. It is supposed that 
 the ministry will resign their portfolios to them, and that Mamiani will be 
 requested to form a new ministry, from which it is probable that Sterbini will be 
 excluded," 
 
 The report of the 30th December runs thus — 
 
 11 Having received information that much excitement existed in Rome in 
 consequence of the recent proclamation of H.H., I proceeded there to ascertain 
 if any public disturbance was likely to ensue. 
 
 " I find considerable change in the direction of popular feeling. There is 
 now, I fear, but little probability that the Pope will ever be able to return 
 peaceably to his capital. The people of Rome and part of the provinces, through 
 the medium of the Popular Club, have been calling loudly for the convocation 
 of the National Assembly. This has been seconded by part of the civic guard, 
 the rest remaining silent. The Government have postponed the question from 
 day to day, in the hope of making some arrangement with the Pope ; this hope is 
 now at an end. The chambers were opposed to the measure ; but for several 
 days the number required to form a House (fifty) not being present, the 
 ministers, believing themselves called upon by the people, pleaded this as an 
 excuse to close the chambers — not to dissolve or prorogue them, but to cause 
 them to discontinue their daily sittings. This was done on the 26th. The Prince 
 Corsini, the leading member of the Giunta, then resigned. The Giunta there- 
 fore no longer exists, but a provisional Government, consisting of Galletti and 
 Camerata, with the ministry as the executive. A project for the institution of 
 the National Assembly was immediately published, which was issued by a decree 
 on the 29th, the substance of the project being as follows : — 
 
 "The object of the National Assembly is primarily to determine on the form 
 of government; the election to commence on 21st January; the number of 
 representatives to be 200; the qualification for an elector, that he be 21 years 
 of age. 
 
THE BULLDOG— \%tf> 183 
 
 "The representatives to be above 25 years of age. They will receive two 
 scudi a day during the session. Each representative must obtain at least 500 
 votes. The election to be by ballot. The National Assembly to meet in Rome 
 on February 5th. 
 
 " On the issue of this decree a salute of 101 guns was fired from St. Angelo ; 
 but it was received by the populace without any public display of satisfaction. 
 
 "There appears but little prospect of any disturbance taking place in Rome 
 until after the meeting of the Assembly on February 5th, unless the Pope in the 
 meantime accepts foreign aid to replace him on his throne. The Government 
 have determined on the issue of notes to the amount of 600,000 scudi on a mort- 
 gage of national property ; the notes issued on a former occasion being in general 
 circulation. 
 
 "If, therefore, I do not receive intimation from you to continue at Civita 
 Vecchia, I shall, in accordance with my orders, leave that port about the 5th or 
 6th of January, provided nothing takes place that may lead me to expect an 
 outbreak." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BULLDOG — 1849-1850 
 
 THE opening of the New Year found the Bulldog 
 still at Civita Vecchia. On the 3rd of January, 
 Key made the following report to the commander- 
 in chief — 
 
 "The promulgation of the decree for the convocation of the Constituent 
 Assembly, which I mentioned in my letter of 30th December, has developed a 
 different feeling in the people of the provinces and the majority of the Romans to 
 that which I was then led to expect. The clamour which had been raised for its 
 formation appears to have emanated from the clubs in Rome and the provincial 
 towns. The feeling now existing against it, though but little expressed, from 
 want of union in the provinces and from a fear of the troops in Rome, is not the 
 less universal, and is very evident from the sullenness with which it has been 
 received, and the general refusal to join in any rejoicings for its adoption. 
 
 11 Galletti and Camerata, the two remaining members of the Giunta, have 
 withdrawn from the Government ; and Sterbini, who may now be said to govern 
 Rome, assisted by about 3000 troops, has vainly endeavoured to persuade the 
 civic guard to join with them in any expression of approbation of the Constituente. 
 It would appear impossible, with such a majority against it, for Sterbini's Govern- 
 ment to exist, were it not for the support of the troops, who take part with those 
 who pay them. And although there is more than sufficient force either in the 
 city or the provinces to overthrow the Government, had they the inclination, yet 
 what advantage would accrue to them as a moderate party from a step which 
 might produce bloodshed, and would at once give the Pope a sufficient apparent 
 excuse for taking any measures against them ? 
 
 " From this, and from information obtained from different sources, it is my 
 firm conviction that there exists a nearly universal wish for the Pope's return, 
 and that a very slight conciliatory disposition on his part would be responded to, 
 and meet with favourable terms of accommodation, by his subjects. 
 
 "The people of Bologna and Ancona have already declared for him; and 
 had the Romans any communication with His Holiness, they would, I feel con- 
 fident, follow their example. But, deprived of all power of making their wishes 
 known, by his refusal to communicate, and the absence of foreign ministers, they 
 only await the time when His Holiness may see fit to ascertain their opinions ; 
 and meanwhile they feel it to be their duty to maintain order. 
 
 " It appears undoubted that the troops would join any Government that has 
 
 184 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 185 
 
 the power of paying them, and that, on the fall of Sterbini and the present 
 ministry, they would adhere to their successors without a struggle. 
 
 "May I then with deference offer, that if the wishes of the Romans could 
 be conveyed to the Pope, it might be the means of saving bloodshed in Rome, 
 and the preservation of the Pope's temporal power without recourse to foreign 
 intervention." 1 
 
 The authorities at Civita Vecchia do not seem to have 
 been very friendly to the Bulldog, and they took some 
 opportunities of crossing her. The following is Commander 
 Key's account of one of these minor troubles, given in a 
 letter to Mr. Freeborne, the British consular agent at 
 Rome — 
 
 "With reference to your letter of the 3rd of January, enclosing a remon- 
 strance on the part of Mgr. Muzzarelli, relative to proceedings of H.M.S. 
 Bulldog, under my command, on the 29th ult., I beg to state that, at 2.30 a.m. 
 on the 29th ult., the Antelope having left Leghorn in pratique, arrived off this 
 port, and sent a boat in to communicate with the Bulldog. This boat, on 
 approaching, was hailed twice not to come on board. The officer, however, 
 boarded and delivered a despatch and a certificate of health signed by the com- 
 mander and surgeon of the Antelope. 
 
 "The commanding officer of the Bulldog directed that no communication 
 should take place with the shore until notice had been sent to the health officer, 
 after daylight, of the occurrence. About an hour after, the health officer came 
 on board and placed the ship in quarantine. At 9 a. m. an officer called at the 
 health office, made a declaration of the facts, and explained how the irregularity 
 had been committed. At n a.m. the Bulldog received pratique. 
 
 "From this statement, I trust that H.E. will observe that the confidence 
 which is invariably placed in British officers in every port in Italy, except in 
 Civita Vecchia, as regards their strict and conscientious conformity to quarantine 
 regulations, is not without just grounds. 
 
 " His Excellency will also perceive that in the present instance no infraction 
 of the sanitary law has taken place, and I hope may therefore be induced to give 
 such directions to the authorities at Civita Vecchia as may prevent complaints 
 involving groundless suspicion of British officers in future." 
 
 Events at Rome marched in the direction of one of the 
 alternative roads sketched out by the commander of the 
 Bulldog. On the nth of February he wrote to Sir 
 William Parker — 
 
 "The Roman Constituent Assembly, which met for the first time at Rome 
 on the 5th ult., was received by the Roman populace without any sign of 
 
 1 I think it must have been to Commander Key, and in reference to this letter, 
 that Sir William Parker wrote, hinting that though these public letters were 
 " excellent," yet, as some of them went home, it would be desirable to moderate 
 the tone so as to make it appear that he was not giving his own opinion, but 
 stating those of others.— Life of Sir William Parker, iii. 454- 
 
1 86 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 enthusiasm or even of satisfaction, notwithstanding the numerous attempts to 
 excite it by processions, ceremonies, and speeches. After two days' preamble, 
 it proceeded on the 8th to decide on the form of government which should be 
 adopted in the Roman States. At the conclusion of a sitting which was pro- 
 longed until i a.m., on the 9th, the following articles were decreed : — 
 
 "Art. 1st. — The Papacy is fallen, by deed and by right, from the temporal 
 government of the Roman States. 
 
 "Art. 2nd. — The Roman Pontiff shall have every guarantee for the inde- 
 pendent exercise of the spiritual power. 
 
 "Art. 3rd. — The form of government of the Roman States shall be a pure 
 democracy, and shall assume the glorious name of ' The Roman Republic.' 
 
 "Art. 4th. — The Roman Republic shall have those relations with the rest of 
 Italy which the common nationality requires. 
 
 " This decree was announced both at Rome and Civita Vecchia by the ringing 
 of bells, a salute of 101 guns, and a change of the Papal flag for the Italian 
 tricolour. I have not yet heard whether much enthusiasm was exhibited at 
 Rome by the people. More was shown at this place (Civita Vecchia) than I had 
 expected." 
 
 In a private letter of 1 2th February, Key says — 
 
 "The Romans, as I daresay you know, have declared the Papacy to be de- 
 prived of the government of the Roman States, and have declared a republic. 
 Poor children ! They want me to salute their new Government, but no — I have 
 done that once. 
 
 "I daresay it amuses you sometimes to read of all the outcries about our 
 having saluted the Sicilian flag. You know it was I who did it, on my own 
 responsibility. But my name has never been mentioned publicly, I am happy to 
 say, as the admiral instantly took the burden off my shoulders, and Lord Palmer- 
 ston off his. I knew from Lord P.'s private letters that it was his wish, but I 
 had no orders. 
 
 "I perfectly agree with the line of policy Lord P. has adopted with regard 
 to the kingdom of Naples, and I feel convinced that when the events of the past 
 year are reviewed and summed up by an impartial historian, that he will get the 
 credit he deserves, notwithstanding the pack of curs snarling at him daily, with 
 that wretched Times (on that question) at the head. 
 
 "While I was writing this, a steamer arrived from the admiral, ordering mc 
 to look for and protect the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who with his family had 
 fled from his dominions. " 
 
 So the Bulldog was off again on a fresh mission of 
 relief to popes, grand dukes, and other representatives and 
 victims of an Old-World system which was everywhere 
 tumbling about their ears. This time the Bulldog was to 
 go to San Stefano, 1 where it was expected the Grand Duke 
 would be found. There also Key would find the Thetis, 
 under the command of his old friend, Captain Codrington, 
 
 1 A small fishing village close to the southern frontier of the Grand Duke's 
 dominions 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 187 
 
 under whose orders he was to place himself, being ready to 
 take the Grand Duke and his family to any port in his own 
 dominions, or to any other port in the Mediterranean to 
 which he might desire to be taken. Key detailed his pro- 
 ceedings in a letter to the commander-in-chief, dated 
 Naples, 22nd February — 
 
 "According to the instruction contained in your memo, of the nth inst., 
 I left Civita Vecchia in H.M. steam sloop under my command on the morning of 
 the 13th, and arrived at San Stefano the same evening, where I found H.M.S. 
 Thetis. 
 
 " Owing to circumstances with which you are acquainted, Captain Codrington 
 deemed it advisable to remain at San Stefano until H.R.H. the Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany had decided on the course he intended to take. As he will therefore 
 have informed you of all events up to the departure of H.R.H., I have only to 
 add that on the evening of the 20th the report that a republic had been pro- 
 claimed at Florence being announced at Orbitello (a town six miles from San 
 Stefano) by a royal salute, caused such alarm to H.R.H. as to induce him to 
 embark at once in H.M. sloop Bulldog with his family and suite, consisting of 
 forty-seven persons. He expressed his desire to remain on board in the port of 
 San Stefano until the afternoon of the following day, when, after a consultation 
 with the Corps Diplomatique, he requested Captain Codrington to allow the 
 Bulldog to take him to Gaeta. Captain Codrington directed me to carry out 
 your orders. I therefore weighed, and arrived at Gaeta on the morning of the 
 22nd, when H.R.H. landed to visit H.M. the Queen of Naples and the Pope; 
 and then desired me to take him to Mola, where H.R.H., family, and suite dis- 
 embarked at 4 p.m. 
 
 "At 7 I weighed from Mola, and proceeded to rejoin your flag in Naples 
 Bay." 
 
 Writing privately of the Grand Duke of Tuscany's 
 flight, Key says — 
 
 " He was quite undecided as to what course he intended to take. We 
 naturally advised him on no account to quit his dominions; and as Charles 
 Albert sent to offer him 20,000 Piedmontese troops to join with his own army in 
 replacing him on his throne at Florence, we advised him without hesitation to 
 accept it. This, after twenty-four hours' deliberation, he did, and sent an order 
 to his general to advance on Florence, saying he would join him in two days at 
 Massa. Think now of his next step ! The Grand Duchess, you know, is sister 
 to the King of Naples, and she, at heart, wished to accept her brother's offer of 
 an asylum at Gaeta or Naples, and thus join their fortunes to the Pope's. 
 
 " She is a most charming woman, but I fear very Jesuitical, and, her influence 
 with her husband proving greater than Captain Codrington's, the Grand Duke 
 one evening sent to me to ask me if I would take him to Gaeta, and as I con- 
 sented—having the admiral's authority— he embarked in great haste with his 
 family and suite. ... 
 
 "The royal family I liked very much indeed, especially the Grand Duchess, 
 with whom I became great friends. The ladies and gentlemen in their suite were 
 not so charming. On leaving the ship, the Grand Duke wished to present me 
 
188 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 with the Order of San Josef, which I of course declined. You can't think 
 how charming the Grand Duchess was, — so cordial ; and so attached to her 
 children. . . . 
 
 "The admiral is going to Palermo, and, I hope, will be the bearer of terms 
 that will settle the Sicilian question — for the present at least. 
 
 " By the bye, I am told that the Chronicle has dragged me into good company 
 by adding my name to a list of delinquents who have conspired to overthrow the 
 King of Naples' Government in Sicily. I have not seen it myself; have you ? It 
 is in the Chronicle of the 8th or 9th (of February ?) I believe. . . . 
 
 "lam now on my way to Genoa ; a revolution is expected there, so do not 
 be surprised if you hear of Charles Albert taking refuge on board Bulldog, — he is 
 very shaky on his throne." 
 
 Nothing resulted from this trip to Genoa, and Bulldog 
 was back at Naples on the 9th of March, and lay there till 
 the 22nd, where, says Key — 
 
 "The King of Naples and his brother (the wretches!) have been very 
 gracious to me, on account of what they call my kindness to their sister, the 
 Grand Duchess." 
 
 On the 22nd of March the Government of the King of 
 Naples, in two successive notes, announced to Mr. Temple, 
 our minister, the failure of the English and French admirals 
 to bring about a reconciliation between the revolted Sicilians 
 and the King's Government. As a consequence, the notes 
 declared the blockade of Palermo and the adjacent coasts ; 
 announced the watching of all Sicilian ports to prevent the 
 entry of arms and supplies ; and informed the minister that 
 it was determined to proceed at once to the recovery of 
 Sicily by force of arms. 
 
 On the receipt of these notes, the English and French 
 ministers, as a last effort to prevent the miseries which were 
 about to ensue, requested Key to carry them both to Palermo 
 in the Bulldog, which he did, arriving there on the next day. 
 But the intervention of the ministers proved of no more 
 avail than that of the admirals had been. The Sicilians 
 had developed an entire distrust of King Ferdinand, and 
 hated him with a pure fervour. 
 
 As a consequence of this, Key on the 27th of March 
 was ordered to the south-east coast of Sicily, " to put himself 
 in communication with the Vice-Consuls at Syracuse and 
 Catania, for the purpose of protecting the persons and 
 property of Her Majesty's subjects resident at those and the 
 
THE £C/LLDOG—iS4 9 -i8 5 o 189 
 
 adjacent ports, and of supporting British interests on the 
 general principles of international law and strict neutrality." 
 He was to take care that British subjects were duly informed 
 that the Neapolitan Government would not be responsible 
 for any losses they might suffer in the hostile operations, 
 and warned them they were not to interfere in the affairs of 
 the belligerents. "The prominent feelings of humanity," 
 wrote Sir William Parker, " will, however, doubtless prompt 
 the exercise of any act towards the latter by which, without 
 compromising your position as a neutral, you can in any 
 way mitigate the severities of war." 
 
 On the 3rd of April, Key wrote the following report 
 from Messina — 
 
 "According to your orders, I left Palermo on the evening of the 27th for 
 Marsala. When off Cape St. Vito, a strong breeze set in from the westward 
 with considerable sea ; I therefore, knowing it to be impossible to communicate 
 with Marsala, bore up for Messina, where I arrived on the evening of the 28th. 
 
 " The Prince of Satriano was then making every preparation for moving his 
 forces, which then amounted to 15,000 men. 
 
 " I left Messina on the 29th for my station off Catania, from which place I 
 sent information to Captain Dundas 1 of my inability to communicate with 
 Marsala. On communicating with Mr. Jeans, H.M. Vice-Consul, I found the 
 Catanese as enthusiastic and as united in their cause as the Palermitans. They 
 have made many sacrifices for the defence of their city, which is well capable of 
 being defended from an attack by land, but can do nothing against a naval force. 
 All the peasantry from the surrounding country have flocked into the town with 
 their arms, and 6000 regular troops have advanced to the northward to defend 
 some difficult passes against the Neapolitans. On the 1st of April, news came 
 from Taormina that the Neapolitans had been throwing shells into that town and 
 
 one or two neighbouring villages. On the morning of the I proceeded, under 
 
 sail and easy steam, to Taormina, about twenty miles north of Catania, and found 
 that the different reports which had reached the latter place were true ; viz. : — 
 that on the night of the 30th of March about 6000 Neapolitan troops had 
 marched from Messina to the southward by land, and Filangieri had embarked 
 with 7000 or 8000 men in three frigates and thirteen steamers, and accompanied 
 the land force to cover their march. They found some resistance in the neigh- 
 bourhood of AH, which they burnt to the ground, destroyed the old fort of Alesso, 
 and then marched towards Taormina, the steamers throwing shells on shore in 
 advance of the troops. On my arrival at Taormina, the force that was embarked 
 had landed under command of Filangieri, and were stationary at the foot of the 
 hill leading to the town. The whole force had been off this place for three days. 
 It is not fortified or defended in any way but by its position, and there were no 
 Sicilian troops stationed there. The town was burning in two places, and some 
 
 1 Captain Hon. R. S. Dundas, of the line-of-battle ship Powerful at Palermo. 
 He was afterwards Commander-in-Chief in the Baltic in 1855. 
 
i 9 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 cavalry were ascending the hill as if to take possession. The frigates and 
 steamers were standing off and on in the vicinity. 
 
 " As it was evident that no more could take place for at the least twenty-four 
 hours, and being within twenty-eight miles of Messina, I proceeded under sail 
 and easy steam there to send information to you of the line of operations that the 
 Neapolitans appeared likely to adopt. I shall proceed to the southward to-night." 
 
 In a private letter, written at the same time, Key gives 
 further interesting details — 
 
 "Since my last letter, which was written while the two admirals were at 
 Palermo endeavouring to persuade the Sicilians to accept the terms, the two 
 ministers, Mr. Temple and M. Rayneval, went to Palermo in Bulldog to see what 
 they could do. They found the whole island united, as I knew they were, in 
 hatred to the King, in a contemptuous rejection of the terms, and in an enthusi- 
 astic desire for war — not for the foolish, selfish reasons that the Piedmontese 
 have, but the honest desire of a united people for free institutions. 
 
 " The Sicilians have a very distinct character from the rest of the Italians; this 
 is shown very forcibly in the universal wish for a monarchical form of government, 
 not a republic. The ministers found that they could do nothing, so they returned 
 to Gaeta, officially announcing that their mediation was at an end, and the 
 armistice was to conclude on the 29th. The admiral then sailed for Naples in 
 Hibemia, leaving the Powerful and Odin at Palermo ; sent the Queen to 
 England to be fitted to receive his flag, as I am happy to say he does not go 
 home just yet, 1 and sent me round the island to visit all the ports, and to 
 consider the east coast of Sicily as my station until the Neapolitans have 
 regained possession of every port, or they have been finally repulsed. 
 
 "With permission to go where I think it advisable, either to Naples or 
 Malta, this gives me plenty of active employment and responsibility. I am now 
 at Catania, where we expect the Neapolitans to come to attack it to-morrow 
 morning. Poor Sicilians ! I fear their good cause and good hearts will avail 
 them but little against the numbers and discipline of the Neapolitans. I hope 
 you do not believe all the trash they put in the papers about the Sicilians. 
 The correspondent of the Times, especially at Naples, most shamefully perverts 
 facts, and seizes at anything that will militate against Lord Palmerston, who 
 has acted in the whole of this mediation with great sagacity and thorough 
 honesty. No one can understand this so well as those on the spot, and who 
 can see the true bearings of the case on each side. 
 
 "However, the King may reconquer the island, but he will never reconquer 
 the people. With liberal institutions, Sicily would become one of the finest 
 countries in Europe ; under the old system of oppression and espionage, she 
 must continue in ignorance and poverty. And yet the King cannot see that it 
 
 1 The rule of a cast-iron exactitude, born of long working in routine grooves, 
 did not then exist. Sir William Parker hoisted his flag in July 1845, and did 
 not haul it down till the 28th of April 1852. In a cautious suggestion that he 
 had some claim to a longer period of service than usual, and that it would be 
 agreeable to him, Sir William, in September 1847, pointed out that the three 
 years' command was only a usual, and not a fixed, period. It was his usefulness 
 and not his convenience, however, that prolonged his command. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 191 
 
 is to his advantage that Sicily should flourish. It grieves me to the heart to 
 think that these poor people have now to suffer from their towns being bom- 
 barded and pillaged, and then to have the old yoke placed on their necks 
 which will press harder from the freedom they enjoyed during the past year. 
 We ought indeed to be thankful (as I remember I used to repeat in a child's 
 hymn) that we are born Britons ! Bless dear old England, our dear Queen, 
 and our old institutions ; and confusion to them who, in endeavouring to pursue 
 the shadow of liberty, risk to lose the substance. Much as Lord John and Lord 
 Palmerston have been abused, I think they have carried us through the past 
 year nobly ! " 
 
 The miserable history of the reconquest of Sicily is con- 
 tinued in the following successive reports to Sir William 
 Parker. The first is dated Catania, 7th of April — 
 
 " I left Messina at daylight on April 4th, and, proceeding slowly down the 
 coast towards Catania, I observed nearly all the villages on the coast to have 
 been destroyed by fire. Taormina was still burning ; the Neapolitans and Swiss 
 were in the neighbourhood of Giarre, and the squadron cruising in the vicinity. 
 At Catania I found the whole population armed and prepared to resist the 
 invading force ; the unanimity and enthusiasm of the people cannot be described. 
 They had previously imagined that the Neapolitans would either keep on the 
 coast road or disembark troops to the southward of the town ; they had therefore 
 defended these two approaches. Now, however, as Filangieri appeared inclined 
 to advance along the Borgo, which enters the town from the hills behind on the 
 N.W. side, their resistance appeared hopeless. Nevertheless they made every 
 effort during the short time that remained to them, to barricade and destroy this 
 approach. They also completed the arming of the forts, having placed sixteen or 
 seventeen guns in three temporary batteries which they had erected on the shore. 
 
 " I made arrangements for the embarkation of Mr. Jeans, H.M. Vice-Consul 
 and family, and of any other British subjects who might come to him for 
 protection. 
 
 "On the morning of the 5th three Neapolitan frigates, 1 towed by steamers, 
 appeared in sight, approaching the town, and soon afterwards seven steamers 
 rounded the point of the Cyclops in line, and steered directly for the town. I 
 embarked the Vice-Consul and two or three English residents; sent the ex- 
 Austrian Consul and a Maltese family, who came to this ship for refuge, to 
 Malta in an English brig then on the point of sailing, and weighed to be clear 
 of the line of fire. The steamers rounded-to off the town at the distance of a 
 mile and a half, as if preparing to bombard the forts ; then opened fire on them, 
 which they returned with shell, though at too great a distance to damage either 
 party. This lasted about an hour, about three shells having reached the town 
 during that time ; when the steamers hauled off and returned to the position of 
 the army near Aci Reale. 
 
 " On the morning of the 6th the squadron again appeared in sight, consisting 
 of three frigates and ten steamers, the .frigates working up for the town. At 
 11.30 seven steamers rounded-to at the same distance as before, and a mutual 
 cannonade commenced between them and the forts. About noon the smoke 
 
 Sailing ships. 
 
i 9 2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 arising from burning villages and defenceless houses betokened the approach 
 of the invading army. The Sicilians, in order to remove the struggle as far 
 from their town as possible, advanced in masses to meet them. The first 
 encounter appeared to take place about five miles from the town, when the 
 Sicilians evidently disputed every foot of ground, having taken advantage of 
 an elevated spot and some ruined walls to check the advance of their enemy. 
 They were driven back, however, step by step, rallying at every obstacle. The 
 Swiss and Neapolitans spared nothing in their march ; every hut was set fire 
 to ; in fact, their advance was traced five or six miles towards the town by an 
 uninterrupted line of smoke. About 1. 30 the two leading frigates, being able 
 to fetch the anchorage, bore up when within a mile and a half of the town, 
 and fired their broadsides. The shot fell harmlessly in the water. They then 
 hauled off, the Sicilians firing on them as they did so. The cannonade between 
 the steamers and the forts was maintained on both sides until dark. At 4 
 the Swiss and Neapolitans appeared to be entering the town by the main street, 
 still burning all behind them. I could hear continued volleys of musketry and 
 field-pieces as they advanced up the street, but could not distinguish if the 
 inhabitants of the houses were resisting. At 7 p.m. the Neapolitans appeared 
 to have obtained possession of the city as far as the cathedral, as the burning of 
 the houses reached that point. There was little firing during the night ; half 
 the beautiful city of Catania appeared in flames. 
 
 " This morning, although the Sicilian flag appeared on one of the forts, there 
 seemed to be no symptoms of further resistance. I therefore weighed from our 
 position in the southern part of the bay and returned to our former anchorage 
 close off the town. The Neapolitan squadron soon followed our example. . . . 
 
 "I fear I have occupied much of your time in describing so simple an act 
 as the capture of an unfortified manufacturing town ; but as I have always been 
 informed that the Catanese were more peaceably inclined, and more easy to 
 be reconciled to the government of the King of Naples than the inhabitants of 
 any other town in Sicily, I think it my duty to state the facts of their noble 
 resistance, that a conclusion may be drawn of the general state of feeling 
 in the island, and of the mode of invasion which seems required for its 
 reconquest. 
 
 " Catania, which is more beautifully built than any town in Sicily, and the 
 inhabitants of which are principally manufacturers, has no natural or artificial 
 means of defence, yet, with the assistance of only two or three regiments of 
 regular troops, it has made a resistance which they knew must be hopeless, yet 
 is sufficient to cause the Neapolitan general to use his entire force for its reduc- 
 tion, and, when captured, to deem it necessary to burn it." 1 . . . 
 
 Key's anger was now touched to the quick by informa- 
 tion that the town had been given up to pillage, and that 
 the troops were committing atrocities of every description. 
 He sat down and wrote the following letter to the Nea- 
 politan commander-in-chief, Prince Satriano — 
 
 " Excellency, — I feel assured that you have only to be made acquainted with 
 
 1 The Admiralty acknowledged this letter by saying they "had read it with 
 interest, and thought it highly creditable to " Commander Key. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 193 
 
 the pillage and destruction of property now taking place in the town of Catania, 
 to use your authority to prevent it. 
 
 " I conjure you, therefore, in the name of humanity, to endeavour to restrain 
 the troops under your command from committing those excesses which I am 
 aware are but too common in the hour of victory, but which until now have 
 never been known to have taken place on the capture of an unfortified, de- 
 fenceless city. 
 
 "The house of H.B.M. Vice-Consul, which is situated near the sea-shore, 
 and is distinguished by a white ensign, I recommend to your Excellency's 
 protection. 
 
 " Your Excellency will, I am convinced, appreciate the motives which have 
 induced me to bring the conduct of the troops under your command before your 
 notice, thus affording you the opportunity of exercising the noble attributes of 
 mercy and forbearance." 
 
 The prince did not send any immediate answer to this 
 appeal, but an hour afterwards he sent a guard to the 
 Consul's house, and mounted patrols paraded the streets. 
 English property of every description had been respected 
 all through the struggle. 
 
 The next report was from Malta, and dated 10th 
 April — 
 
 " In continuance of my letter of April 7th, I have the honour to inform you 
 that on the evening of the 7th I went on shore to ascertain the extent of damage 
 the city of Catania had sustained. I found in the main street by which the 
 troops entered the town, and which is more than a mile in length, not thirty 
 houses had escaped destruction. Among those which suffered are the hospital, 
 the university, and several palaces. Many houses in other parts of the town had 
 been burnt, and from Via Grande to the entrance of Catania, a distance of eight 
 miles, not a house has been spared. It is the devastation that Messina suffered 
 in the suburbs carried into the heart of the city. 
 
 " From daylight on the 7th till the afternoon of the next day the troops 
 continued to pillage. On the first day it was accompanied by fearful excesses, 
 burning and destroying every species of property ; some attempt was made to 
 restrain them on the second. 
 
 " On the evening of April 8th, Mr. Jeans returned to the vice-consulate. 
 
 "At midnight on the same day the Neapolitan squadron weighed and pro- 
 ceeded to the southward. I followed them with the French steamer Descartes, 
 and entered the port of Augusta with them the following morning, the town 
 having capitulated. I then proceeded to Syracuse, to prepare the British Vice- 
 Consul to embark in case it should be necessary for his safety. 
 
 " Soon after my arrival, a deputation from the civil authorities of the town 
 came on board to request that I would sign terms of capitulation which they 
 showed me. I refused to do so, as I conceived that a fortress from which the 
 troops had withdrawn was entitled to no conditions but what the general to 
 whom it was surrendered chose to concede. However, I called on Captain 
 Bouet of the Descartes, and found that he had refused the same request. He 
 consented to accompany me on board the Neapolitan frigate Regina, bearing the 
 
 *3 
 
i 9 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 commodore's pendant, which was then approaching the town, to convey the 
 intelligence of the capitulation to the commander of the troops, and to endeavour 
 to persuade him to extend his mercy to people of all classes captured in Syracuse. 
 We were received with the greatest courtesy, and the commodore promised to 
 respect the lives and property of the inhabitants. Syracuse was accordingly 
 taken possession of by the Neapolitan forces, without resistance, on the evening 
 of April 9th. 
 
 " The commandant of Syracuse, a Pole, with an English family, and several 
 other deeply compromised Sicilians, having come to me for protection, I received 
 them on board ; and when I had seen guards placed over the vice-consulate and 
 the houses of two or three Maltese, I determined to go at once to Malta to land 
 the refugees, as no other means was likely to offer of placing them in safety, and 
 then to return to my station without delay." 
 
 The next letter is from Catania, and dated 1 2th April — 
 
 "On my return to Catania, on April nth, I learnt that Filangieri had 
 despatched General Nunzianti with 7000 men into the interior of the province 
 to reduce the neighbouring towns, and perhaps with the hope of his falling in 
 with the Sicilian general, Mieralowski, who, it is said, is occupying Castro- 
 Giovanni with the remnant of his army, about 4000 men. Five steamers have 
 been sent to Naples to bring over two more regiments of Swiss troops and two 
 or three of Neapolitans. 
 
 " General Filangieri has issued a proclamation calling on the Sicilians to 
 return to Catania and resume their former occupations, which has had but little 
 effect. This, however, is not to be wondered at, when the conduct of the Nea- 
 politans on entering the town is considered. I have made inquiries in several 
 quarters, and cannot ascertain that the Neapolitan-Swiss army had possession 
 of a single prisoner, either wounded or unhurt, on the morning after the capture 
 of the town. But a German resident, on whose statement I can rely, has in- 
 formed me that he counted in one street 45 Sicilian bodies burnt ; many with 
 their hands tied, and several of them wounded. I believe, therefore, the reports 
 I heard from every source, even from the Swiss themselves, to be true — that they 
 showed no quarter to either prisoners or wounded : all were butchered. The loss 
 on the part of the Swiss and Neapolitans was, as near as it has been ascertained, 
 about 200 killed and 600 wounded, a large proportion among the Swiss. It is 
 stated by all parties that without the 4th Regiment of Swiss the troops could not 
 have entered the town, and that while they were advancing down the streets the 
 Neapolitans were burning the houses and butchering the prisoners. 
 
 "The conduct of the Neapolitans in this instance is so strongly contrasted 
 with the treatment they received from the Sicilians in January 1848, that I cannot 
 forbear bringing it before you. At Palermo, at that time, the Neapolitans in the 
 finance building had resisted the attacks of the Palermitans for fourteen days, who 
 daily suffered considerable loss. On the 27th January, after a violent assault in 
 which the defenders retreated to an upper storey, the building was taken, when, 
 to the honour of the captors, the troops were merely disarmed ; not a man was 
 injured ; their wounded were sent to a hospital specially appointed. The rest 
 were well fed and carefully treated, and the property found in the bank was 
 delivered over untouched to the provisional Government. To this I was an eye- 
 witness. At Catania, during the same month, two of the public buildings were 
 taken by assault after some loss of life on each side. The troops were in both 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 195 
 
 instances fed and kindly treated, assigned quarters, permitted to walk about the 
 town until vessels arrived to take them to Naples. Some of these very soldiers 
 now form part of the invading army. 
 
 "The feelings of horror excited by the barbarous description of warfare now 
 carried on by the Swiss and Neapolitans may, I trust, excuse me for referring to 
 an event long past." 
 
 Naturally, these feelings, characteristic of most English- 
 men, and in especial degree of him whose career I am 
 tracing, found freer vent in private letters than they could 
 in those bounded by official reticence — 
 
 " You will have heard, perhaps, from the papers of the assault and capture of 
 Catania, if those sort of things interest the people of England sufficiently to put 
 them in the papers, which I doubt. To an eye-witness, it was a scene of horror 
 that can never be forgotten. This beautiful city ! nearly destroyed, and given up 
 for two days to pillage and destruction by the invaders, who during that term 
 committed atrocities of every description ! It is difficult to believe that we are 
 living in a civilised age. The Catanese made a noble defence — the more noble 
 as they knew it was hopeless." 
 
 There is a word or two about his professional prospects 
 and one or two other matters in the same letter, which, 
 as illustrative of character, are worthy of note — 
 
 " I begin to fear that my promotion is a long way off yet. No one can get 
 made until the captains' list is reduced to 500, which will not be for a year or 
 more. 1 They have made so very few during the past year that the number of 
 applicants and expectants is enormous. Sir William Parker is my great stand-by, 
 and, when the time comes, Lord Mount- Edgcumbe and Lord Minto will do 
 their best for me. Sir Francis Baring 2 is a very impartial man, so perhaps 
 between us all we may succeed. They say the Arrogant 3 is going to relieve us ; 
 that, however, is very doubtful. Did you see that article in the NatUical Standard 
 about my flogging a man at Civita Vecchia, and thereby destroying English 
 influence in Rome. If you did, I hope you did not pay attention to such trash. 
 If our influence in Rome depends on so slight a support, it cannot be of great 
 value. 
 
 "Will you tell Smith & Elder to send to Gillott's, for me, Sketches in 
 Revolutionised Italy, by M'Farlane, lately published by them. It is a book 
 
 1 At this date the captains' list contained 526 names, and the flag list 150, 
 the latter having been fixed at that number in 1847. Only 15 commanders had 
 been promoted in 1847, and 14 in 1848 ; but the latter year included the name of 
 A. P. Ryder,'who had been, when promoted for services in action, only two years 
 and four months a commander. The senior captain on the list had been there 
 for 35 years. 
 
 2 Sir Francis Baring had become First Lord of the Admiralty on the death 
 of Lord Auckland at the end of 1848, 
 
 8 A new screw frigate. 
 
196 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 which takes the same view of our Italian diplomacy as the Times ; which there- 
 fore is very erroneous, but still it has all the arguments collected into a small 
 compass, and I should like much to have them by me. I should like also' to have 
 the Past and Future of the British Navy, by Plunkett. Have you ever read 
 Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy! I think you would like it." 
 
 The reconquest of Sicily went steadily on, and Key 
 was passing from port to port, constantly on the move to 
 reassure British residents, and to keep watch on the progress 
 of events, as well, it must be said, as to offer an asylum to 
 prominent members of the revolutionary party in Sicily. 
 In this way he took on board, on the 26th of April, the 
 Governor of Trapani and his family, and then on the 28th 
 the ex-President of the Sicilian Government, Don Ruggiero 
 Settimo (" honest old Ruggiero Settimo," Sir Wm. Parker 
 called him), at Palermo. Palermo had, in fact, listened to 
 the advice of the French Admiral Baudin, and had sur- 
 rendered to the King of Naples without striking a blow. 
 The conquest of the island being thus complete, Key took 
 his refugees to Malta, and landed them there. 
 
 If 1848 was the year of revolutions, 1849 was that of 
 inevitable recoil and reaction. Sicily we have seen reduced 
 to obedience to the King. Charles Albert, who had done 
 so much to stir the fires, had been defeated by the Austrians 
 at Novara on the 24th of March, and was now a refugee 
 in France, having abdicated in favour of his son, Victor 
 Emmanuel. Genoa, which had been heaving with revolu- 
 tionary throes, had submitted to the new King, and the 
 amiable Duke of Tuscany had been recalled to his 
 dominions by acclamation. 
 
 Rome alone stood firm for the new regime, but France 
 had determined that this should not be, and, on the 25 th 
 of April, General Oudinot and Admiral Trehouart arrived 
 with sufficient land forces to carry out the design. The 
 new phase required to be watched, and Key was once more 
 ordered to his old post, Civita Vecchia. 
 
 The Bulldog was there on the 6th of May, and Key was 
 under orders to " afford protection to the British residents 
 at and in the vicinity of Rome, and to observe the move- 
 ments of the expeditionary forces which are said to have 
 lately disembarked from Toulon, in the Roman States, and 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 197 
 
 also of a division of the Neapolitan army, which is expected 
 to act in conjunction with them." 
 
 Key now made the series of reports which follow 
 
 "Civita Vecchia, May \2th. 
 " According to your order of the 2nd inst., I arrived at Civita Vecchia on the 
 6th, and there obtained the following information, the truth of which I have since 
 confirmed : — 
 
 "You are already acquainted with the movements of the French army up to 
 the 28th. On the morning of the 29th, General Oudinot, who was then en- 
 camped at Maglianella, about five miles from Rome, ordered the advanced guard 
 (consisting of 5600 men, with two field-pieces) to approach the city, conceiving 
 that he had merely to show his intention of attacking and the gates would be 
 opened for his admittance. They advanced towards the Porta Cavalleggeri and 
 S. Pancrazio, the principal force appearing before the former, which is the 
 strongest and most easily defended point of the city. When near the walls, 
 Garibaldi, who was lying in ambush with about 2000 troops on the right flank of 
 the French, surrounded a detachment of them, and captured at one stroke 268 
 prisoners. As the French approached the Porta Cavalleggeri, a masked battery 
 opened fire on them, and volleys of musketry poured from the walls. 
 
 "The French brought up their two field-pieces, and attacked the walls with 
 unflinching courage. All, however, was unavailing against so strong a position ; 
 and, after attempting to scale the walls with spike-nails, and having between 300 
 and 400 men put h or s -de -com bat, they were compelled to retreat, with a loss, in 
 killed, wounded, and taken prisoners, of upwards of 600 men. The general 
 then withdrew his force to Palo, l to await reinforcements from France. 
 
 " In this position I found them on my arrival at Civita Vecchia on May 6th, 
 — part of the reinforcement having been just landed from the squadron under 
 Rear- Admiral Trehouart. 
 
 " Having been informed that, owing to the preparations that were being made 
 for resistance at Rome, the English residents had great difficulty in quitting it, I 
 deemed it my duty to go there to endeavour to extricate them before a second 
 attack was made. For this purpose I went in the Bulldog the same afternoon to 
 Palo, and, leaving her at that anchorage, proceeded by land early on the 7th to 
 Rome, having obtained permission from General Oudinot to pass through his 
 advanced posts. 
 
 Arriving at Rome, I found the gates barricaded and fortified, the walls of the 
 city much strengthened, and every appearance of a determination to make a 
 vigorous resistance. 
 
 " I went without loss of time to the Triumvirate, acquainted Mazzini that I 
 had come to assist the British residents in leaving Rome, and requested him to 
 aid me in doing so. He showed every disposition to do all in his power for the 
 benefit of our countrymen, but said that the impediment was purely a military 
 one. The horses required for posting are the property of Government, and the 
 loss of those which would be required to take away the foreigners would con- 
 siderably weaken them ; also, that if foreigners were permitted to go to Civita 
 Vecchia, information would be conveyed to the French, and the horses fall into 
 
 1 Palo is a town on the sea-coast, midway between Civita Vecchia and the 
 Tiber. 
 
198 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 their hands. This was reasonable ; but on my showing him how unwise it would 
 be to detain foreigners in Rome at this moment, and how little their cause would 
 suffer from the information conveyed by a few frightened women, I obtained 
 permission for foreigners to leave Rome in any direction with private or hired 
 horses, and I guaranteed that the horses should not be detained by the French 
 army. Within two days nearly all who were anxious to leave were gone, those 
 remaining doing so from their own dilatoriness, or possessing property from which 
 they would not separate. This property was considerable, but the Triumvirate 
 promised to take it under their special protection. 
 
 " On the afternoon of the 7th the Roman Government decided on releasing 
 the French prisoners. They were brought out in the streets and received with 
 every mark of good feeling by the people, who cheered them, gave them food, 
 and showed them round St. Peter's and the monuments ; the French in return 
 saying they had been deceived, having entered the Roman territory with the idea 
 that they were to join the Romans against the Austrians and Neapolitans. They 
 were then permitted to return to their own headquarters. 
 
 " On the morning of the 8th I went to Albano, the headquarters of the 
 Neapolitan army, to obtain a promise from the general-commanding to protect 
 the British in case he should take Rome by assault. 
 
 " I found the army, which consisted of about 14,000 men, with upwards of 
 40 pieces of artillery, occupying Albano and Velletri, with the enclosed country, 
 the King commanding in person. On making known the object of my visit 
 through General Caselli, the second in command, His Majesty expressed a wish 
 to see me. I repeated my request to H.M., who, in the most cordial manner, 
 promised his especial protection to the English if the contingency I referred to 
 should arise. I specified the part of the town in which their property was 
 situated. His Majesty then showed much anxiety to become acquainted with 
 the movements of the French army, and to learn the particulars of their repulse. 
 I informed him as far as I felt myself at liberty to do. He evidently was entirely 
 ignorant of their intentions, as well as of the position of the Romans ; and I 
 received the impression that His Majesty was not at present meditating an attack 
 on Rome, but had sent to the French general to persuade him to act in concert 
 with him. The people at Albano, though not republicans, are much dissatisfied 
 with the Neapolitans, who have enforced the cry of 'Viva il re' everywhere, 
 and imprisoned many who were suspected of being averse to the intervention. 
 
 " I returned to Rome the same afternoon, and again went to Mazzini to 
 repeat my request for the protection of the British property which must unavoid- 
 ably remain in Rome. He, after assuring me of its safety from all within the 
 walls, asked me my opinion of their prospects. I could not then refrain from stating 
 unofficially what I thought might save bloodshed if acted on. I answered, that 
 it seemed to me madness to think of resisting ; that it was evident that Rome 
 must fall, either to the French at once, or to the Catholic Powers combined. 
 That now was the moment to treat with the French alone, and that this moment 
 would soon pass, as, the French having received a check, they would not be 
 satisfied till they obtained possession of Rome. Delay on their part to attack, or 
 on that of the Romans to treat, would increase the probability of a combination 
 of the Catholic Powers, in which case the Romans might rest assured that the 
 old form of government would be imposed upon them. That at present they 
 had saved their honour, and were enabled to treat with the French alone, with 
 even greater advantage than they had previously possessed. In fact, I used 
 every argument to convince him of the folly of resistance. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 199 
 
 "Mazzini replied, that they had great confidence in the good feeling of the 
 French people towards them ; and that, on the arrival of the news in France of 
 the real object of the expedition, a violent reaction would take place in their 
 favour. That a combination of many Powers was more likely to defeat the 
 object in view than to obtain it ; and he showed evidently that Avezzana and he 
 (who are now the actual leaders of the Romans) are determined to hazard this 
 last venture. It is their last in Italy, for when Rome surrenders it is all over 
 with them. Ambition is the motive from which they act, and with this they 
 have identified their feeling for the Italian cause. 
 
 ' ' The general feeling among the Roman people appears to be in favour of making 
 terms with the French, as they show no objection to the return of the Pope, but 
 great repugnance to an ecclesiastical Government. The leaders keep up their 
 determination to resist, by means of their recent successes, by a promise of assist- 
 ance from Bologna and the provinces, and by encouraging the feeling against the 
 priests ; assuring the people that the return of the Pope can only take place with 
 the old system of a spiritual administration. 
 
 "On the morning of the 9th I left Rome for Palo, and found the advanced 
 guard of the French at Castel de Guido (12 miles from Rome). Reinforce- 
 ments had arrived from France, which completed the army to about 15,000 men, 
 including 1500 cavalry, 26 field-guns, and 6 heavy siege pieces. On the 
 morning of the 10th the main body advanced from Palo to Castel de Guido, 
 and it was the intention of General Oudinot to follow with the rear guard on the 
 1 2th, and to assault the city with all his force without loss of time. I imagine 
 also that he had signified his intention of attacking on a certain day to the King 
 of Naples ; so that, without a combined operation, a simultaneous advance may 
 take place. 
 
 " M. Rayneval, the minister of France at Naples, arrived at Palo to confer 
 with General Oudinot on the 9th ; and on the 10th, as I intended to proceed to 
 Civita Vecchia, I conveyed him from Palo to that place. 
 
 " On the evening of the 10th about 2000 more troops arrived at Civita 
 Vecchia, in two steamers and a transport. They disembarked on the following 
 morning, and encamped outside the town. 
 
 " The present position of the respective forces appears to be as follows : — The 
 Romans are prepared to defend the city against all attacks, with a decided 
 animosity against the Neapolitans, but with no ill-will towards the French. 
 They have about 30,000 armed men in the city, and Garibaldi with about 6000 
 is hovering about the right and rear of the Neapolitans. These numbers are 
 uncertain. 
 
 " The Neapolitan army at Albano and Velletri are in great fear of Garibaldi, 
 and very anxious to join their forces with the French. 
 
 " The Spaniards have landed 40 men at Terracina. 
 
 " The French are now advancing with their whole force on Rome, which will 
 consist, when all have joined the general, of about 14,000 men, about 2000 more 
 at Fiumicino, who will march up the left bank of the Tiber to make a diversion 
 in that direction. 
 
 " I think it is probable that the attack will take place about the 18th of May ; 
 and as there are many parts of the walls where half an hour's cannonading would 
 completely demolish them, the French will enter the town with ease, and, 
 although the streets and houses are well barricaded, but little resistance will be 
 made when once they have obtained possession of one or two strong points in the 
 town. 
 
200 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 "At Palo the French flag is hoisted on the castle ; at Civita Vecchia it still 
 floats on the same staff as the Italian tricolour. No attempt to replace the Pope's 
 arms, or to restore his authority, has yet been shown by the French, and they do 
 not appear to be in the slightest degree aware of the object they have in view in 
 the present occupation of the Roman territory. 
 
 "Three days after the occupation of Civita Vecchia, a priest arrived from 
 Gaeta to take on himself the government of the place in the name of H.H. the 
 Pope. He was sent back to Gaeta." 1 
 
 " May 17 'M, 1849. 
 " On the 13th ult. I left Civita Vecchia for Palo in H.M. steam sloop Bulldog, 
 to be in a position to obtain more certain information concerning the move- 
 ments of the French army. I found the headquarters had removed to Castel de 
 Guido, and, as nothing could be ascertained at Palo, I proceeded to the vicinity 
 of headquarters. 
 
 " The main body of the army, under General Regnault, the second in com- 
 mand, was then at Maglianella. A body of about 4000 men was advancing up the 
 right bank of the Tiber ; and 2000 were detached to reconnoitre in the vicinity 
 of Ponte Molle, on the Florence road. 
 
 "On the 15th, M. Lesseps, an envoy from France, passed through the camp 
 on the way to Rome. The same morning the army advanced, and on that and 
 the following day took up a position within about a league of the walls of Rome, 
 the whole being formed in three brigades as follows : — First Brigade, under 
 General Molliere, on the right bank of the river about 3 miles from Rome. The 
 Second Brigade, under General le Vaillant, about 1^ mile to the left of the first, 
 and 2 miles from Rome on Via Porta Pertusa. The Third Brigade, under General 
 Chadeysson, about 3 miles to the left of the second, and 2 miles from Rome. This 
 brigade is just on the north side of the Civita Vecchia road. The headquarters 
 are at Corviale, about 1$ mile in rear of the Second Brigade. Each brigade con- 
 sists of about 6000 men of all arms, with 6 pieces of artillery, 4 French 8-pounders, 
 and two 24-pounder Howitzers. The rest of the artillery, and six 24-pounder 
 siege pieces, are at Maglianella, waiting for horses from Civita Vecchia. 
 
 "The reconnoitring party at Ponte Molle ascertained that an arch of the 
 bridge was broken down, and that about 2000 troops from the provinces had 
 passed and entered Rome a few hours before their arrival. 
 
 " M. Lesseps is still in Rome, and has sent word that he has but little 
 chance of making a peaceable arrangement with the Romans ; they are, or appear 
 to be> unanimous in their determination to resist, and are daily strengthening 
 their defences. General Oudinot, in the meantime, does not appear to be 
 awaiting the result of M. Lesseps' mission. He is causing a bridge to be con- 
 structed at Fiumicino, which, when ready, will be towed up the river by a 
 small steamer, and thrown across about \\ mile below Rome. Of this he is in 
 hourly expectation, and also of two 84-pounders and six 32-pounders, which 
 are being disembarked from the steam squadron, and which he intends to work 
 with a body of seamen in breaching the walls. 
 
 "It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what is the plan of 
 
 1 Lord Palmerston, on this letter reaching him, signified to the Admiralty " that 
 he considered Key's exertions for the safety of British subjects and property 
 highly satisfactory." Sir William Parker characterised this letter as "equally 
 intelligent and interesting." 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 201 
 
 attack, although it is evident that he has fixed it in his own mind. The weak 
 part of the walls is on the east side, and there an easy entrance might be 
 effected. But the general is anxious not to act, or to appear to act, without the 
 Neapolitans, who, if they attack, will do so on that side. It therefore appears 
 probable that if hostilities are inevitable, the breach will be made between the 
 Porta Pertusa and Porta S. Pancrazio, on the west side, and a brigade, crossing 
 the river, may attack near the Porta S. Paolo. 
 
 "The French army, having continually received reinforcements from 
 France, now consists of nearly 20,000 men. The line is at present very 
 much extended, and if there was a watchful and disciplined enemy within the 
 walls, they might cut off and destroy the Third Brigade. But General Oudinot 
 has confidence in the inexperience of the Romans, and wishes to deceive them 
 regarding his intentions. 
 
 " I cannot speak too highly of the conduct of the French soldiers towards the 
 inhabitants of the country. Every article of food is strictly paid for, and their 
 behaviour has engendered a very kindly feeling for them in the people with 
 whom they have had intercourse. 
 
 "I have been received with the greatest courtesy and attention by General 
 Oudinot, who has shown a wish to give me every information concerning the 
 detail of their service, which appears so admirable in every respect that if I 
 observe anything of which the knowledge may be useful to our military service, I 
 will report it for your information. 
 
 " The Neapolitans remain at Albano. 
 
 " P.S. — May 17M1 6 p.m. — An hour ago M. Lesseps arrived from Rome, and 
 brought information to the general, of which the result is an armistice ; and it is 
 now announced that the Triumvirate have resigned, and that Rome is to be 
 delivered to the French." 
 
 "Bulldog, Civita Vecchia, 
 " z\st May 1849. 
 
 "The armistice, which I mentioned in my letter of May 17th as having been 
 established between the Romans and the French troops, continued until midnight 
 on Saturday, when, a refusal having been sent from the Roman Assembly to the 
 terms proposed by M. Lesseps, the armistice was denounced by General Oudinot, 
 and hostilities were nominally resumed, although negotiations still continued. 
 
 '* The outline of the proposal drawn up by M. Lesseps is as follows : — 
 
 " 1. The Roman States claim the protection of the French Republic. 
 
 "2. The Roman people have full right to decide on the form of their 
 government. 
 
 " 3. Rome will receive the French army as brothers. 
 
 "The service of the city is to be performed conjointly with French troops. 
 The Roman civil and military authorities will continue to perform their functions 
 according to their attributes. 
 
 "The following answer was given by the committee appointed to treat with 
 the French envoy : — ' The National Assembly regret that it is not within their 
 power to accept the proposed terms, and confides to the Triumvirate the duty of 
 explaining the motives of the refusal, and also of taking such measures as may 
 facilitate a better understanding between the two republics.' 
 
 " These motives are not yet made public, but they are believed to be that the 
 PVench insist on the exclusion of foreigners from having a voice in deciding on 
 the form of government. 
 
202 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 "Bologna, having surrendered to the Austrians, will probably influence the 
 Romans in bringing the negotiations to an early close, according to the intention 
 expressed in the answer of their committee. 
 
 "The French will undoubtedly have possession of Rome either by treaty or 
 assault before the end of this week. 
 
 "It is positively stated that the Neapolitan army, commanded by the King 
 in person, has retired from Albano to Velletri." 
 
 " UtJuM 1849. 
 
 " Since the date of my last letter no alteration has taken place in the position 
 of the French army. Negotiations have been continued by M. Lesseps, and 
 hostile preparations apparently proceeded with by the general ; but evidently no 
 decided step was contemplated before the arrival of fresh instructions from Paris. 
 
 " The policy of the Romans has not been so undecided. After various fruit- 
 less attempts on the part of the French envoy to persuade the Romans to admit 
 General Oudinot and his army within the gates of Rome, on the faith of the 
 three articles at first proposed, he consented (on the 24th ult.) to add a fourth 
 article, which he appeared to think must convince the Romans of his sincerity. 
 It was to this effect : — ' The French guarantee to preserve the territory occupied 
 by their army from foreign invasion.' This met with no better success. The 
 Triumvirate say that the only terms on which they will allow the French army to 
 occupy Rome are : — ' A full recognition of the Roman Republic, and a promise 
 to assist in the defence of the Roman States.' When this is ratified by the 
 French Government, their gates will be opened. 
 
 "With reference to the 2nd article proposed by M. Lesseps, they state that 
 the Roman people have already pronounced on their form of government, and 
 that the present form — the republic — was unanimously selected by the inhabitants 
 of the whole State on an appeal being made to their unbiassed judgment. 
 
 "The Romans are evidently aware that nothing decided will be attempted 
 by the French until the opinion of the new National Assembly is ascertained ; 
 and they are so elated with the flight of the King of Naples to his own 
 dominions, which they imagine they caused, and to which they certainly did 
 contribute, that their confidence in their own strength has passed all reasonable 
 bounds. 
 
 "The malarial fever has already made its appearance in the French army, 
 and the season is now close at hand when their position will be untenable. If, 
 therefore, an immediate attack is not decided on, they will be compelled to retire 
 to Albano hills, the only healthy spot in the neighbourhood, and then transfer 
 the base of their operations to Porto d'Ango ; for this, General Oudinot has 
 made a reconnaissance. 
 
 "June 1st, p.m. — A French steamer of war has just arrived from Toulon, 
 bringing a telegraphic despatch from Paris for General Oudinot, of which I do 
 not know the purport. Shortly before her arrival, Admiral Trehouart had 
 informed me that, owing to the increase of the fever among the troops, hostilities 
 had been bond Jide resumed ; that an immediate attack on the Villa Pamfili (a 
 commanding position close to the walls) and the church of S. Paolo was deter- 
 mined on, and thus probably an assault on the city in three or four days. It is 
 not yet known whether the despatch from Paris will confirm or alter this 
 determination. 
 
 " During my last visit to Rome, on the 26th ult., I made every inquiry among 
 people of all opinions and of all classes to ascertain if the reports concerning the 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 203 
 
 destruction of the monuments and the sale of works of art had any foundation, 
 and I could not discover that any instance of the kind had occurred. 
 
 " The Austrian army is before Ancona, and is said to be on the point of 
 attacking. 
 
 "June 2nd.— P. S.— The purport of the despatch which arrived yesterday for 
 General Oudinot is to recall M. Lesseps, and to order the general to attack 
 Rome without loss of time." 
 
 "Civita Vecchia, 21st June 1849. 
 
 " The French army have continued their operations under the walls of Rome 
 without intermission since my last letter. 
 
 " On the 1 2th three batteries were in position in the second parallel, directed 
 against the salient angle of the walls to the right of Porta Pancrazio, at the 
 distance of about 100 yards, each consisting of four 16-pounders and two 
 24-pounders, with three 8-inch mortars in the rear of the right battery. General 
 Oudinot then wrote a final address to the Romans, calling on them to save Rome 
 from destruction by admitting his army within the city. They refused. On the 
 morning of the 13th he opened fire on the walls, and by the 16th he had 
 succeeded in destroying the upper part of them to about one-fourth from the top, 
 when they found that their guns would not damage them below that, owing to 
 some rising ground intervening. It was therefore determined to continue their 
 works, and construct a third parallel in which to place a battery within 50 yards 
 of the walls. This was completed on the 20th, twelve guns being in position. 
 
 " The Romans keep up a constant fire on the trenches of shot and shell, not 
 causing a severe loss, but sufficient to retard the works and harass the French 
 soldiers unceasingly. 
 
 " On the 15th the Romans made a sortie with 2000 men, for the purpose of 
 regaining Ponte Molle ; they were driven back by 700 French, leaving between 
 50 and 60 dead. 
 
 "The French have cut off the water that enters Rome by aqueducts on the 
 north and west sides, to deprive the inhabitants of the use of the mills which are 
 worked by it ; they have destroyed the Ponte Solara across the Anio, and 
 endeavour to prevent provisions from entering the town. This they can hardly 
 effect, as the south side towards Tivoli and Albano is entirely open. 
 
 " The fever caused by the malaria is not on the increase ; indeed I believe the 
 health of the troops is improving ; but the fatal season is close at hand. 
 
 " Reinforcements from France have completed the army to 30,000 men, with 
 30 heavy siege guns and 40 pieces of field artillery." 
 
 "Civita Vecchia, 2nd July 1849. 
 "Since the French obtained possession of the breach, as I mentioned in a 
 private letter to you of June 22nd, they have been occupied in strengthening and 
 arming the work which they had constructed inside it. The Romans kept up 
 such a constant and well-directed fire from those batteries which commanded this 
 work, that General Oudinot deemed it advisable to dislodge them by artillery 
 before attempting to advance. On the 28th he opened fire on them from 35 
 pieces which he had established at the breach. By the evening of the 29th he 
 had effectually silenced the Roman guns, and on the following morning 
 advanced, and carried at the point of the bayonet a bastion on his left, from 
 which he had received most annoyance. After killing 250 of the Romans, 
 making 130 prisoners, and spiking 13 guns, the French retired to their original 
 
204 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 position at the breach, not deeming it advisable to hold the bastion, as it was 
 commanded by many points in possession of the Romans. 
 
 "On the evening of the same day (June 30th) the National Assembly in 
 Rome came to the following resolution : — 
 
 " ' In the name of God and the people, the Constituent Assembly declare that 
 further resistance is impossible. The Assembly will sit in permanence. The 
 Triumvirate is charged with the execution of the present decree.' 
 
 "This was sent to General Oudinot, with a request for a suspension of 
 hostilities ; and at the same time a deputation of the municipality of the city 
 arrived at the headquarters of the French army. 
 
 "Whether this decision is the result of their ammunition being exhausted, of 
 their courage failing, or of their good sense coming to their aid, I have not yet 
 ascertained ; but it is the universal belief that Rome will be entered peaceably 
 without delay. 
 
 " M. Corcelles, the successor to M. Lesseps, who has been waiting at Civita 
 Vecchia until his powers might be called into action, has gone to headquarters 
 under the walls of Rome." 
 
 The fall of Rome had the effect of placing Key in an 
 exceedingly difficult position. Most difficult and delicate 
 in consequence of the old and warm friendship which existed 
 between himself and the French Admiral Trehouart. The 
 result was, that on the 6th of July the Bulldog sailed with 
 three refugees and arrived with them in Naples Bay next 
 day. I will let him give his own account in a letter to 
 Captain William Martin 1 of the Prince Regent, the senior 
 officer at Naples : — 
 
 " On the 2nd of July the French army entered Rome, the general having 
 refused to guarantee the safety of the foreigners who had assisted in its defence, 
 and endeavoured to obtain possession of MM. Mazzini, Avezzana, and Garibaldi. 
 The latter escaped with a body of 8000 men, and was instantly pursued by a division 
 of the French army. On the 4th, General Avezzana found means to escape from 
 Rome, and, arriving at Civita Vecchia, begged me to afford him a refuge. I did so. 
 He came on board the Bulldog unknown to anyone at Civita Vecchia, having 
 brought an American passport. There was no prospect of an opportunity offering 
 of either sending him to Malta or of putting him on board a United States ship 
 of war. The general being bond fide an American citizen, I would not attempt 
 to keep him concealed ; and had I remained alongside the French admiral, I could 
 no longer have maintained that cordial intercourse with him which has hitherto 
 been my endeavour. 
 
 " I was aware that the U.S. frigate Constitution was lying at Naples ; I had 
 before informed the admiral that, being short of coal, I should probably be obliged 
 to go to Naples as soon as Rome was occupied by the French. I had thus an 
 opportunity of placing Avezzana in safety without leading the French to suppose 
 that the Bulldog was stationed at Civita Vecchia with the intention of protecting 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir William Fanshawe Martin, G.C.B. Died in 1895. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 205 
 
 those whom they consider deserve to be punished for having aided the Romans 
 in making so prolonged a resistance. 
 
 " I have been induced to make this explanation,— first, to account for my 
 leaving Civita Vecchia ; and secondly, because I am aware it is not becoming in a 
 British man-of-war to take part in a concealment of any description, and I trust 
 it is the last time I shall ever have occasion to do so." 1 
 
 Some side lights and summaries of the striking situa- 
 tions in which the young commander found himself are 
 given in his private letters written about this time. Thus, 
 on the 1 2 th of May, he writes : — 
 
 " This last week has been an eventful week for me. I was sent to Rome to 
 extricate our countrymen from that city, which was on the eve of an attack by the 
 Neapolitan and French armies. The latter had just received a reverse as I 
 arrived. I had some difficulty in getting through the camp, which was interest- 
 ing beyond description, but got to Rome, and succeeded in getting the English 
 away. In one day I had long and interesting interviews with the French General 
 Oudinot, Mazzini the celebrated republican, and the King of Naples, each 
 ignorant of the other's intentions, each at the head of armies on the eve of an 
 encounter ! " 
 
 On the 1 8th of May he says : — 
 
 " I have been bivouacking with the French army for the last week, and have 
 
 1 The Commander-in-Chief, and afterwards the Admiralty, approved of Com- 
 mander Key's proceedings, "under the peculiar circumstances in which he was 
 placed." The general question of receiving political refugees on board H.M. 
 ships is of such importance that I venture to quote letters of Sir William Parker 
 of this date, and which seem to have been written partly in consequence of Key's 
 proceedings. We have already been made acquainted with the general terms 
 under which refugees were received on board H. M. ships at this time. In a 
 letter to Captain William Martin, Sir William Parker particularises : — "You 
 should avoid taking any person from the shore in the boats of H. M. ships, unless 
 the party has peculiar claims connected with English privileges which, on a 
 recommendation from H.M. minister, might justify the act. You cannot, how- 
 ever, err in receiving for protection any individuals whose lives or freedom may 
 be endangered for any act purely political, provided H. M. minister applies to 
 you in writing that they may receive the protection of the British flag, and in 
 such terms as will attach the responsibility of the measure to His Excellency. 
 
 " It would be derogatory to our flag to deliver up any individual who may have 
 been admitted on board for protection under such circumstances, but I think you 
 would be bound to quit the anchorage with Her Majesty's ship if required to do 
 so by the Government of the country, on the grounds of your having on board 
 any political offender of the nature adverted to." In a letter of near the same 
 date (3rd of August 1849), Sir William Parker points out to Commander Key, that 
 the number of refugees already congregated at Malta made additions objectionable, 
 and that he was to be " cautious not to receive on board any foreign refugees except 
 under very pressing circumstances, where he had reason to believe that their 
 lives are actually in danger for political acts unconnected with any conduct of a 
 felonious or criminal nature." 
 
206 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 not had my clothes off. It has been the most interesting scene I have ever wit- 
 nessed, and I believe it is what no Englishman beside Lord Napier (who is with 
 me) and I has ever seen. We are with the general, who shows me every atten- 
 tion, as he knows that I am sent to report on his proceedings and to pick up 
 information relative to the French army. . . . The army is now raised to 
 upwards of 20,000 men, and the perfect arrangement of every branch cannot 
 be surpassed. It has given me an insight into the French character which I 
 could not have gained elsewhere. Generals, officers, and men live together like 
 one large military family. During the eight days I have been with them under 
 all circumstances, I have not heard one harsh word or seen one angry gesture 
 from officer or man ; all is cheerfulness and gaiety ; no selfishness, and an entire 
 absence of affectation. The officers are manly and frank ; inferior in education 
 and intelligence ; but honest and truthful. We sleep in a stable, wash in a soup 
 plate, and eat eggs with a cork-screw ; but every minute has something new. 
 Strange to say, I have not found one republican in the French army or navy. 
 All are something else — they know not what, but they do not wish the republic 
 to last. 
 
 "As my father mentioned in his last letter, I have received a very satisfactory 
 approval from the Admiralty, in a style which the admiral tells me has never 
 before been sent to a captain in his squadron. 1 He told me more, which I will 
 not now mention, as it may not prove correct, but I have every reason to look 
 for my promotion very shortly. . . . 
 
 "You cannot imagine anything more beautiful and picturesque than the view 
 we have from our present position. Just out of gunshot of the walls of Rome, 
 on the west side, on elevated ground, so that we can easily distinguish the 
 different monuments and public buildings ; and at night, the large watch-fires, 
 with the different groups of soldiers round them singing and laughing so cheer- 
 fully. And the thought that there are round us 20,000 men all bent on one 
 object, and occupied probably with the same thoughts, completes a scene that 
 surpasses anything I have ever witnessed, and imagined only existed in romances 
 or in days long past." 
 
 While Key is thus full of his active outer life, it is 
 pathetic to note the trouble ever at his heart. His powers 
 of throwing off, in appearance, a wearing sorrow must 
 always have been considerable, but, as he wrote in this 
 very letter, " The more exciting and interesting occupation 
 I have, the more do my thoughts revert at every spare 
 moment to one subject." 
 
 From Naples the Bulldog was ordered to Malta, and 
 was there from the 9th of July till the 3rd of August, 
 having been in dock and under repair. She was back at 
 
 1 This must refer to the letter of approval of his proceedings at Catania, noted 
 on p. 192, which was dated 2nd of May. The Admiralty's language may not 
 seem to justify what is here said of it. But it is traditional with the Board to be 
 very sparing of praise, and the words imply higher approval than they seem 
 to do. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 207 
 
 Civita Vecchia on the nth of August, and the following 
 letters complete the series written on the Roman ques- 
 tion : — 
 
 "CivitaVecchia, 
 
 " 22nd August 1849. 
 
 " The proceedings of the French in Rome since my arrival at Civita Vecchia 
 offer but little of interest. 
 
 "General Oudinot has been recalled from the command of the army, which 
 on his departure will devolve on General Rostalon, the next in seniority. It is 
 General Oudinot's intention to proceed to Naples before his return to Paris, and 
 it is said that he leaves Rome to-day. Many reasons are circulated to account 
 for his recall, but it would appear that his military services being no longer 
 required, is sufficient, especially as they profess to be on the point of withdrawing 
 part of the army from Rome. However, the general himself is not well pleased 
 at it. 
 
 "The triumvirate of cardinals, who now execute the temporal functions of 
 the Pope, have shown so decided a tendency to return to the system of govern- 
 ment which existed even before the present Pope's election, that the Roman 
 people are beginning to look on the French as their only hope, and their inter- 
 course with them is gradually becoming more cordial. General Oudinot, who is 
 a strict Catholic and religious man, was deemed by the Romans to be too much 
 under the influence of the Pope to offer a remonstrance to any measures which 
 the cardinals might see fit to adopt ; his recall is therefore pleasing to the people. 
 
 " The most obnoxious acts of the ecclesiastical triumvirate are : — The decree 
 reducing the value of the paper money, and the establishment, on the ancient 
 bases, of the Inquisition, and Vicar's Tribunal, which, though nominally only for 
 breaches of ecclesiastical law, are used to punish political offenders ; and an order 
 lately issued to restore all property which formerly belonged to these establish- 
 ments will render them as powerful as before. In fact, the little that has been 
 done since the return of the Papal authority does not show a symptom of a 
 return to a constitutional form of government, or a relaxation of the old Gregorian 
 ecclesiastical system. 
 
 " I am informed that the detestation of the cardinals and priests, and a dread 
 of their return to power, is openly expressed by the Roman people of all classes ; 
 but they do not show any dislike to the restoration of the Pope's temporal 
 authority if unaccompanied by them, and of this His Holiness is kept in 
 ignorance. 
 
 " Rear- Admiral Trehouart has removed his flag to the steam sloop Narva/, 
 and occupies the Papal residence at Civita Vecchia, where he will remain during 
 the autumn and winter, as he does not consider the port safe for the steam 
 frigates." 
 
 " Rome, Septe7nber 1st, 1849. 
 
 " Since the transfer of the command of the French troops to General Ros- 
 talon, more cordiality is visible in the intercourse between his soldiers and the 
 Romans. 
 
 " This is attributed in a great measure to a letter (of which I enclose a copy) 
 addressed by the President of the French Republic to M. Ney, the envoy of 
 France at Gaeta; this letter, at the request of the cardinals, has not been 
 
2o8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 published, but its contents are generally known ; it is interesting, being the 
 first document which has emanated from the French Government in which their 
 intentions regarding the Papal States are intelligibly expressed. The general-in- 
 chief has likewise personally gained the confidence of the Roman people, by 
 assuming a higher tone in his communications with the Papal Government, 
 and by having, when inspecting the prisons, insisted on the release of several 
 persons who were in confinement for slight political offences. He has stated 
 in a late proclamation that he is making arrangements for a ' more complete 
 occupation of Rome than was first contemplated ' ; and it does not appear that 
 the withdrawal of any part of the army, as stated by General Oudinot, will take 
 place. 
 
 " Rear- Admiral Trehouart has despatched his late flagship, the Labrador, to 
 Naples to convey General Oudinot from there to Toulon ; she will not return to 
 Civita Vecchia during the autumn and winter months. The admiral is employing 
 machines for deepening the inner harbour, which will make it accessible and 
 secure for vessels drawing 15 feet of water. 
 
 "The Spaniards are retiring towards the Neapolitan frontier; a detachment 
 of 4000 men have been, until lately, quartered at and in the neighbourhood of 
 Rieti, and others at the principal towns between this place and Velletri. It is 
 said that they now intend to establish their headquarters at Frosinore." 
 
 It was at Rome, early in September, that Key received 
 the sad news of his father's death. All his letters show 
 how passionately devoted he was to him, and this appar- 
 ently sudden loss produced the most bitter reaction. His 
 family, for reasons appearing to them sufficient, had opposed 
 obstacles to the fulfilment of the son's wishes ; and though 
 there is no trace in any letter of a word which might not 
 be properly said under such circumstances by a son to a 
 parent, Key's affectionate nature was torn with a remorse 
 which a colder one could not possibly have felt. Yet still 
 the public duties were unintermitting, and probably no one 
 meeting the man on business could have imagined the sore- 
 ness of his spirit. 
 
 The Bulldog left Civita Vecchia, not to return again, on 
 the 5 th of September. She proceeded to Naples, towed 
 the Prince Regent out of the bay and through the Straits 
 of Messina along the south coast of Sicily, leaving her at 
 sea on the 8th, and returning herself to Messina the same 
 morning. 
 
 There was at this time a peculiar attraction in the 
 Prince Regent, as her captain — Wm. Fanshawe Martin, 
 before mentioned — was the father of a new school. The 
 principles on which the Prince Regent was governed 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 209 
 
 were different from those obtaining in the Hibernia, 
 Sir William Parker's flagship, and it was understood by 
 the navy of that day that the new school was in the 
 ascendant. 
 
 The younger officers possibly only recognised a stricter 
 discipline, not perceiving that what was aimed at was the 
 establishment of public spirit and impersonal government 
 afloat. The old school, handed down from the great war 
 time, left every ship almost a separate navy, chiefly 
 governed by the personal views of her commander. Captain 
 Martin was beginning, in the Prince Regent, that establish- 
 ment of the reign of a general naval law, running in all 
 ships alike, which he was able to consolidate as First Sea 
 Lord of the Admiralty at a later time, and to illustrate so 
 magnificently in the Marlborough, the Mediterranean flag- 
 ship, still referred to as the pattern which all well-ordered 
 ships should strive to imitate. 
 
 The kindness of Sir William Parker came as a relief in 
 sending Bulldog cruising round the ports of Sicily, so as 
 to give her commander plenty of occupation, and he was 
 further consoled by the numerous letters of sympathy from 
 all quarters, and chiefly from those who had known and 
 respected his father. 
 
 The reaction having everywhere triumphed in Italy and 
 Sicily, political interest in the Mediterranean travelled east- 
 wards. The Ionian Islands were in more or less commotion, 
 and thither Sir William Parker took his squadron early 
 in September, and there received news which foretold the 
 orders he subsequently received to proceed with the fleet 
 to the Dardanelles. On the 28th of October the ships 
 anchored in Besika Bay. 
 
 The Bulldog followed later. Key was at Naples on 
 the 6th of October, where, he says — 
 
 "I am again the witness of horrors. This ill-advised King of Naples is 
 arresting everyone who took part, or is supposed to have wished to take part, in 
 any of the disturbances which have taken place since January '48. Forty 
 thousand (!!) have been arrested. A reign of terror exists. No one on going to 
 bed feels sure that he will not be in prison before morning. A 'Judge Jeffreys 
 is appointed for their trial, which will take place in a few days. We can do little 
 to alleviate this, but we do that little." 
 
210 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 On the 26th of October Bulldog was off Corfu, when 
 Key wrote — 
 
 " I am now on my way to join the admiral, who is probably by this time near 
 the entrance of the Dardanelles. I shall perhaps have an opportunity of visiting 
 Constantinople before I leave the Mediterranean. I do not anticipate a brush 
 with Russia. The Czar has not yet committed himself, and I imagine will not, 
 when he sees the attitude France and England have assumed. I am particularly 
 glad, however, to be with the commander-in-chief at such a moment. I always 
 hoped that he would not leave me in the lurch if there was a chance of anything 
 to do." 
 
 On the 31st of October the Bulldog arrived at Besika 
 Bay, and found there the Queen (which had succeeded the 
 Hibernia as Sir William Parker's flagship), Hoive, Caledonia, 
 Prince Regent, Powerful, and Vengeance, all sailing line-of- 
 battle ships differing only in degree from those of the war 
 time ; and one steamer only — the Rosamond — to represent 
 the revolution which was approaching so much more rapidly 
 than anyone was aware of. This Rosamond had been the 
 Eclair, which I remember to have seen lying at the Mother- 
 bank with the black and yellow quarantine flag flying. 
 She had hurried home from the West Coast of Africa 
 with a devastating outbreak of yellow fever such as at the 
 present day it is impossible to realise. It was hoped that 
 cleaning, disinfecting, and changing the name, might leave 
 the ship efficient for service, but fever was in her timbers, 
 and broke out amongst the crew, so that she had to be put 
 out of commission for good. The arrival of the Bulldog, 
 Tartarus, and Ardent raised the steam force, but still left 
 it insignificant. 
 
 This concentration of British force, which it was ex- 
 pected would soon be allied to considerable French force, 
 was undertaken with the view of supporting the Porte in 
 its refusal to deliver up the political refugees from Hungary, 
 after the suppression of its insurrection by the troops of 
 Austria and Russia. It was thought desirable to enhance 
 the moral effect of the display by a closer approach to 
 Constantinople. So, in breach of treaty as it appeared, the 
 squadron weighed on the 1st of November, and took up a 
 new anchorage inside the outer castles of the Dardanelles. 
 Conciliation then became the order of the day, the in- 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 211 
 
 dependence of Turkey was secured, and the British fleet 
 returned to Besika Bay on the 1 3 th. 
 
 Key was now employed in examining suitable anchor- 
 ages in the Archipelago, assisting in towing the flagship 
 from point to point, and other like services. He was also 
 called on to make a report on the possibility of holding the 
 Peleponnesus, which he thought might be difficult against 
 superior forces, but he did not take account of the capabili- 
 ties of the fleet to flank the defences. 
 
 It is useful to recall the fact that, in the orders given by 
 Sir William Parker for the examination of possible anchor- 
 ages, the greatest stress was laid on the probable fresh-water 
 supply, possibilities of sinking wells, convenience of boats 
 embarking it, and so on. It is useful to remember that 
 this question of watering — which has ceased to be a 
 question — was then just as it had been for all the previous 
 centuries. Casks were landed, rolled up the beach, filled, 
 and rolled down the beach, and " parbuckled " into the 
 launches. Watering " in bulk," in the great canvas tanks, 
 of which the introduction was due to the captain of the 
 Prince Regent as already mentioned, had scarcely, if at 
 all, taken root, but just about this time the distillation of 
 water was making slow headway in the latest types of 
 steamers as an experiment. One of them, the Reynard, was 
 then cruising in the China Seas with such an apparatus on 
 board. 
 
 It was now pretty certain that the Bulldog's commis- 
 sion would not be much longer extended, but the orders 
 for home were slow in coming. Key writes of his pros- 
 pects from the Bay of Xaros (Saros), under date 9th 
 December — 
 
 " I think I told you in one of my late letters that you might hope to see me 
 on Xmas Day. By this you will see that there is little possibility of it. In fact, 
 the admiral tells me that he has orders about sending several ships home which 
 are a shorter time in commission than Bulldog, but he has not a word concerning 
 us ; and then he adds something complimentary as a salve. But he need not 
 do that. I am ready to remain out as long as the Admiralty think proper to keep 
 us ; and now I should not be surprised if we remained until the spring, to see if 
 the Queen keeps to her intention of visiting the Mediterranean, and we may 
 accompany her. ... I am gaining experience in my profession, though not very 
 agreeably now [he was alluding to the shockingly bad weather the ships were 
 
2i2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 experiencing at this time], but yet I do not see why I should say that ; I suppose 
 it is from having people grumbling round me." 
 
 Again, on the 21st, he says — 
 
 " I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look forward to joining you all. Not 
 that I am anxious to leave my dear ship, of which I am more fond than ever, 
 but I have been a long time away. Indeed I should be very ungrateful if I 
 wished to leave all my kind friends in the squadron. The admiral, especially, 
 treats me with more kindness and confidence every day. We left Besika Bay 
 about a week ago, as the admiral did not consider it a safe anchorage for the fleet 
 in the winter, and we are now snugly moored in this anchorage (inside Mitylene). 
 He, however, expects to leave for Malta in the course of ten days or so, and 
 then, he tells me, he will have to send me home soon after — that is, in the course 
 of three or four weeks." 
 
 In this letter Key gives expression to an opinion which 
 perhaps only a few people hold — 
 
 "I have always thought that a virtuous attachment in early life tends to 
 purify a young man, besides giving him an object to work for." 
 
 The following illustrates some of the troubles of 
 command, the power possessed by officers commanding 
 ships in those days, and the philosophical examination to 
 which Key was accustomed to submit his acts and their 
 motives — 
 
 41 I have just been obliged to perform a very distressing duty. A young 
 man, a midshipman, nearly 18 years old (just as I was in Cleopatra), was put 
 
 into my ship, by Captain C 's especial request, from the R , who gave 
 
 him under my charge with a good character. His friends have written to me 
 frequently about him, and I have been able until lately to give a favourable 
 account of him to them. However, two days ago he in a barefaced manner 
 refused to obey my orders, so I have been obliged to have him discharged from 
 the service and sent home, which I have just communicated to him by the 
 commander-in-chiefs order. I could not pass it over. Is it not hard that one's 
 duty compels such a painful course ? But what I find worse is this : although I 
 do not hesitate as to what course to follow, as duty points but in one direction, 
 yet I begin to doubt what motives urge me to my duty in this and similar 
 instances. I remember, when I was this lad's age, I committed many acts for 
 which I should have been dismissed the service. Duty then did not keep me 
 straight for conscience' sake. Why, then, do I feel it now so easy to keep in the 
 right path ? I fear ... it is selfishness. It is my interest to do my duty and to 
 make others do theirs. This is a painful avowal, but is in a great measure true." 
 
 Key's mind was a remarkably open and unbiased one, 
 but he was not always aware of the fact himself, and some- 
 times overdid it in distrusting his motives. It is plain 
 enough that, in his early as well as in his later life, self- 
 interest had its proper and legitimate influence, but not 
 
. THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 213 
 
 more. And he forgot, in so judging this young man and 
 himself in time past, that if self-interest swayed, it would 
 certainly have prevented such contretemps. Age had 
 brought wisdom and self-control as a sequence to wisdom. 
 It was an appreciation of the general fitness of things 
 which was operating in Key's mind, and failed to operate 
 in this young man's. In a minor degree the difference 
 arose from the habit in the navy of making the service of 
 the juniors a personal rather than a public one. The 
 young naval officer of those days looked upon doing or not 
 doing his duty chiefly, if not entirely, as a question of 
 pleasing or displeasing his superiors. It was their will he 
 was obeying, and not the public will. Consequently senti- 
 ment and temper operated more largely than logic or reason, 
 and we had bad results, which are in the present day much 
 minimised. 
 
 The presence of the squadron at the entrance of and 
 inside the Dardanelles had so well fulfilled its object that 
 Sir Stratford Canning was able to write to Sir Wm. Parker, 
 on the 1st of January 1850, pointing out that the state of 
 the Russo-Turkish relations freed the British Fleet from the 
 necessity of further service in Turkish waters. It had been 
 prearranged that, when the Constantinople difficulty was 
 surmounted, Sir Wm. Parker should proceed with the 
 fleet to Salamis Bay. The object was to support Mr. 
 Wyse, our minister at Athens, in certain demands upon 
 the Greek Government, including that special demand, on 
 behalf of Don Pacifico, which gave a name to the whole 
 transaction, and created such a stir in the political world. 
 I will let Key's letters tell the story from the Bulldog's point 
 of view. He dates first from Salamis Bay, 15 th January 
 1850— 
 
 "We are thus far on our road to Malta. We left Moskomisi with the 
 squadron on the 8th, and arrived here on the nth, having had some very nasty 
 weather on our passage, which is not very pleasant during these long dark nights, 
 with no moon, and a squadron of nine line-of-battle ships cruising about among 
 islands. However, we have happily escaped without any disaster. We are 
 placed in quarantine here for three days, after which the admiral and British 
 minister, Mr. Wyse, have some trifling accounts to settle with King Otho, which 
 will occupy a few days, and then we return to Malta. The admiral told me 
 yesterday that almost immediately on our arrival he would be obliged to send 
 
2i 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 us to England, as he has heard from the Admiralty that orders to that effect 
 would reach him in a few days. I cannot therefore be home much before 
 April ist. . . . 
 
 " It seems so strange to me being at this place again, where I have not been 
 since I was rated midshipman in the old A'ussell, — in October '37 I think it was. 
 If you happen to have any of my old letters of that time, see what I say of this 
 place. I remember being enchanted with the pretty Queen of Greece, Amelia. 
 I shall see her again in a day or two. Our business here now is connected with 
 the Greek loan, which they still refuse to pay, but to what extent we intend to 
 interfere I do not know." 
 
 The next letter is from the Piraiis, under date 28th 
 January 1850 — 
 
 11 Here we are again, . . . involved in another squabble with a paltry State, 
 one that would seem to be too insignificant to quarrel with. As I told you in my 
 last letter, Mr. Wyse, the British minister, waited for the arrival of our squadron 
 to press on the King the necessity of settling some long-standing demands which 
 had been made on him for the outrage and robbery of sundry British subjects. 
 These demands H.M. positively refused to accede to, having been carefully 
 instructed on that point by the French and Russian ministers. Mr. Wyse gave 
 him twenty-four hours to think over it, and, strange to say, during this time for 
 deliberation we dined with the King, on his invitation of the previous day. 
 Both the King and Queen were very affable, and tried to make themselves agree- 
 able (which, by the bye, is not easy). 
 
 "The next day at 3 p.m. we took possession of all the Greek vessels of war 
 in the port. I chased and brought in a steamer. Mr. Wyse embarked in the 
 flagship, and, a day or two after, an embargo was put on all Greek merchant 
 vessels. The most serious feature in the affair is, that the French minister has 
 protested in no very civil terms against our proceedings, and the Russian has 
 followed his example. This, if originating with himself, is nothing, but it appears 
 to be the result of instructions from his Government, and, if so, shows a determina- 
 tion to quarrel with us, which we certainly shall not avoid. However, this is 
 not yet certain. But we are — that is, Lord Palmerston is — prepared not to allow 
 any foreign Power to meddle with us in the question ; it is entirely a private 
 affair between ourselves and Greece, and will be arranged as such. The admiral 
 has now determined to make reprisals, — that is, to take possession of merchant 
 vessels to the amount of £4000, which is the sum due. 
 
 "I am now taking in coals and preparing for sea, as I shall sail to-morrow 
 with Firebrand for Syra, the most important Greek port, and there select some 
 valuable vessels and bring them here. This is likely to keep us out from England 
 a little longer ; but I feel convinced the French Government will throw over their 
 minister, and then Otho, finding himself unsupported, will give in. This 
 minister has written to Smyrna to request the French admiral to bring his 
 squadron here, but I think he will not come. 
 
 " We have had the most dreadfully cold weather which has been known in 
 this part of the world for years. Snow a foot deep on our decks for three days ; 
 thermometer at 16 . . . . 
 
 "The admiral has at last actually received orders to send Bulldog home. 
 We shall call at Port Mahon on our way, and proceed to Spithead ; and nothing 
 now detains us but this pig-headed King. 
 
THE BULLDOG— i 849-1 850 215 
 
 "I cannot tell you the pleasure I derived from visiting the Parthenon, 
 Jupiter-Olympus, etc., after having seen so many Grecian and Roman monu- 
 ments and temples in Italy. The Parthenon stands as high above every other 
 artificial structure in the world, as the Apollo Belvedere and Venus di Medici 
 above other sculptured conceptions of human beauty." 
 
 From the 18th of January, when Bulldog first took part 
 in coercing Greece, until the 9th of March, when she finally 
 left Salamis Bay for Malta, Key had scarcely a moment's 
 rest. Either alone, or in company with other ships, he was 
 in and out of one Greek port or another on most days, 
 capturing Greek ships, towing here or there, chasing and 
 examining ships at sea — 
 
 " I have been so overpressed for the past few days," Key writes on the 18th of 
 February, " with anxiety and responsibility, that I am not in a fit state to write. I 
 arrived here (at Salamis Bay) this morning after encountering dreadful weather, 
 and, as I sail again to-morrow, the admiral monopolises all my time. I am now 
 just going to dine with him. He is rather annoyed at the unjust strictures made 
 by the Times on his proceedings here. The people of England are talking, as 
 usual, in entire ignorance of the facts ; and before they pass absurd opinions 
 they had better wait till they know what has been done, and why. He has 
 received fresh orders to send me home, but he says he will not do so until 
 matters are a little smoother here. Two additional steam sloops have joined the 
 squadron during this week, Growler and Scourge. The admiral has therefore now 
 more steamers than he knows what to do with." 
 
 But Bulldogs time was up : she sailed for Malta on the 
 9th of March; arrived there on the nth; left again on 
 the 1 8th ; touched at Port Mahon, at Gibraltar, Tangier, 
 and Lisbon, on the way home. She arrived on the 7th of 
 April at Spithead, and was paid off at Portsmouth on 
 the 1 6th — 
 
 "I parted yesterday," wrote Key on the loth of March, "with my kind 
 commander-in-chief, and the whole of the squadron, with very great regret. 
 The good feeling of the captains and officers of the fleet towards this ship was 
 testified very warmly and universally. My head is in a whirl. ... I have so 
 much to think of, and to do, before I arrive in England ; and I fear I shall have 
 to fight for my promotion." 
 
 Thus ended a division of Key's career, which is scarcely 
 exceeded in interest and importance by any other part. 
 It is an example of the influence which may in troublous 
 times fall to the lot of any young naval officer. 
 
 But, varied and important as it was, tradition in the 
 navy prevented his work from occupying its true position ; 
 and as regards Key's promotion, it is quite possible that it 
 
216 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 would have come as soon as it did had his time in the Bulldog 
 been absolutely unmarked. Had he by any chance been 
 under fire for five minutes, his promotion would have perhaps 
 come out by return of post. For tradition in the navy has 
 long apportioned rewards not by what is done, but by 
 what is suffered, or supposed to be suffered. 
 
 The very active and bustling life which Key passed in 
 the Bulldog naturally forced his mind away from those ideas 
 of improvement and progress, especially on the material 
 side, which I have shown to be in its normal direction. 
 Activity was, however, not wholly able to destroy reflection, 
 and he wrote two papers, while he was in the thick of his 
 missions in Italy, which are valuable not only as illustrating 
 character, but as marking the general condition of the naval 
 mind at the time, and as denoting the source from whence 
 some of the great changes of our own day have been derived. 
 
 The first paper discussed the armament of the Bulldog, 
 and complained of her inability to fire a single gun, either 
 ahead or astern, absolutely in line with the keel. He pro- 
 posed to obviate this by a new arrangement of fighting 
 bolts, so that existing guns might be moved, if desired, 
 from a position allowing of fire nearly in line with the keel, 
 to one allowing of fire exactly in line with the keel. Then 
 the thought carried his mind a step further, and he began 
 to talk of " the useless broadside guns " in the event of an 
 attack either ahead or astern, and of the desirability of 
 transporting them to positions at bow or stern. The pro- 
 posal made on this head was to supply the Bulldog with an 
 additional io-inch pivot gun on the starboard side forward, 
 and one on the port side aft, with a 32-pounder on the 
 opposite side ; arrangements being made for transporting the 
 1 0-inch guns to fight at bow and stern beside the two 
 existing guns already pivoted there. 
 
 Comparisons were drawn between the Bulldog's probable 
 fire ahead and astern and that of some French ships, and 
 a number of details were gone into, but the desire for a 
 heavy right-ahead and right-astern fire dominated. Here, 
 however, came out a characteristic defect in Key's mental 
 methods, The necessity for preparing to fight in a W3y 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 217 
 
 that we never had fought was assumed. Not a word was 
 said to show why a change in the method of fighting was 
 to be expected. The analogy of sailing vessels was brought 
 in to show that steamers need not expect to be engaged on 
 both sides ; but analogy was tacitly denied when it showed 
 that steamers did not require to be armed to fight ahead 
 or astern any more than sailing ships did. The argument 
 never seems to have presented itself to Key's mind ; and 
 while, if it had, the clearness of his view and its logic would 
 have followed it up, the fact left him to cling tenaciously to 
 this early formed opinion. This paper must have formulated 
 one of the earliest demands for end-on fire, and fifteen years 
 later we shall find him pressing it. 
 
 The second paper bears date at Malta, in July 1849, 
 and is a reply to Admiralty criticisms on his former letter ; 
 but it deals with details, and does not touch the initial 
 question of whether the great additional manoeuvring power 
 conferred by steam was not an argument against, instead 
 of in favour of, transporting guns from point to point within 
 the ship. Whether steam did not rather demand the 
 greatest possible fire in one or two directions only, leaving 
 it to the power of steam manoeuvring to keep the enemy in 
 those directions ? 
 
 Another paper, written about the same time, was a 
 criticism of a letter from Rear- Admiral Sir Charles Napier 
 to Lord John Russell, which had been published in the 
 Times. Sir Charles had referred to the steam force of 
 France, setting out that it was " at once an object for us 
 to dread, and an example for us to follow." Key wrote 
 semi-officially to the Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty, 
 Captain. Hamilton, as having known personally the per- 
 formances of the French ships in their descent upon the 
 Roman coast, and being likely to give correct information. 
 He had no hesitation in condemning the French ships that 
 Sir Charles Napier praised, and he went into some general 
 considerations disclosing perhaps the general view of the 
 time on naval strategy, which may be quoted — 
 
 " On discussing our military resources, and especially an untried arm like our 
 steam navy, it would appear necessary to speak of it only as compared with that 
 
2i8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 of other nations ; but as France and England seem to have different objects in 
 view in the organisation of their respective steam forces, we may, leaving France 
 to follow her own inclinations, speak of the services likely to be required of ours. 
 These will probably be, to protect our coasts ; to cruise with fleets ; to afford 
 convoy to merchant ships (assisted by frigates) ; 1 and to carry despatches. I 
 think I may safely say that although vessels for any of these duties should be 
 armed perfectly, and as heavily as is compatible with their correct performance of 
 them, and though cases may frequently occur in which, by skilful management, a 
 steamer may, unaided, execute some important service, yet the primary object of 
 these vessels, whose chief motive power is the engine, is not that of offence. 
 
 "For the perfect performance of the duties mentioned, it would perhaps be 
 required to appropriate a class to each ; but the expense would be very great, 
 and it would be unwise to disable vessels from executing other services than that 
 immediately required. 
 
 " It appears to me that two descriptions of vessels would be sufficient, viz. : 
 ships with a broadside force like Blenheim, Arrogant, etc., with the auxiliary 
 screw ; and steamers (with either paddle or screw), varied in size, rig, and build, 
 but trusting to the engine as the chief motive power, and armed with the special 
 object of attack or defence by the bow or stem. 
 
 "Sir Charles complains that we have but three steam frigates. 8 I will not 
 refer to the merits or demerits of particular ships ; much improvement is needed 
 there ; but I wish to show that the classes of steamers established for the navy 
 are those which are best calculated to perform well the duties required, if their 
 construction is properly attended to. With due deference to Sir Charles, may I 
 ask him to point out one service in the performance of which a steam vessel with 
 a broadside fire excels ? 3 May I also ask what service a well-constructed steam 
 sloop cannot efficiently and economically perform ? By the term sloop, I mean 
 to imply all vessels armed only on the upper deck." 
 
 Key goes on then to declare that the power of the 
 Sidon and Terrible is wasted. The Terrible would not be 
 a match for the Arrogant ', though she probably cost far 
 more. For all services that the Terrible might be available 
 for, two paddle sloops would be more available. 
 
 It might seem remarkable to find a naval officer of 
 decidedly advanced views arguing in this way, as if the 
 signs of the times pointed to a navy composed of (i) sailing 
 ships of all classes ; (2) auxiliary screw ships depending 
 mainly on their sails; and (3) small paddle ships of high 
 power depending mainly on their steam. But, though Key 
 was distinctly advanced, he did not escape the traditional 
 
 1 That is, sailing frigates. 
 
 2 That is, steam frigates depending chiefly on their steam — paddle ships of the 
 Terrible, Odin, and Sidon class. 
 
 ' He probably means a paddle steamer, as above, considering that the screw 
 was irrevocably fixed to auxiliary power only. 
 
THE BULLDOG— 1849-1850 219 
 
 bias of naval thought. To make the best of what comes 
 into their hands is of all things the strength of natures 
 trained in the navy ; but it has its bad side, inasmuch as it 
 closes the eyes to what is coming until the moment of its 
 arrival. The incongruity of a navy in three branches, and 
 the impossibility that they could co-exist, spoke to no one. 
 Attention was diverted from watching the advance of the 
 new element, to the idea of perfecting the old; and though 
 the steps in warship design were perfectly well marked on 
 a certain path in the ships that were being laid down and 
 launched, the foremost minds in the navy failed to take 
 note of it. 
 
 The naval desire is to support what it has ; and so Key, 
 rinding paddle steamers chiefly armed at bow and stern, 
 seeks a reason for maintaining them which had nothing to do 
 with their establishment. When finding a reason in the idea 
 of a bow and stern battle, it does not occur to him that he 
 should show how such a battle can arise, nor that he should 
 explain why it had never arisen except by compulsion of 
 the armament, as in the days of galleys. He becomes so 
 carried away by the confusion of cause and effect, that he 
 goes so far as to say " that in general a broadside battery 
 is a useless armament to steamers." 
 
 But then, he soon escapes from a confusion of thought 
 into a clear atmosphere, which, had he only been able to 
 breathe it for the rest of his naval life, would, I am con- 
 vinced, have left his name in a higher position in the naval 
 world. 
 
 He concludes the paper thus : " And, finally, it is 
 holding us rather cheap to warn us of the danger England 
 incurs from the power France possesses of conveying 
 30,000 troops to Rome in six weeks, which, though skil- 
 fully accomplished, has convinced me that our countrymen 
 may sleep in peace as long as we have our present steam 
 navy to watch over our friends on the other side of the 
 Channel? 
 
 No doubt Commander Key had, as he supposed he 
 would have, " to fight for his promotion." New orders had 
 been issued, in December 1849, with regard to officers 
 
220 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 obtaining what were called " steam certificates," which were 
 held to qualify them for the command of steamers. Any 
 officer might present himself on the quarterly examination 
 days, and pass the examination if he could ; but the usual 
 course was to apply for an appointment on half-pay to the 
 Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, and, after a course 
 of instruction there, the candidate was transferred to the 
 steam factory in Woolwich for a practical course before 
 presenting himself again at Portsmouth for the final test. 
 Quite possibly, Key might have begun to despair of his 
 promotion, as month after month passed on without its 
 coming; and he might have thought that he would keep 
 himself to the front by offering to undergo the new exami- 
 nation. At anyrate, he applied to be appointed to the 
 College, and joined as a commander in September 1850. 
 But he was promoted to the rank of captain on the 1 1 th of 
 October 1850, and continued to study in that rank. He 
 was there in February 1852, and passed his steam ex- 
 amination. 
 
 In November of that year he was sent on a confidential 
 mission to report upon the naval condition of France. He 
 visited most of the dockyards, and made a long report upon 
 them, and on the working of the Inscription Maritime^ the 
 draft of which remains among his papers. On his return 
 he seems to have spent his time at home and on half-pay. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE AMPHION — I 85 3-1854 
 
 ON the 27th of June 1853 the Amphion 1 was lying 
 at Spithead, having arrived there on the 21st, 
 when, on striking lower yards and topmasts, and 
 swaying the main topmast in order to get the fid out, the 
 hook of one of the top -blocks broke, and the broken 
 piece fell directly on Captain Patey's head, seriously 
 injuring him. He was sent to Haslar Hospital next 
 day; it became necessary to provide for the command 
 of the ship, and Captain Key, being on the spot, 
 was appointed to act in temporary command until — 
 as it was hoped — her proper captain should be able to 
 return. 
 
 That good fortune which attended Cooper Key like a 
 
 1 The Amphion had been ordered to be built as far back as 1828, under 
 the name of the Ambuscade. She was not commenced till 1830, and was 
 intended to be finished on the lines of the Castor^ when it was determined to 
 turn her into a screw ship ; she was still on the stocks, and, before launching, she 
 was lengthened 16 ft., and her stern was altered to take the screw. She was 
 launched therefore as the first of the screw frigates in January 1846. Every 
 part of her, and all her fittings except the engines, boilers, and screw, was the 
 same as in an ordinary sailing frigate, but her armament was modernised later. 
 Her length was 177 ft., her beam 43 ft. ; and, according to the old method of 
 measuring tonnage, she was counted as being 1473 tons burden in 1846, and, 
 according to what was then the new method of measurement, she stood at 973 
 tons in the Navy List. Her figure-head was a bust of Sir William Hoste, the 
 conqueror at Lissa. She had direct-acting engines on the plan of Count de 
 Rosen, of 300 nominal horse-power ; and it was remarked of her, when she was 
 launched, that she was the first war steamer built in this country which had the 
 whole of her machinery and boilers below water, and therefore secure from the 
 enemy's shot. It was said of her, too, that her screw was on the plan of 
 Ericsson. She was only calculated to steam 7 knots ; and when Captain Key 
 took command of her, her best was a little over 5 knots. 
 
 221 
 
222 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 shadow was here again with him. He had not been 
 three years a captain ; his name was only forty-fifth . from 
 the bottom of the list, and there were only four men 
 below him who were in employment. These were Tarle- 
 ton, 1 flag-captain to Commodore Lambert, in the East 
 Indies ; Crispin, 2 captain of the Queen's yacht ; Hyde 
 Parker, 3 captain of the Firebrand^ in the Mediterranean ; 
 and Fishbourne, 4 of the Hermes^ who had been specially 
 promoted from commander to captain of that ship for 
 services in the Kaffir War. 
 
 Only a junior captain would usually have been ap- 
 pointed to a command expected to last but a few weeks. 
 Some junior captains would have turned up their noses 
 at it. Key was always ready, and never questioned. He 
 took a command which was destined to last, and to bring 
 him into considerable prominence. He joined the ship at 
 Spithead on 13th July 1853. 
 
 All through the year the fears of trouble with Russia 
 were increasing, and towards the summer a large squadron, 
 which was named the " Western Squadron," was formed. 
 To this squadron the Amphion was ultimately attached, 
 and it became the nucleus of the fleets which were after- 
 wards despatched to the Black Sea and the Baltic. All 
 through July the ships to form this squadron were gather- 
 ing at Spithead and St. Helen's, and on the 8th of August 
 Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, the commander-in-chief 
 at Portsmouth, hoisting his flag in the new steam three- 
 decker, the Duke of Wellington^ assembled the whole fleet 
 at St. Helen's. 
 
 The heterogeneous character of the navy of this date, 
 and the foreshadowings of the marvellous changes that 
 were to come, are well illustrated in the fleet gradually 
 assembled under Sir Thomas Cochrane's command, or 
 ultimately forming the Western Squadron. 
 
 1 Died an admiral on the retired list, and K.C.B., 1880. 
 
 2 Died captain and A.D.C., 1865. 
 
 3 Died vice-admiral and C.B., and L.C.A., 1854. 
 
 4 Died an admiral on the retired list, and C.B., 1887. 
 
THE AMPHION—iZss-iisi 223 
 
 These were — 
 
 Names. 
 
 Screw Line-of-Battle Ships 1 — 
 Duke of Wellington 
 Agamemnon • . 
 
 St. Jean a" Acre . . . 
 
 Ajax 
 
 Edinburgh . 
 
 Blenheim . 
 
 Hogue 
 
 Sailing Line-of-Battle Ships— 
 
 Queen 
 
 London ...... 
 
 Prince Regent . 
 
 Screw Frigates— 
 Imperieuse . 
 Arrogant . . . 
 
 Amphion 
 
 Tribune. 
 
 Paddle Frigates— 
 
 Sidon 
 
 Valorous 
 
 Magicienue . 
 
 Leopard. 
 
 Screw Corvettes and Sloops— 
 
 Highflyer 
 
 Encounter . 
 
 Cruiser . , . 
 
 Desperate 
 
 Paddle Corvette— 
 Vulture ...... 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 H.P. 
 
 Kts. 
 Speed. 
 
 377i 
 
 131 
 
 980 
 
 10. 1 
 
 3074 
 
 91 
 
 600 
 
 11. 
 
 3200 
 
 101 
 
 600 
 
 11. 2 
 
 1761 
 
 60 
 
 450 
 
 6.5 
 
 1772 
 
 60 
 
 450 
 
 8.8 
 
 1832 
 
 60 
 
 450 
 
 5.8 
 
 1846 
 
 60 
 
 450 
 
 7.8 
 
 3100 
 
 110 
 90 
 90 
 
 
 
 2355 
 
 5i 
 
 360 
 
 10.6 
 
 1872 
 
 47 
 
 360 
 
 8.6 
 
 1474 
 
 36 
 
 300 
 
 7-i 
 
 i57o 
 
 31 
 
 300 
 
 10.4 
 
 1328 
 
 22 
 
 560 
 
 10.4 
 
 1250 
 
 16 
 
 400 
 
 9.0 
 
 1255 
 
 16 
 
 400 
 
 10.0 
 
 1435 
 
 18 
 
 560 
 
 11. 2 
 
 "53 
 
 21 
 
 250 
 
 9.3 
 
 953 
 
 14 
 
 360 
 
 10.7 
 
 753 
 
 17 
 
 60 
 
 6.5 
 
 1037 
 
 8 
 
 400 
 
 9.4 
 
 1190 
 
 6 
 
 470 
 
 9-5 
 
 Here, assembled in one body, was the old navy, the 
 intermediate navy, and the new navy, which was itself to 
 be obsolete in ten years. But the idea that three navies, 
 
 1 The tonnage as then measured was only rather less than one-half present 
 displacement, and nominal horse-power less than half present indicated horse- 
 power. Thus the Duke of Wellington, according to present notation, measured 
 6071 tons, and 1999 indicated horse-power. 
 
224 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and not one, were assembled, can scarcely have presented 
 itself to any officer who was assisting in the display. We 
 shall see good reason for knowing that such thoughts 
 were absent; and perhaps the navy could not be what 
 it is were not the immense majority bent on accepting 
 things as they are, and making the very best of them 
 that could be made. Without doubt — just because the 
 ships were there — it was to the naval officers present the 
 most natural and appropriate thing in the world that a 
 fleet should be composed of sailing ships, screw ships, and 
 paddle ships. The belief that sailing ships were to go, 
 and that paddle ships were almost gone, would have been 
 impossible to inculcate. All minds would have turned 
 away from that form of reflection to consider how the 
 heterogeneous elements could be best combined, and to 
 become assured that they would never pass away, because 
 uses had been invented for them. 
 
 Her Majesty the Queen, who had often viewed the 
 Spithead fleet in passing backwards and forwards between 
 Osborne and Portsmouth, reviewed the combined fleets at 
 sea on the i ith, when there was a sham fight between 
 two divisions; the Amphion being attached to the port 
 division under Rear-Admiral Fanshawe, C.B., 1 who had 
 his flag in the sailing line-of-battle ship Prince Regent^ 
 with the Queen , London , and Vulture, It was a sign of 
 the times, and of the truth of what has just been said, 
 that the battle should have been fought under sail. It 
 is worth even more note than it might receive, for it 
 explains some transactions in the Baltic during the en- 
 suing year ; and illustrates for us how, by the naval mind 
 of that day, the Russian sailing navy was looked upon as 
 a real force when opposed to the Anglo-French steam 
 navy. At the date of writing, it is hopeless to try and 
 throw the mind back to such a conception, but if we 
 would understand aright we must force ourselves to re- 
 member that all minds were full of it. 
 
 On the 1 6th the Amphion tried her steam speed on the 
 measured mile in Stokes Bay, and made 5.53 knots. 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir Arthur Fanshawe, G.C.B. 
 
THE AMP///0N—iSs3-iSs^ 225 
 
 Remembering that the Bulldog used to steam 1 1 knots 
 when called upon, it is not to be wondered at that in the 
 screw versus paddle controversy, which began to rage about 
 this period, Key should, for a time, have upheld the paddle. 
 What he was really upholding was steam power against the 
 larger party which upheld sailing power, and would only 
 admit steam as an auxiliary. But the thoughts of neither 
 side were clear in those days on the revolution that was 
 approaching, and very few of the advocates of the screw 
 were aware that they favoured it because it seemed to give 
 new life to sail propulsion. 1 
 
 On the 1 8th the Queen went on board the Duke of 
 Wellington y and took the screw fleet (except Amphiori) to 
 sea for a few hours. 
 
 On the 22nd the paddle steamers Leopard, Sidon, 
 Valorous, and Vulture, with the sailing line-of-battle ships 
 Prince Regent and Queen, weighed with the Amphion, and 
 went on a cruise down Channel under the command of 
 Rear- Admiral Lowry Cony. On the 26th they joined 
 Commodore W. Byam Martin's squadron at Torbay. 
 His broad pendant was flying in the Duke of Wellington, 
 and there were, besides the Agamemnon screw line-of-battle 
 ship, the screw frigates Impe'rieuse and Arrogant, and the 
 Desperate screw sloop. The squadron was cruising in the 
 
 1 On the 15th Key had written to the Controller, Sir Baldwin Walker, as 
 follows : — 
 
 "The engine, under ordinary circumstances, makes 45 revolutions, and the 
 screw, which is of 21 feet pitch, has a speed of 9.2 knots an hour, the ship being 
 then driven at the rate of 6.2 knots, which it seldom exceeds ; the slip is there- 
 fore enormous — above 33 per cent. Where does the fault lie? The engines, 
 though nominally of 300 h.p., exert 550 h.p. They do their work. 
 
 " The form of the ship is good, as she sails comparatively well ; the fault is 
 not there, and it seems to me that it must lie in the form of the screw. When it 
 is in motion, it is evident to the eye that a large portion of power is consumed 
 in driving the water at right angles to the screw shaft, instead of parallel to it. 
 I would submit for the consideration of yourself and Mr. Lloyd, whether this 
 ship should be tried with a finer pitched screw — say 15 feet. 
 
 "At present we cannot keep the steam up to above 6 lbs., though the valve 
 is loaded to 10 lbs. , averaging 43 or 45 revolutions, instead of 48 as intended by 
 the manufacturer. I would therefore, with the new screw, keep the revolutions 
 at 48, working expansively, and would then save fuel, diminish the slip, and 
 probably increase the speed of the ship by getting a more fore-and-aft thrust." 
 
 *5 
 
226 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Channel, and in and out of Cork and Bantry Bay, until the 
 1 5 th of October, when it returned to Spithead. The cruise 
 was without event. The bad weather experienced, Key 
 says, on the 5 th of September, 
 
 " Has done much for our men, who, I find, improve daily, and I do not despair 
 of seeing this ship a creditable man-of-war. They are willing, and cheerful. We 
 arrived at the rendezvous (lat. 50 long. 9 ) yesterday, but have seen neither 
 London nor the screw squadron. . . . The squadron were spread all day in line 
 abreast at a mile apart to look out. I signalled a stranger N.W. by W. at 
 4 p.m., and was ordered to chase and ascertain her character; found that she 
 was a merchant ship, which I had suspected from the first, but I wished to 
 exercise the men setting studding-sails, etc., which they do badly." 
 
 There is no doubt but that cruising with a squadron may 
 generally be described as pleasant but dull, except during 
 the moments when some exercise or movement is being 
 made. But where there are books in plenty, the captain of 
 a ship can always find employment. Key, coming, as he 
 supposed, only for a few weeks, was ill provided in this 
 way — 
 
 "I am getting hard-up for books, having brought such a small supply with 
 me, so I have commenced to read Nelson's correspondence for the third time — 
 no bad occupation for a sea officer. I think Sir H. Nicolas has judged wisely 
 in publishing his whole correspondence. Some letters are superfluous, and many 
 badly written, but it is of importance that one can enter into the study of Nelson's 
 character with a feeling that nothing has been kept back. It gives great con- 
 fidence in forming an opinion of him. It may truly be said that Nelson's private 
 habits and trivial occupations are worth recording ; they teach us to know him — 
 which I fancy I do, thoroughly. He was undoubtedly a vain man, but was too 
 unsophisticated to conceal it. Many a man is more so, and shows it less. . . . 
 
 11 No signs of London yet. I long for news from home, and the sight of a 
 newspaper. I have been out of sorts all day — growling at everybody. How odd 
 it is ! Sometimes everything appears to go wrong ; everybody seems to oppose 
 your wishes : this has been the case with me to-day. I firmly believe it's 
 all stomach ! 
 
 "Sept. St A — Yesterday morning the admiral came on board to inspect the 
 ship, exercising us firing shell at a mark, etc. I was much worried with much 
 that was done ; there is such an evident want of system here. When I hear that 
 I am to continue in this command, I must alter much. However, the admiral 
 complimented us — which I did not tell the officers, as I feel it was undeserved. 
 I had a dreadful headache all the afternoon, and turned in early. This morning I 
 was all right, and had the satisfaction of beating the flagship, shifting topsail - 
 yards, courses, and jib. . . . 
 
 "Although I have been knocking about at sea so much, it still seems to me 
 wonderful that we can fix our position in the ocean with such accuracy. The 
 Leopard was sent to Falmouth four days ago— a distance of 240 miles. She was 
 told to meet us in lat. 50 long. 9°at 4 p.m. on Thursday. Within a quarter o<" an 
 
THE AMPZf/ON—i8 53 -iS 54 227 
 
 hour of the appointed time we met on the precise spot, as if we had named 
 Hyde Park Corner, or some such well-marked position." 
 
 On October 21st, after his return to Spithead, Key 
 wrote — 
 
 "Your letter greeted me on my arrival at Spithead on Saturday, when I 
 found myself rather knocked up, having had so much work at night, so I 
 immediately got into a train and went home for a day of rest. I rather surprised 
 them, and enjoyed my Sunday, as you may imagine. You will smile, I daresay, 
 but you can't conceive the soothing effect of finding myself among women, and 
 those my dear mother and sisters, after being two months without speaking to 
 one. . . . One great advantage of travelling is that it teaches people to appreciate 
 home fully ; though I have met some of our countrymen (and women) abroad, 
 whose lives have been spent in locomotion, and who do not know what home is, 
 and do not care. They are to be pitied. . . . 
 
 "Your remarks on the advantages of a sea life as a preparation for a social 
 one are true in theory, and should perhaps be so practically ; but I think it is 
 not so. I hold that it unfits a man for society. He is wrapped up in one 
 pursuit, and leads a life of action and of thought. Studying others, by observa- 
 tion, not by conversation ; seldom exposing (?) himself, but unconsciously (?) 
 learning (?) himself thoroughly. What can breed unsocial habits so much as 
 this ? Habits cannot be thrown off with the uniform. No, my dear friend, it is 
 bitter to think so, but we must be contented to be ' out of our element ' on 
 
 shore. . . . You say is not much liked by his officers in general. I fear 
 
 you would hear the same character of me just now. I have done nothing but 
 reprimand for the past two months. You also say that the papers mention that 
 we have suffered during the late gales. I hope you do not mean Amphion 
 individually, — not a rope-yarn has been damaged ; nothing has suffered there but 
 the captain's temper. However, I believe all on board are as happy as channel 
 cruising will allow them to be. 
 
 " Two days before our arrival at Spithead we were alarmed by the cry which 
 always makes all hearts beat — ' A man overboard ! ' It was blowing strong at night, 
 the ship going about 7 knots an hour, and a ship close astern of us, as we always 
 sail in ■ line.' Fortunately I was on deck. We let go the lifebuoy (which 
 floats, as I daresay you know, with a light burning on it), and lowered a boat, which 
 we soon lost sight of, but knew, of course, that she would steer for the lifebuoy. 
 The anxiety of the moment is not to be described. * Who is it ? ' it is asked, and 
 no one can tell, for the absent ones may form part of the boat's crew. I did 
 not know who it was till the boat returned. You can imagine my feelings on 
 receiving an answer from the boat, * He is saved.' The poor fellow had got 
 hold of the lifebuoy. Do you know the line, ' Hope, that lifeboat on the sea of 
 life ' ? It is a beautiful simile, but I should prefer, ' that lifebuoy on the sea of 
 life,' as more striking. The light not always in view, owing to waves, or dark 
 thoughts, intervening, must have appeared to that poor fellow like hope to one 
 who almost despaired." 
 
 Captain Patey's injuries proving such as to prevent his 
 rejoining, Captain Key was appointed permanently to com- 
 mand the Amphion on the 8th of November; and on the 
 
228 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 27th of the same month he sailed with part of the Western 
 Squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral A. L. 
 Corry. 
 
 Naval men's minds at this time, and for years after- 
 wards, were full of the conception of steam as an auxiliary. 
 The idea was to maintain intact the line-of-battle ship, 
 frigate, corvette, and sloop of the old days, only more 
 perfect, and with such steam power as would enable them 
 to make way in calms, and therefore to make full use of 
 the wind when there was any, and yet not to contend 
 against it. Against a strong head wind it was understood 
 that screw ships were properly powerless ; for that sort of 
 work the paddle steamer was the only suitable instrument. 
 It was almost a discovery, under these conditions, that a 
 squadron might save its coal and still proceed, by arranging 
 that half the squadron should take the other half in tow. 
 It was then the perfection of the naval ideal of the day 
 when, on arrival off the Tagus on the 8th of December, the 
 Amphion took the Cruiser in tow, the Tribune took the 
 Duke of Wellington, and the Arrogant took the Prince 
 Regent, and all proceeded proudly up the river, the differ- 
 ence between the Duke of Wellington as a steam ship, and 
 the Prince Regent as a sailing ship, being in the general 
 view a difference in degree and not in kind. The ships 
 already at Lisbon were the Impe'rieuse, Valorous, and 
 Desperate ; and soon the St. Jean a" Acre joined them, after 
 which, for some time, attention was wholly bestowed on 
 exercise, both at sea and in harbour. 
 
 So, with his mind full of the ideal, Captain Key wrote, 
 following up what he had written in the Bulldog, on the 
 27th of February 1854, a memorandum asking for a 
 revision of the regulations with regard to towing, which 
 directed the ship about to be towed to furnish the hawsers 
 and boats. Key pointed out that the ship about to tow 
 should do the whole duty, as in all the conceivable cases it 
 was more convenient for both ships that this should be so, 
 more especially in what was still the ideal case, towing 
 ships into and out of action. The reasoning is perfectly 
 sound, but it did not carry weight against the sentiment, 
 
THE AMPIffON—iS 5 3-iS 54 22g 
 
 that as the ship to be towed was the obliged ship, she 
 should share the trouble. I found the old rule in the 
 signal-book when I had to revolutionise it in 1864-66. 
 Key's reasoning not being before me, I passed it on, and 1 
 believe it remains in force. 
 
 But changes were coming with hasty steps — 
 
 " Rumours of approaching war reach us here," wrote Key on the 1st January 
 1854 ; "lam sure I have ever wished to be on such an occasion in command of 
 a fast frigate. It will be a harassing war for us, if it takes place. Blocking the 
 Russian Fleet in the Baltic and Black Sea will be our chief duty, for I suppose 
 they will not dare to come out to meet us. ... I have a great desire to punish 
 the Emperor of Russia for all his misdeeds, but I fear that he is beyond our reach. 
 We should find it difficult to destroy his fleets if he keeps them in Sevastopol and 
 Cronstadt ; but, even were we to do so, it would scarcely harm him. A few years 
 ago he had no fleet, and since it was created it has been of no service to him. 
 He has but little trade to care for ; his power does not depend on it in the smallest 
 degree, so the wretch can laugh at us." 
 
 The necessity of preparing for war had induced Key 
 to apply for a larger complement of men. The ship was 
 armed on the new model. She had a revolving 10-inch 
 gun on the upper-deck, forward and aft ; six 8 -inch hollow- 
 shot guns of 65 cwt., and fourteen 3 2 -pounders of 50 cwt, 
 on her main-deck; with twelve 32-pounders of 25 cwt. on 
 her upper-deck. The introduction of the heavy " pivot- 
 guns," as they were called, into fully-rigged screw vessels, 
 arose directly, I think, from the association of ideas, and 
 not from clear reasoning. The paddle-wheel steamer was 
 deprived of the power of mounting her main armament 
 on the broadside. So much space was occupied by the 
 wheels and sponsons that it was necessary to supply force 
 in artillery otherwise than by number. The substitution of 
 the few very heavy guns for the many lighter ones was 
 enforced upon the paddle steamer, and they could not be 
 placed elsewhere than at bow and stern. In the screw 
 ship there was no more reason for introducing these heavy 
 pivot-guns than there had been through all the ages of 
 sailing ships — rather less; because, if she fought under 
 steam, she had powers of bringing broadside guns to bear 
 that were not possessed by her ancestor. But steam and 
 the pivot-gun had become associated in idea, and therefore, 
 though the reason for their use only existed in the paddle 
 
230 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ship, they passed into the screw ship, and have remained 
 there ever since. But even as I write, it is custom and not 
 reason which has given them a position which has domi- 
 nated the whole course of naval construction. 
 
 These guns employed very large crews. Seventeen 
 men were necessary to each of the Amphion' s io-inch guns, 
 while the half-crews of 7, 6, and 4 men were supposed to 
 be competent to work the 65 cwt., 50 cwt., and 25 cwt. 
 broadside guns. The complement of the Amphion was 
 320 men. Key showed that 25 more were wanted, and, 
 though his brother-officers warned him that the Admiralty 
 would snub him for making such a request, he persevered, 
 and their lordships most politely granted it. 
 
 On the 6th of February, Key wrote — 
 
 "We have the loveliest weather. It does our ships so much good ; warms 
 the men — and mine are getting into capital condition. They will be quite ready 
 for a war. Our three last exercising days I have beaten the flagship and all the 
 squadron. . . . How thankful I ought to be that I got afloat when I did, for those 
 men who are commissioning ships now will have great difficulty in getting men, 
 and can hardly expect to get their ship into order by the time we are wanted in 
 the Baltic. . . . We are in daily expectation of being ordered home." 
 
 Prospect of war with Russia now passed into certainty. 
 Key writes on the 1 4th of February — 
 
 " I write half a line to say that we sail this morning for the Downs. I shall 
 perhaps write to you from the Channel before you receive this, but, in case I do 
 not, I leave this to be forwarded by next packet. . . . We are in good trim for 
 the Baltic, where we are to be in the middle of March. The Emperor of Russia 
 has tied the knot tight now, and it must be cut. We shall be in the Downs on 
 or before the 1st of March. Do not expect to see me, as probably I shall give 
 no one leave, and cannot therefore take it myself. . . . We shall not hurry on 
 our passage homeward, but work our guns much. We are all pretty well on that 
 point. We are a very happy squadron, and united. Our commodore is to leave 
 us, I fear, for the present. The Duke of Wellington is to be the flagship in the 
 Baltic, and he (Commodore Martin 1 ) will hoist his broad pendant in the Nile. 
 
 " The assemblage of the fleet was at Spithead, and not in the Downs, as was 
 supposed. At Spithead the Amphion arrived on the 1st of March, and there 
 were already the Princess Royal, screw line-of-battle ship, bearing the flag (blue 
 at the fore) of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier ; the Edinhirgh, with the flag 
 of Rear- Admiral Chads ; the Hogue (steam), Boscawen (sail), Leopard, Magi- 
 cienne, Dragon, and Odin, paddle-wheel steamers." 
 
 There is a note in the Amphion 's log, on the 4th of 
 March, which shows us, as in a mirror, how much more 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir William Panshawe Martin, G.C.B. 
 
THE AMPff/Otf—iis3-i8 5 4 *ji 
 
 closely allied the times I write of were to forty years before, 
 than to the times I write in, forty years later — 
 
 " Pay-clerks came on board and paid ship's company up to the 31st December 
 1853." 
 
 Merchant seamen to this day engage for the voyage, 
 and are paid up when the voyage is over. In 1853 that 
 was the normal idea of service in the navy. Payment to 
 the end of a year was a distinct innovation, and a march 
 with the times. The delay of Government to settle in 
 March, pay due in January, was not the way to put it. It 
 was a concession to pay up at all untrl the voyage was 
 over, and the men were to all intents and purposes dis- 
 charged from the service. The connection may be taken 
 with the following, which Key wrote on the 8 th — 
 
 "All is going well with us. I have entered a few men here, but am still 
 nearly 30 short. However, when I look round and see others so much worse 
 off, I feel very contented, and my men are so happy — ready for anything." 
 
 The impotence for offensive purposes of the enormous 
 fleet that the French and English assembled in the Baltic 
 gave rise in both countries to much public indignation and 
 reproach. The two countries had forgotten all about the 
 nature of naval war, and expected impossibilities. The 
 navy was never itself led away in this direction. It knew 
 that, unless the Russian Fleet put to sea and offered battle, 
 its action in the Baltic must be confined almost wholly to 
 the operations of blockade. But it had hallucinations of 
 its own with regard to the Russian action. Key writes 
 on the 10th March — 
 
 "The Russians are stronger than we imagined, having 35 sail-of-the-line. 1 
 I am told Sir B. Walker 2 says that they will most certainly come out to fight us, 
 which will be the best thing for the squadron. Of course, so long as they 
 remain behind Cronstadt, we can do nothing." 
 
 Here the view was clear enough as to the impotence 
 of our fleet to deal with anything but the enemy's ships ; 
 but, on the other hand, the idea of the Russian Fleet showing 
 itself at sea and offering battle was really preposterous. 
 
 1 That is, sailing ships. 
 
 2 Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, Bart., Controller of the Navy. Died 
 K.C.B. in 1876. 
 
232 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 They had not a single steam line-of-battle ship, while we 
 were sending up eight as a first instalment. They had few 
 steamers of any kind, and scarcely any of power. They 
 knew very well that a steam line-of-battle ship, fighting a 
 sailing line-of-battle ship, had only to take up and main- 
 tain a particular relative position, to enable her to keep her 
 broadside bearing on the bow or the stern of the sailing 
 ship, and then to destroy her, with perfect immunity to her- 
 self. But the English navy had not realised the power of 
 steam. It was to the last full of the idea of fighting under 
 sail as in old days, and it required the stimulus of war to 
 enlighten it. 
 
 On the 9th Her Majesty passed through the fleet, and 
 was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm. On the 1 1 th 
 the Neptune sailing line-of-battle ship arrived, bearing the 
 flag of Rear-Admiral Corry, and Rear-Admiral Plumridge 
 hoisted his flag in the Leopard. In the afternoon the 
 Fairy, with the Queen on board, came from Osborne to the 
 fleet. All the flag-officers and captains went on board and 
 took leave of Her Majesty. At twenty minutes to two the 
 fleet weighed and proceeded under sail to sea, led out by 
 Her Majesty, and at half-past two the ships passed her in 
 succession, cheering as they passed. Next day the fleet 
 anchored in the Downs, and on the 1 3th it again proceeded, 
 and, moving in three columns, sometimes sailing and some- 
 times steaming, crossed the North Sea and arrived at Vinga 
 Sound, an open anchorage on the coast of Sweden, nearly 
 opposite the Skaw, on the 1 8th of March. 
 
 Of the passage out, as it was that of the largest purely 
 steam fleet ever got together, a word or two may be 
 usefully recorded. Practically it was an auxiliary steam 
 passage. An attempt was made during the first day to 
 proceed with sail alone, but, the wind falling light, the fleet 
 got under steam at eight on the morning of the 12th, after 
 which, to the Downs, the highest speed reached was 6.6 
 knots. On leaving the Downs, sail was again resorted 
 to alone, but, the speed falling to one knot only, steam was 
 employed to assist, and was so used up to the time of 
 arrival in Vinga Sound. The Amphion notes herself occa- 
 
THE AMPIffON—iS 5 $~iS 54 233 
 
 sionally as " using steam to keep station," and that no 
 doubt was the case in other ships. The winds were gener- 
 ally light from the south-east, so that sail could be employed 
 throughout. The little voyage of some 650 miles, accom- 
 plished in five days, was not without its adventures, nor 
 without disclosing the risks to which a fleet depending 
 in great degree on its sails was liable — 
 
 " On Wednesday and Thursday (the 15th and 16th) we had the thickest fog 
 I ever saw. On Thursday morning, of our fine squadron, only five were present. 
 The two admirals, Napier and Chads, St. Jean a" Acre, Hogue, and Amphion. 
 One admiral and eleven ships missing. Certainly it was not easy work to keep 
 company, but I hope the admiral will keep us in better order than this." 
 
 The fleet only once appears to have reached the speed 
 of 7 knots, and it was generally 5 knots or less. 
 
 This advanced guard of the Baltic fleet consisted entirely 
 of steam ships, and the number of screw ships shows the 
 immense progress steam propulsion had made since Key 
 had quitted his paddle ship. 
 
 The fleet anchored at Vinga Sound embraced the Duke 
 of Wellington (flag of Vice- Admiral Sir C. Napier), St. Jean 
 d'Acre, Princess Royal, Royal George, Cressy, Edinburgh, 
 Hogue, Ajax, Blenheim, — 9 screw line-of-battle ships; Impe'ri- 
 euse, Euryalus, Arrogant, Tribune, and Amphion, — 5 screw 
 frigates ; Leopard, Valorous, and Dragon, — 3 paddle-wheel 
 steam ships. Making 17 sail in all. 
 
 Colliers had been sent on before the fleet, and the ships 
 while at Vinga Sound were employed in coaling and firing 
 at targets, as to which Key did not like so much expen- 
 diture of ammunition. The commander-in-chief had gone 
 to Copenhagen in the Valorous. On 23rd March, Key 
 writes — 
 
 " Admiral Chads came on board and inspected us, made us fire shot, etc. 
 After he had worked us up a bit, Commodore Seymour l came on board and went 
 round the ship. What a contrast these two men offer ! Both good in their 
 way _I should rather say, both excellent. The first all fire and energy, combined 
 with a thorough knowledge of his profession, and devoted to it exclusively. The 
 other of a cautious, penetrating mind, highly cultivated and deep thinking ; but, 
 I should imagine, too cautious to take responsibility on himself when it is 
 perhaps needed." 
 
 1 Then captain of the fleet, afterwards Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, G.C.B. 
 Died 1870. 
 
234 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 On the 22nd Sir C. Napier returned from Copenhagen ; 
 on the 23rd at daylight the whole fleet weighed under 
 steam, and at 1.20 the next morning it anchored off 
 Forness Point, at the entrance to the Belts. Admiral 
 Plumridge, with some of the smaller vessels, was now sent 
 ahead to mark the dangers of the Belt, and thus aided, the 
 fleet, having picked up the Neptune and Monarch sailing 
 line-of-battle ships, with the Bulldog and Vulture paddle 
 steamers, on the 2 3rd, got as far as Reef Ness, at the entrance 
 to the Great Belt, by the evening of the 24th. 
 
 The navigation this day had been somewhat intricate 
 and difficult, although the marks were admirable ; but with 
 steam, and the precaution of marking the shoals by ships, 
 the risks were reduced to a minimum, and there was no 
 mishap ; but it blew a heavy gale from the north-west on 
 the 25 th, and it became necessary to strike topmasts. On 
 the 26th the fleet passed the narrowest part of the Belt 
 — between Knud's Head and the Sprogo patches — and 
 anchored in the afternoon off Vengeance Shoal. Weighing 
 again at seven the next morning, signal was made to 
 rendezvous at Kiel, the commander-in-chief parted com- 
 pany, and the fleet anchored in Kiel Bay after dark. The 
 progress was no doubt leisurely, but notice of the declara- 
 tion of war had not yet reached them. 
 
 Key writes on 27th — 
 
 "We are just anchoring in Kiel Bay (Denmark), having safely passed the 
 Great Belt with beautiful weather. Oh ! how my pride is fallen ! On Thursday 
 evening (the 23rd) I turned in, satisfied with myself and all the world. Admiral 
 Chads having been on board and inspected us with our guns, firing shot at a 
 mark, etc. He told me, and he told Sir C. Napier, that ' he had not seen any- 
 thing so good for a long time ; and he wished his own ship only approached us.' 
 So I was very happy, and very proud. On Friday it had been blowing very 
 hard during the night, and I had to let go a second anchor. So, when the signal 
 was made to weigh, I was somewhat behindhand, and the admiral made the 
 signal, ' Very slack ! ' Think of that ! The other ships were without a second 
 anchor. I know we were not slack, and shall explain it to Sir C. N. when I see 
 him, but meanwhile the signal weighs on me. But it has done me good. I feel 
 it has. I know that we are the smartest ship in the fleet, and I will make him 
 own it. 
 
 " Tuesday, March 28M. — I must send this off at once, as a signal is made to 
 do so. It is a melancholy letter, but I am all right now. We have manned and 
 armed all the boats of the fleet, and the admiral has signalled, ' Amphion first ! ' " 
 
THE AMP/f/ON—iS5 3 -iS 54r 235 
 
 The whole fleet moved out of Kiel Bay on the 29th of 
 March, did some little manoeuvring under sail, and anchored 
 again in the evening. Early on the morning of the 31st 
 the fleet again weighed, and made sail for Kioge Bay. At 
 midnight Key wrote — 
 
 "We have heard through Kiel and Hamburg that war is declared with 
 Russia, 1 and I imagine that the admiral heard it officially this afternoon, for he 
 bestirred himself on reading his despatches, and made the signal to get steam 
 up without loss of time. 
 
 "April 1st. — Evening, Copenhagen. After I had finished writing to you 
 last night, a thick fog came on which compelled the fleet to anchor ; 2 not, how- 
 ever, without two of them running on board of each other, breaking numerous 
 spars, destroying two boats, and killing two men. The fog was wonderfully 
 thick. This morning at eight we weighed and stood towards Kioge Bay. By the 
 bye, after weighing, the admiral hoisted the signal, ' Amphion very smart' — not 
 smart in the female sense, but man-of-war like. Well ! just before the fleet 
 anchored, he signalled for Tribune, Dauntless, and Amphion to proceed to 
 Copenhagen to water and coal, about which we are now employed, and shall be, 
 I fear, all to-morrow — Sunday. I believe it is in contemplation to send a small 
 squadron to the Gulf of Finland at once. This will be delicious ; as it is in 
 detached service only that frigates can find decent work to do. But I fear that 
 our want of speed may prevent this ship from being sent. 
 
 April 2nd. — Ryder 3 passed the evening with me yesterday. He has done a 
 great deal in his ship in a short time. I am happy to say that Cruiser* is to join 
 our fleet. . . . We are all anxiety for the official declaration of war, which has 
 not yet arrived." 
 
 Rejoining the fleet at Kioge Bay on the afternoon of the 
 3rd of April, war being declared, Captain Key received 
 orders on the 5 th to cruise, until further orders, off the north- 
 west end of the island of Bornholm, that is, in a channel 20 
 miles wide, about 90 miles farther up the Baltic than the 
 fleet lay, between the island and the south-east part of 
 Sweden, being in the track of vessels trading between the 
 Sound and Baltic ports. His duty was to examine all 
 vessels bound to any Russian port, and to detain such as 
 were found with contraband of war on board. He was to 
 
 1 It was declared on 27th March. 
 
 2 We may note here one of the disabilities of a sailing fleet. A steam fleet 
 would now proceed, unless there were dangers in the way, and order would be 
 preserved by means of signals made with the steam syrens. 
 
 3 Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet Sir A. P. Ryder, K.C.B. Drowned in the 
 Thames in 1888. 
 
 4 The Cruiser •, a 1 7 -gun screw corvette, commanded by Commander Hon. 
 G. Douglas. 
 
236 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 see that no Russian war vessels passed, but was furnished 
 with the Queen's Order in Council, which allowed Russian 
 vessels a limited time of freedom from capture, provided 
 they had no contraband of war on board. 
 
 The Amphion had a busy, if profitless, time on her new 
 station till the 13th, in constant chase and boarding of 
 merchant ships of various nations, none of which were 
 detained. On the 1 3th the fleet came up in three columns, 
 consisting of 1 1 sail-of-the-line and 11 frigates. Amphion 
 took her station as fifth ship in the rear squadron. 1 She 
 thus proceeded forwards with the fleet, every now and then 
 being detached to chase various sail without result, though 
 on the 17th the Gorgon — Key's old ship — took possession 
 of a Russian brig. On the 21st the fleet was up towards 
 the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, and Key was detached 
 to cruise between the north part of the island of Gothland 
 and Dagerort, at the southern part of the entrance to the 
 Gulf of Finland, and the Cruiser and Conflict were placed 
 under his orders. He writes on the 30th — 
 
 " I think I told you that the admiral had detached me to cruise between 
 Gothland and Dagerort. Well ! I heard there was a frigate in the Gulf of Riga, 
 off Riga, and that the ice, which still filled the whole of the bay, would prevent 
 merchant vessels from getting up to the town ; so, although I am afraid it is a 
 long way off my station, as I knew that the admiral would not send any ship up 
 there on account of the difficulties of the navigation, and the ease with which the 
 Russians could send a force down to intercept any ships in the gulf, I wrote to tell 
 the admiral that I intended to go in, and trusted for his approval. On Thursday 
 evening (the 27th of April) I met the Cruiser and took her with me, since which 
 we have been night and day in the ice. I got off the town ; no man-of-war 
 was there ; the forts fired on us — a few shot, but a long way off. I took two 
 merchant vessels (of which Cruiser will share), had a shot at a gunboat — very 
 nearly fixed in the ice immovably, but got clear and came out with my prizes in 
 tow, and Cruiser, last night and this morning, through the most intricate part of 
 the navigation in a regular London fog. What the admiral will say I have yet to 
 hear, and will not fail to tell you. It puts some money in his pocket, — that's one 
 reason for pacifying him, and I know I have done a very proper thing. Douglas 2 
 is going to Memel this evening, and will take this. He is a good hand to have as 
 second. I really am so knocked up that I cannot write more. I have not heard 
 from home for an age, and the last paper I have seen is April 1st, but I hope to 
 
 1 The squadrons of a fleet were still called, as in the old time, "van," 
 "centre," and "rear," although when sailing in three columns they were abreast 
 of each other, and in line, the rear might be the van. 
 
 2 The commander of the Cruiser. 
 
THE AMPHION— 1853-1854 237 
 
 get our letters at Faro, where I am now going. By the bye, we had a narrow 
 escape of being wrecked there ten days ago in a gale of wind. But don't imagine 
 the old Amphion is going to leave her bones in the Baltic." 
 
 But there is many a slip between cup and lip, and " old 
 Amphion " took the ground on the way to Faro Sound 
 no later than two days after thus writing. Happily, she did 
 not strike hard, and by shifting guns and backing sails she 
 got off into deep water, and anchored at Faro Sound a 
 couple of hours after. Going out again in tow of the 
 Rosamond on the 5 th of May, she again took the ground, 
 and remained ashore from a quarter to eight that morning 
 until three o'clock on the morning of the 6th. The fleet, 
 under Sir C. Napier, was then cruising north of Gothland, 
 and early on the morning of the 7th the Amphion joined 
 them and took her place in the " order of sailing." The 
 Conflict, one of the ships under Captain Key's command, 
 had had the misfortune to lose her captain — Foote — who 
 was drowned in the surf on the bar at Memel early in the 
 cruise. Captain Arthur Cumming, 1 already distinguished 
 for his enterprise and gallantry, had been sent out to assume 
 the command of the Conflict, and now, much to Captain 
 Key's contentment, joined the Amphion bag and baggage 
 for conveyance to his ship on the 8th of May. 2 Key met 
 the Conflict off Libau on the 10th, and Cumming assumed 
 command of her. Amphion went on to Memel, and thence 
 on the 1 3th Key wrote — 
 
 " I told M to answer my letter to her to Memel, but you had better not do 
 
 so now, as the weather is clearing up, and I imagine that the admiral must attack 
 Revel or Sveaborg shortly, when he has promised to send for us. I think I told 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir A. Cumming, K.C.B. Died 1893. 
 * Captain Key's new orders ran as follows : — 
 
 " Duke of Wellington, off Gatska Sando, 
 " fth May 1854. 
 "Memo.— You will take under your orders II. M. ships Conflict, Cruiser, 
 and Archer, and blockade the Russian coast between Filsand light and Memel. 
 Any prizes you may take you will send into Memel, and endeavour to get crews 
 to take them to Sheerness. 
 
 " Whilst you are employed on this service, you can look into the Gulf of 
 Riga, but you are not to run any risk in so doing. . . . 
 
 "Chas. Napier, 
 " Vice- Admiral and Commander-in-Chief," 
 
238 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 M that I have to blockade the whole Russian coast with five ships. This 
 
 gives me ample occupation, especially as my instructions are vague, and there 
 are so many conflicting interests among the neutral nations that I have hard work 
 to steer clear of misunderstandings. But I enjoy the work thoroughly, especially 
 as my spare moments are occupied in planning an expedition of my own which 
 I have not yet divulged to a soul. If it takes place you will hear of it in time. 
 I am anxious to ' get our hands in.' None of us as yet realise the war. A few 
 nights ago I was running down this coast looking for Cruiser ; we saw her about 
 10 p.m., a thick, hazy night. I made the private signal and hove-to. She 
 hoisted something, not the proper signal, and hove-to also, about three-quarters 
 of a mile to windward. I intended to wait till daylight, and thought, of course, 
 that she understood that. At daylight she bore down towards us under steam 
 and sail (I had turned in for two hours), and Douglas 1 hailed to say that he had 
 been at quarters all night, guns double-shotted and primed, the men with trigger 
 lines in their hands waiting for the order to fire, he taking us for a Russian 
 frigate. Had I been hasty and ordered a gun to be fired to enforce private 
 signal, it is most probable that the Crtiiser would have fired into us without 
 orders. He came to breakfast with me, and we had a hearty laugh over it. He 
 said that he never spent such a night in his life. ... Is it not cruel the way 
 they increase the premium for insurance on a life in the Baltic ? ... If they 
 knew how safe we consider ourselves under our chief (entre nous) they would not 
 charge so high. ... I wish I could tell you something of our prospects in this 
 part of the world, but I cannot. The admiral has not determined on anything 
 — certainly will not do anything till the French arrive. Of one thing I feel 
 pretty confident : whatever we attempt will be successful ; but caution seems the 
 order of the day." 
 
 The next letter describes the result of the " expedition 
 of his own." It is dated Memel, 1 8th May — 
 
 " I am very sleepy, but I must let off some of my wrath against the Times before 
 I go to bed. I have just read that we, the Amphion, are Russian prisoners, prob- 
 ably en route for Siberia, or enjoying the knout. Well ! I hope by this time 
 they will have had to register what we have been about. Meanwhile I will tell 
 you. There is a town and harbour on this coast called Libau. It contains 
 10,000 inhabitants, and has a considerable trade, second to Riga in this part of 
 the world. It is well defended by nature, but not fortified, having two or three 
 guns mounted, and 400 or 500 soldiers quartered there. ... I knew that there 
 were several Russian merchant vessels there, and I was determined to have them 
 out. The day after I left Memel, where I wrote to you last, I boarded a Swedish 
 brig, and she told us that it had been very strongly fortified and thousands of 
 troops sent there. This was startling ; nevertheless I had made my mind up, and 
 stood in for Libau, where I found Conflict about four miles off shore. I had 
 ordered Cumming to meet me there that evening. We discussed a plan of attack, 
 and I showed him my letter, which I intended to send to the governor by him 
 (Cumming) under a flag of truce. He proposed one or two slight judicious altera- 
 tions, which I made, and next morning (the 17th) we stood in for the town, sounding 
 carefully by boats, as the approach is dangerous. We succeeded in getting within 
 good gunshot of the town, which I had scarcely hoped for. Then I sent in the 
 
 1 Commander Hon. Geo. H. Douglas, now (1898) admiral. 
 
THE AMPHION— 1*53-1*54 239 
 
 letter, which gave them three hours to send out the merchant vessels, or the con- 
 sequences would be serious. You may imagine my anxiety during the three 
 hours. He refused, but said he would send a final answer before the time specified 
 had expired. Meanwhile troops were on the move, marching and galloping 
 about, and we were preparing our boats, arming the crews and making all ready 
 for a serious encounter. At the appointed time the governor sent off to say that 
 the troops had left him, and that, though it was out of his power to send the 
 vessels out, we might send our boats to fetch them. l I thereupon took our boats 
 in armed, and told them that the first shot fired at us would be the signal for us 
 to open fire, otherwise I should not do so. We pulled up the creek, which is only 
 50 or 60 yards broad ! for I £ mile before arriving at the bridge, both banks 
 being crowded with people the whole way. I found all the vessels above the 
 bridge, and so, as I was prepared with ■ blasting apparatus,' I told the people 
 that unless they removed the bridge, or part of it, I should blow it to pieces. I 
 took possession of a steamer for the day only, as she was a Dane, but I got the 
 steam up and kept her ready as a refuge for the boats in case of a sudden attack. 
 And there we were, with 1 10 men in possession of an enemy's town with 10,000 
 inhabitants and 400 or 500 soldiers, taking their property from them in the 
 quietest way, nearly three miles from our ships ! We took possession of eight 
 new vessels, some of which were aground. I would not allow anything to be 
 destroyed. What we could not take we left, and the private property of the 
 captains of the vessels was given up to them. They made a passage through the 
 bridge for us, and we brought them all down, took them in tow of the ship, and 
 brought them to Memel. I am anxious to let the admiral know, and shall send 
 Archer to acquaint him. 
 
 "The French squadron has not yet arrived, and until that takes place 
 nothing serious will be done. I have been fortunate in having the opportunity of 
 
 1 The " governor's " reply was in German, translated as follows : — 
 
 "Libau Town Hall, 
 
 "J/^5/17, 1854. 
 
 "Sir, — The notification addressed by Her Britannic Majesty's commander of 
 the Amphion to deliver up the Russian merchant vessels in the port of Libau has 
 been received by the magistrates of this town, there being no military or civil 
 governor here. 
 
 "The town of Libau being in a defenceless state, has no power to resist the 
 demand. 
 
 "The peaceable inhabitants are compelled to submit themselves to any 
 demands put to them. They expect, however, that Her Britannic Majesty's 
 power will only undertake that which is consistent with humanity and honour. 
 
 " The ships demanded can and will not be refused, but it is entirely impossible 
 to deliver them in the time prescribed, as the most of them are unrigged and lying 
 on a swampy ground. 
 
 " Under these circumstances the magistrates can only reply that Her Majesty's 
 Parlementaire should convince himself of the impossibility, and resolve in which 
 way the said merchant vessels are to be brought out of the harbour. Trusting 
 that meanwhile no hostilities will be undertaken against the town,— I have the 
 honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " In the name of the magistrates of Libau, the presiding burgomaster, 
 
 "Fried. Zunther." 
 
240 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 keeping our men employed, and in this case specially fortunate in having a man 
 like Cumming to second me." 
 
 Off Oesil, Captain Key wrote, on 22nd May — 
 
 "lam sending Cruiser up to the admiral on her way to Faro, and to tell him 
 about Libau. ... I am not anxious about the result, as, whether he approves of 
 the act or not, he cannot but say that it was well executed. Nothing was omitted, 
 nothing went otherwise than I could have wished. But I am anxious to hear 
 from the admiral, — in the first place to get our letters, and because I have been 
 doing many things concerning the blockade on which I wish to have his 
 opinion." 
 
 The next letter is dated 6th June, from Memel — 
 
 "The admiral approves most highly of the prompt and judicious measures, 
 etc. etc., at Libau, and also of all that has been done since he entrusted me with 
 this command. 1 Douglas tells me that they have been making partial attempts 
 on some forts at Hango, but that there appears no prospect of any serious 
 work, and Commodore Seymour confirms this. So I am to remain on 
 
 this station for the present. . . . My dear , Charlie Napier won't do. He 
 
 has nothing in him on a large scale, and his nerve is gone. This is between our- 
 selves. If this war continues we must change our commander-in-chief, or our 
 prestige is gone ! . . . We have had such wretched weather here. No communi- 
 cation with the shore for three days, and thermometer at 42 at noon. My roses 
 suffer." 
 
 The Amphion had somewhat of a monotonous time 
 just now. She cruised, nearly always under sail, up 
 and down the 160 miles of coast she was guarding, 
 and with little more exciting in hand than chasing neutral 
 traders and warning them of the state of blockade — the 
 warnings being generally obeyed. The pleasantest part 
 of it, perhaps, was the meeting with the ships under 
 Key's command and the comparing of notes with the 
 commanders. 
 
 I The Commander-in-Chiefs official approval ran :— 
 
 " Duke of Wellington, Hango Bay, 
 " 28M May 1854. 
 
 II Sir,— I have received your letter of the 18th inst. with enclosures, giving an 
 account of the surrender of the town of Libau and the delivery of the shipping in 
 that port ; and I much approve of the prompt and judicious steps you took to 
 accomplish this object, and the humanity you showed in not injuring the town. 
 
 "(Signed) Chas. Napier." 
 
 The Admiralty approval, dated 15th June, was, according to Admiralty 
 manner, colder. They commanded Mr. Secretary R. Osborn "to express their 
 approval of the conduct of Captains Key and Cumming, together with that of 
 the officers, seamen, and marines employed on this service." 
 
THE AMPJIfON— 1653-1854 241 
 
 There were, however, occasional captures of intending 
 blockade breakers. Key writes on the 16th June — 
 
 - "We have still cold weather, with endless fog, though close to midsummer's 
 day. . . . Ryder is gone home to have something done to his machinery, I 
 believe. He is to take the prizes captured for attempting to violate the blockade. 
 The French squadron has arrived ; but I see no prospect, nor hear of any 
 probability, of our doing anything in these waters this year. No ; nothing. 
 
 "I am almost ashamed of the way in which Sir Ch. Napier and Sir J. Graham 
 write to me, calling our affair at Libau a gallant exploit, a dashing enter- 
 prise, etc., when there is so much to be done. But next year there must be a 
 change in the state of affairs. We want troops, no doubt, to do anything of 
 importance." 
 
 Sad news came in the middle of June, of which Key 
 writes from Memel on the 19th — 
 
 " Our first summer's day ! So hot ! It has done me up ; but we leave here 
 to-morrow, so I must write a line before turning in. The papers will probably 
 have told you before this of the sad affair in the Gulf of Bothnia. The Vulture 
 and Odin attempted to imitate our Libau incursion ; but they neglected one 
 important precaution — viz., anchoring their ships within gunshot of the shore. 
 They sent their boats in to demand that some vessels should be given up, their 
 boat carrying a flag of truce, but the men all armed 1 The governor refused, 
 and the boats then turned to return to their ships. The enemy immediately 
 opened fire on them from two field-pieces ; killed a lieutenant, a mate, a mid, 
 and, I think, 4 men ; wounded a lieutenant of marines, a mate, and 8 men — all 
 of Odin. The Vulture s boat was taken -possession of, with her gun, 20 seamen, 
 8 marines, and a mate. Poor Frank Scott of Odin will be much distressed. 
 Captain Glasse of Vulture was in command. 
 
 "I am going to the admiral without orders, but I cannot rest here in peace 
 until I am satisfied in my own mind that he intends to do nothing in the Gulf of 
 Finland. I want him to take Revel. They say it's of no use. Granted it's of 
 no use to us, but it is to Russia ; but more than that, nine-tenths of our men have 
 never seen a shot fired in anger, and how unwise it would be that Cronstadt or 
 Sveaborg should witness their debut. Our men want training in this matter, 
 without which we could not expect them to do much. And more, our officers 
 will not have confidence sufficient in them to attempt much. It seems sanguinary 
 to wish to take Revel merely as an experiment, but war is not child's play, and 
 nothing will be done worthy of our country without serious and careful prepara- 
 tion. I have no doubt that the press will soon begin to complain of our tardiness 
 in not destroying the forts and fleets. Before they do so, let them remember that 
 our fleet in these waters is the only shield between you and destruction, the in- 
 vasion and almost certain overthrow of your hearths and altars. If our fleet is 
 disabled by an attack on these masses of granite, the Russian fleet is free to trans- 
 port, not 50,000 men, but 300,000 troops to England, when there will be neither 
 ships nor soldiers to oppose them. If people complain thereupon, remind them 
 of this, and ask if they would wish any attempt to be made when a doubt existed 
 of our success." 
 
 On the 24th of June the Amphion arrived in Baro 
 16 
 
242 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Sound, in the Gulf of Finland, where were some French 
 ships and Rear-Admiral Cony's squadron of seven sail-of- 
 the-line and four steamers. Key had brought them up a 
 cargo of thirty bullocks. But he was back again on his old 
 ground by the 28th. And now Captain Key carried out a 
 piece of seamanship which reminds us of the work of the 
 old war in such matters. 
 
 The carpenter of the ship discovered that the mizzen- 
 mast head was badly sprung in two places, and a further 
 examination showed that the mast was rotten throughout. 
 Key bought a spar at Memel on the 4th of July, and, lying 
 in the open roadstead, got the old mast out, made a new 
 one, and stepped it on the 8th. He was at sea again with 
 sail set on his new mast on the 10th. 1 He wrote on the 
 5th— 
 
 " Oh, the heat ! Jersey is'nothing to this. Having been ■ friz ' for the last six 
 months, you can imagine how we thaw ! I have serious thoughts of having a 
 mould made to contain myself. My present occupation is making a new mizzen- 
 mast, which I hope will be finished to-morrow. I think the admiral will be 
 pleased at our getting this done without reporting it to him. In that case he 
 would have sent us to England, as I am sure he would not take on himself the 
 responsibility of shifting a mizzenmast at sea. 
 
 "Yesterday we found poor John Foote's body, which we buried on shore 
 with military honours, landing all our marines and many bluejackets. It was a 
 fine sight for the Memel people. We have this morning heard unpleasant 
 news from St. Petersburg, that two, if not more, of our steamers have been 
 destroyed by the batteries at Cronstadt, having got on shore within range of 
 the forts. This requires confirmation, but there is probably some foundation 
 for it. 3 
 
 "/kfy llth. — I have received my orders, very complimentary, to return to 
 Sir C. Napier for a short time, and I leave for him to-night. 
 
 " Baro Sound, July \*jth. — I have but a moment to write to tell you that we 
 have joined the Commander-in-Chief, and, I imagine, at a most opportune moment. 
 There is 'something in the wind.' Nothing very formidable, but something 
 more than has yet been attempted. It is time ! . . . I had a long yarn with 
 
 1 Sir Charles Napier wrote, in reference to this achievement, from Ledsund, 
 Aland Islands, on 1st August : — 
 
 "With reference to your letter of the 24th ult., reporting that, on finding the 
 Amphioris mizzenmast rotten, you had unstepped it at sea for examination and 
 repair if it were possible. 
 
 " I approve of your purchasing a spar at Memel to make a new mast, the 
 old proving perfectly rotten ; and I have considered it my duty to make a special 
 report to the Admiralty of your smartness on this occasion." 
 
 8 It was an unfounded rumour. 
 
THE A MPHION— 1853-1854 243 
 
 Sulivan x yesterday. He is, as I knew he would be, the life and soul of the 
 squadron, and he has been surveying every hole and corner of this Gulf of Fin- 
 land. . . . We shall not do anything till the French troops arrive." 
 
 It was the attack on Bomarsund which was in con- 
 templation ; and some weeks before, Captain Sulivan had 
 carried out a sufficiently close survey of the position to 
 arrange the plan of attack. Bomarsund was the fortified 
 place of the Aland Islands. The fortifications consisted 
 of one principal and three smaller stone forts, all accessible 
 to fire from the sea, and all capable of being commanded 
 by properly placed batteries on the land. In preparing for 
 the attack, Sir Charles Napier divided his fleet into three 
 parts. First, Commodore Martin, with nine sail-of-the-line, 
 mostly steam ships, watched the Russian sailing fleet at 
 Cronstadt. Secondly, four steam sail-of-the-line with steam 
 frigates, including the Amphion and smaller vessels, together 
 with four French steam vessels, were detached to conduct the 
 sea part of the attack under Admiral Chads, while the mass 
 of the fleet was assembled at Ledsund, in the Aland Islands, 
 in order to support Commodore Martin should the Russian 
 Fleet embark in the foolhardy enterprise of breaking out. 
 The real attack was to be conducted by 10,000 troops, in 
 course of arrival from France. The fleet began to move 
 from Baro Sound to Ledsund on the 18th, and Amphion 
 anchored there on the 2 1 st. The next morning Admiral 
 Chads's squadron, consisting of the steam line - of- battle 
 ships, Edinburgh, Hogue, Blenheim, and Ajax, with the 
 Amphion, proceeded to their appointed positions, and just 
 before three o'clock anchored within gunshot of the Bomar- 
 sund forts. The Russians promptly availed themselves of the 
 opportunity to open fire, on which the ships moved a little 
 farther out, sending round boats to survey the approaches 
 in every direction, and to guard against surprises by gun- 
 boats, etc. 
 
 Key found time to write on the 24th — 
 
 " I have not heard from England for some time, and in this outlandish place 
 
 x Then captain of H.M.S. Lightning, as surveyor-in-chief to the fleet. Died 
 as Admiral Sir Bartholomew Sulivan, K.C.B., in 1890. He had been, as com- 
 mander of the Philomel, Key's warm friend and ally in the river Plate. 
 
244 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 I fear I must wait some time longer. We left Baro Sound with the fleet on 
 Tuesday 18th, and on Friday evening anchored in Ledsund, in the Aland Islands. 
 At daylight on Saturday, Edinburgh, Ajax, Hogue, Blenheim, and Amphion 
 were ordered to proceed to Bomarsund under Admiral Chads. The passage up 
 through the islands was very interesting and pretty. Our old friend Sulivan 
 piloted us, sometimes almost rubbing our sides against the bushes. We anchored 
 about 2000 yards from the forts — most formidable - looking affairs. We had 
 scarcely brought up when they opened fire on us from a few guns. Their shot 
 fell inside, but as one shell passed beyond us we all weighed and shifted about 
 200 yards farther out. I will send you a sketch of the forts and island before 
 long. I do not think that we have sufficient men to take them, but I know that 
 we shan't try, as Sir C. Napier has ordered Admiral Chads not to attack. I 
 imagine that we shall take them when the French troops arrive, not before, 
 though we could do it by assault and escalade with one or two more ships, but 
 not without considerable loss. Ships have never been face to face with such 
 forts as these before. You will have seen an account in the paper about Captain 
 Hall 1 having 'successfully bombarded Bomarsund.' There is scarcely a scratch 
 visible ; he killed two men, and fired away all his 10-inch shot, which is very 
 
 scarce. G dined with me yesterday, and our chaplain, Mr. Jolley, 3 whom I 
 
 like better every day. He is now in my cabin taking a ' Hannah-Petterson-erish ' 
 looking sketch of the forts. He has taught our boys to sing very creditably in 
 church. . . . 
 
 " The troops will not be here, I fear, for ten days, which will make our opera- 
 tions very late, as the season is advancing. I hope that we shall not winter here, 
 whether we take Bomarsund or not. I alarmed a French captain by telling him 
 that it was probable. . . . We all dine with Admiral Chads to-night, our chief ; 
 and a very fine fellow he is, were he a trifle younger. He is sixty-eight, though 
 amazingly active. ... I am happy to say we have escaped the cholera as yet. 
 It has been to a considerable extent on board most of the ships." 
 
 For some days the Amphion was in and about the 
 Aland Islands, with French and other ships on the move, 
 admirals and generals reconnoitring, and more preparation 
 going on than was quite agreeable to Captain Key's active 
 and enterprising temper. On the 2nd of August, off 
 Bomarsund, he wrote — 
 
 " I must not let my feelings get the better of me, and give vent to them during 
 our present humiliation, looking at these forts, and compelled to send to France 
 for soldiers to take them. I am not prepared to say that we have not done the 
 wisest thing in waiting for troops, but undoubtedly we might take them ourselves 
 by landing marines and seamen. We should, however, have suffered much loss, 
 for they are very formidable on the sea face. The troops have arrived, but have 
 not yet disembarked. There will not be many ships engaged, but I will not 
 
 1 Captain W. H. Hall of the Hecla. 
 
 5 Rev. W. R. Jolley, M.A., F.R.G.S., Incumbent of St. John's, Birkenhead, 
 and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, who had only recently joined the navy, 
 the Amphion being his first ship. 
 
THE AMPHION—i^Z-i^A 245 
 
 waste ink and time by writing of what we are going to do. I hope soon to tell 
 you of what we have done. I have hopes of Cura^oa yet. She is not commis- 
 sioned, and Sir Charles tells me that I am to have a better ship. Two days ago 
 I was with the admirals and generals in Lightning (Sulivan) ; we went in to 
 reconnoitre the forts ; they fired several shot and shell at us. One passed over 
 the poor little Lightning, and would certainly have sunk her with her valuable 
 cargo, Baraguay d'Hilliers, Napier, etc. — Key, — what a loss to the country ! I 
 am now anchored near Yelverton, 1 and see a great deal of him. We have taken 
 possession of two islands, on which we forage, and indeed we are living on the 
 fat of the land." 
 
 No description of the attack on Bomarsund from 
 Captain Key's pen has been preserved. The Amphion' s 
 particular share in the enterprise was first on the 8th of 
 August, anchoring in company with the French PhUgeton 
 within 2000 yards of a battery which would, if unsilenced, 
 have interfered with the landing of the French troops. The 
 Russian garrison evacuated the fort as soon as Amphion 
 opened fire, whereupon Key sent his boats in and spiked 
 the guns. In the afternoon of the same day the Bulldog 
 ran aground, and it was the task of A ?nphion and Vulture 
 to pull her off again, which they did in the evening. On 
 the ioth Key saw the Penelope take the ground within 
 range of the largest fort, which at once opened fire on her. 
 He sent a boat to her assistance, while other ships were 
 sent to her, and the Valorous closed with the fort to divert 
 its fire. She was got off, but not till she had thrown her 
 guns overboard, and she rejoined the squadron between 2 
 and 3. On the nth and 12th Key's task was to assist 
 in landing the French field-pieces and stores, while on the 
 13th the Amphions were spectators of the combat between 
 the batteries which had been erected by the French and 
 English on shore, and the Russian forts, without taking any 
 part in it. On the 1 4th Key had an opportunity of trying 
 the range of his guns on the main fort, which was in con- 
 tinuous action with the shore batteries, the fort returning his 
 fire. Something of the coolness with which war is con- 
 ducted is illustrated by the fact that on the 15 th, while the 
 Amphion was firing at intervals of five minutes on the main 
 fort of the Russians, she was "dressed" with masthead 
 
 1 Captain, afterwards Admiral, Sir Hastings Yelverton, then commanding the 
 steam frigate Arrogant ', 46. 
 
246 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 flags in honour of the birthday of the Emperor of the 
 French, in uniformity with the rest of the fleet, while she 
 paused at noon in her gun practice to fire a royal salute. 
 
 On the 1 6th she was permitted to get a little closer to 
 her work, and at 1 1 a.m. opened in earnest on the fort 
 with shot and shell ; but in less than an hour and a half 
 Key saw a flag of truce hoisted on the fort, ceased firing, 
 and reported the fact by signal to the admiral. At a quarter 
 to two in the afternoon he saw the English and French 
 flags flying on the fort, and knew that the operations were 
 over, and that Bomarsund had fallen. In writing on 20th 
 to 23rd, Key says as little about what had taken place, or 
 about his own share in it, as though it had been a matter 
 of no concern — 
 
 "It is rumoured that Hango will be the next object of our attention, in 
 which I am happy to say the troops can take no part. The capture of Aland 
 and the destruction of Bomarsund will not please the Emperor Nicholas. It is 
 undoubtedly the fourth strongest fortress in the world, and, though decently de- 
 fended, has been taken with the loss of not more than fifty men. I have attempted 
 a sketch of it, which you will see when we meet in October. I have no doubt 
 that the Illustrated News will abound with views of it, which will give you a 
 much better idea of the place than I can. It was interesting to observe how 
 anxious the prisoners were to go in the English boats rather than the French, 
 showing thereby a degree of acuteness I did not give them credit for. Inside the 
 forts we found an enormous supply of everything — provisions, clothing, ammuni- 
 tion, medicines, etc. ; all of which will be brought home, I suppose. ... I have 
 received an approving letter from the Admiralty for shifting the mizzenmast 
 with our own resources. 1 ' Every little helps,' — I mean, these sort of things in- 
 crease my influence at headquarters towards assisting those who know me well, 
 and this is one of the stepping-stones to power. . . . Yelverton has been my 
 sketching companion. He is not an artist, but his rough sketches are very 
 good — just what I aim at. He has a better eye for colour than form. Mine 
 are daubs. . . . Dauntless has arrived from England, and returns almost im- 
 mediately. Ryder looks very happy, and in good condition. I have received 
 letters from each of the ships of my squadron on the coast of Kourland. I 
 left at the right time. Nothing has been done since — not a prize taken. In fact, 
 trade had been put an end to. Geo. Douglas is very happy. Before I sit 
 down to dinner I must tell you the motto we have adopted : * Movit Amphion 
 lapides canendo.' Is it not apropos? From Horace, liber iii. carmen xi. Tell 
 
 R to translate it. Is it usual for flowers to last so long ? I have had two 
 
 fuchsias in blossom from the end of May, and they are so still. I have a rose 
 just coming out, but the geraniums are past. . . . We are anxious to hear what 
 
 1 Their Lordships acquainted the Commander-in-Chief " that they fully con- 
 curred in the approbation expressed by him, and were highly gratified at this 
 proof of Captain Key's seamanlike activity and ability." 
 
THE AMPHION— 1853-1854 247 
 
 you people at home will say about Bomarsund. The 2400 prisoners will please 
 the rabble. We hope to hear soon 1 of the fall of Sevastopol, which will be a 
 serious blow. I think the Czar is on the decline ; but Sevastopol is not taken 
 yet, and I think will prove a stiffish job. ... We are meditating a formidable 
 attack before we return, but 'twill end in meditation, I imagine." 
 
 The Amphion now lay about the Aland Islands for 
 some days. Key writes thence on 27 th August — 
 
 "All my castles in the air have evaporated, and my hopes scattered to the 
 winds. The Cura^oa is given away, and I am wretched ! . . . I have nothing 
 to tell you since I last wrote. The two generals have gone in two steamers to 
 reconnoitre Sveaborg, but they can have no serious intentions in that direction 
 at this season, I should imagine. The Dauntless has just passed on her way 
 to England, but, as she has to keep company with Valorous (who has stove her 
 bottom in), I did not write by her. I went on board to see Ryder, who has 
 really been very badly treated by the admiral. He (Sir Charles) wrote a most 
 abusive letter to the Admiralty about Ryder, which was so bad that they told him 
 that they feel obliged to write to Sir Charles to try him by a court-martial, for 
 which purpose he was to bring special charges against him — his letter being 
 merely general. Sir Charles writes home to say that he has no charges to 
 bring against him, and will not try him. So the Admiralty very properly say 
 that the former letter is null and void, and is to be considered as not written. 
 He has taken some unaccountable dislike against Ryder, whose zeal is un- 
 bounded. If we had to try him out here, the chief would not have gained much 
 
 by it. H has been kindly calculating my prize-money for me. He makes 
 
 it .£8000 ! If I get ,£800 I shall consider myself fortunate. I send you a wild 
 heartsease I found growing on a rock yesterday." 
 
 On the 1 1 th September, Key received orders from the 
 commander-in-chief to proceed to his old station off the 
 Gulf of Riga, where he would probably find the Archer and 
 Conflict^ both of which he was to take under his orders, 
 and " maintain the blockade of the coast as long as he 
 could without risk to his squadron. When he thought it 
 necessary to raise the blockade, he was to repair to Kiel for 
 orders." 
 
 From his old anchorage off Memel, on the 1 3th Sep- 
 tember, Key wrote — 
 
 "lam told that something better than Cura^oa is awaiting me in England. 
 I don't know what it may be, excepting a wife. But I imagine it is a 50-gun 
 frigate. This would be glorious ; and, whether it comes or not, the motive for 
 giving it to me is what I covet." 
 
 The Baltic in the short summer and the long spring 
 and autumn are two different places. The open roads 
 along the coast of Kourland, where alone anchorage was 
 to be found, were no security in the heavy gales that 
 
248 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 set in so suddenly, and the Amphion had much hasty 
 weighing and putting to sea, under short sail and oc- 
 casional steam, to put up with. The romance of the war 
 — what there was of it — seemed over for the year, and 
 the trouble and weariness remained to the rear guard of 
 the British Fleet. 
 
 " I have nothing to tell you," writes Key, off Memel, on the 2 1st September, 
 "since I last wrote, save that we have had the most wretched weather. I have 
 been at Memel, unable to communicate with the ship for a week, but have done 
 some good work in collecting evidence regarding the blockade ; for which 
 purpose Dr. Deane, an advocate from Doctors Commons, has been sent out, 
 I have seen a good deal of him, and like him very much. . . . 
 
 " I shall not get to Copenhagen as I hoped, but I am to remain on this 
 station as long as I consider it prudent to do so ; rather vague and unpleasant 
 instructions. ... Do not expect me home in October ; I fear that I shall not 
 see you till December — worse luck ! We ought not to leave these waters till 
 then." 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief, in the Duke of Wellington, 
 had gone up to Nargen, in the Gulf of Finland, and thence, 
 on the 30th September, he sent orders to Key and his 
 squadron to place themselves under the orders of Captain 
 Watson, C.B., of the Impe'rieuse, who was to be left in 
 charge of the Baltic when the main fleet quitted it. 
 
 Off Lyser Ort, at the entrance to the Gulf of Riga, 
 Key wrote on the 10th October — 
 
 " I have neither had matter to write about nor opportunity of sending a 
 letter for some time. We have had nothing but gales of wind, and very severe 
 ones. The weather has now changed and become cold, with the most trans- 
 parent blue sky both by day and night that can be conceived. The papers 
 spoke the truth when they said that we had captured and destroyed eighteen 
 boats laden with corn. 1 In doing so, four boats were capsized in the surf. For- 
 tunately no lives were lost. I took some of the poor fellows to whom the boats 
 belonged on board, and carried them to Libau, where I landed them with a 
 flag of truce. I went on shore myself, and you cannot think how obsequious 
 and grateful the authorities were. I merely went to look about me, but I told 
 
 1 Captain Key thus describes the occurrence in a letter to the Commander- 
 in-Chief, dated, "Off Libau, 2nd October 1854." 
 
 "On the 23rd (Sept.) the Amphion and A rcher anchored in Memel Roads. 
 Towards sunset we observed a large number of boats running down from Libau 
 in the direction of Memel. The boats of the two ships were sent to intercept 
 them, and they secured or destroyed eighteen large Russian boats laden with 
 corn before midnight. One of them was chased on shore on Prussian territory, 
 and brought off. Lieutenant Forbes, of H.M.S. Archer ; was sent with several of 
 them into the harbour of Memel, as the weather was threatening and a westerly 
 
THE AMPHION— 1853-1854 249 
 
 them that if we took any more boats, the men would be sent to England as 
 prisoners ; this will deter them. 
 
 "The people told me there that Memel had been on fire for three days, and 
 was almost totally destroyed. This horrified me, and I proceeded at once in 
 the ship to ascertain if it was true. I found the town still burning, and its 
 destruction to have been more complete than I could have conceived possible. 
 It broke out during one of our tremendous gales, and the people seem to have 
 done nothing to prevent it from spreading. Eight hundred families are house- 
 less, and the property destroyed is valued at a million and a quarter sterling. 
 The houses saved are solitary exceptions. At this season it is doubly disastrous, 
 as they cannot build in the winter. 
 
 "You are premature, I imagine, in telling me that Sevastopol has been 
 taken ; no doubt it has by this time, but the news then could not have arrived 
 in England. It is certainly a glorious success. We can now play with the 
 Czar, having gained our object. We shall do nothing more in these waters 
 this year, and next year I hope we shall have a change of leadership — indeed 
 we must. Between ourselves, I believe the captains would refuse to serve under 
 our present chief. He is amazingly unpopular, though I ought not to speak ill 
 of him. . . . We have at this moment what we must call a beautiful night in 
 the Baltic — a clear sky and a bright moon ; but we are under treble reefed 
 topsails and reefed courses, and pitching our bows under. . . . Next year, if 
 we return to the Baltic, we shall, I hope, do something better than make prize- 
 money. How thankful I am for the continued good health of our crew ! The 
 Arrogant and ourselves are the only two ships that have escaped the cholera, 
 and it raged at Bomarsund while we were there to an awful extent. Out of 
 8000 men landed, 800 died in a few days. All the ships suffered more or less. 
 I did not mention this at the time, and I see the papers very wisely have not 
 talked much of it. I never saw men healthier and happier than the Amphiorts. 
 
 " October 13M, — With us it is the most lovely day we have had this year. 
 Indeed, for three days we have had the most exhilarating weather. It is happiness 
 to breath such air. ... I am more in the dark concerning the movements of 
 our fleet and our Commander-in-Chief than you can be. I have not received a 
 line from him for weeks. Yelverton has written to me, and others, but they 
 know nothing of the chief's movements, save that he is anxious to leave the 
 Baltic as soon as possible. I am happy to say he is in a very laudable state of 
 anxiety concerning this squadron, as we are on a most dangerous coast — a dead 
 lee shore in the gales which prevail at this season, and no shelter of any descrip- 
 tion ; but I have an especial dislike to being wrecked on an enemy's coast, and 
 therefore shall avoid it if possible." 
 
 On the 6th November, Key wrote — 
 
 " I have been off the entrance of the Gulf of Finland for the last four or five 
 
 breeze was increasing. In crossing the bar four of the boats were upset, but 
 fortunately no lives were lost. Lieutenant Forbes immediately wrote to express 
 his regret that a boat had been taken off Prussian territory, and delivered her 
 up to the authorities. The wind increased the following morning, and we were 
 obliged to put to sea. The destruction of so large a number of boats (the Archer 
 having captured three early in September) may probably put an end to the 
 coasting trade, which has been carried on between Libau and Memel to a con- 
 siderable extent." 
 
250 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 days, and could not get south owing to a heavy gale, with snow. Certainly the 
 weather at this season is worse than I had conceived of, even in these seas. I 
 hope still that we shall be in England by Xmas, but even had you been' within 
 reach I should not have seen much of you, for all my attention will be required 
 to prepare the ship for another campaign. . . . Have you seen the pamphlet 
 written by Mr. Roger (late of Tiger) ? I was much disgusted with it, and am 
 glad to see the papers condemn it also. . . . We shall not be sorry to get home, 
 though we cannot but feel that the few ships remaining in this sea so late in 
 the year are doing something to redeem the lost credit of the Baltic fleet. 
 Not a rag of canvas is to be seen from one week's end to the other but our 
 own." 
 
 On the 9th of November, Captain Watson wrote from 
 the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, that he had information 
 that the Russian Fleet was about to put to sea, and ordered 
 Amphion and Conflict to join him, leaving Archer alone to 
 blockade the coast. On the 17th Key was up with the 
 Impe'rieuse, and wrote — 
 
 " I have three minutes to tell you that we are all right, though very cold, and 
 enduring the most dreadful weather I have ever seen. I cannot write more, but 
 do not expect me in England before New Year's Day. We are expecting the 
 Russian Fleet out to drive us away. I hope they may come. They will catch 
 a Tartar." 
 
 But there was no such fortune for the rear guard of our 
 fleet, and Amphion was presently back again on her old 
 ground, the weather worse and the monotony greater than 
 ever. Relief came on the 26th of November, when the ship 
 made for Faro Sound. She coaled and provisioned there, 
 and started homewards in company with Cruiser on the 
 3rd December. On his way to Copenhagen, on the 4th 
 December, Key wrote — 
 
 " I hope to be at Copenhagen to-morrow or the day after, and we shall then 
 learn whether we go home direct, or wait further orders. You can imagine the 
 feeling which pervades the ship at our being homeward bound after the trying 
 work we have had. We have been for three weeks at the entrance of the Gulf of 
 Finland, with continued gales and snowstorms, the sea breaking over our decks 
 and freezing in heaps as it touched the deck. I lost the best man in the ship over- 
 board at night. 1 lie was benumbed, and lost his hold. We lowered a boat, but 
 did not save him, and the boat's crew were nearly drowned. 
 
 11 1 shall be glad to get to England, being anxious to get our repairs under 
 way. I fear I shall not see much of you. . . . Our news from the Crimea are [sic] 
 painful, but I have no fear for the ultimate issue, if we do not attempt to assault 
 
 1 G. Wright, captain of the forecastle. He fell overboard on the 26th 
 November. 
 
THE AMPHION— 1853-1854 251 
 
 the works. We cannot spare men for that work, but should batter them with 
 cannon until they are fairly silenced. We left Faro yesterday, with my dear 
 friend Geo. Douglas in company. I hope he will be promoted when he gets 
 home. 1 He is a subdued John Moore. 3 I have seen a great deal of him 
 out here." 
 
 The Amphion arrived at Copenhagen on the 6th 
 December; sailed thence on the 13th, and moored in 
 Sheerness harbour on the 21st, concluding the year in 
 preparing to strip the ship for a complete refit. 
 
 1 He was promoted I oth of May 1856, and retired as a captain 1st July 1866. 
 a Key's friend, Captain John Moore, then in command of the Highflyer in the 
 Black Sea. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE AMPHION — 1855-1856 
 
 THE Amphion underwent a complete refit during the 
 winter months of 1854— 1855, the ship being 
 stripped and cleared out, while the ship's company- 
 were " hulked " on board the Nymphe first, and in the lofts 
 in the dockyard secondly. The note, that on the 9th of 
 January they were paid wages and granted twenty-seven 
 days' leave of absence, takes us back a century in the way 
 of custom, to a time when wages were always in arrear, and 
 the theory was that there was to be no leave unless each 
 man had a bag of money in his pocket, which he was 
 expected to waste or be robbed of in a few days, and then 
 come back to work for more. 
 
 The ship was fully ready for sea on the 24th of March, 
 when she proceeded out of harbour and anchored at the 
 Nore. On the 27th Key wrote — 
 
 "After I wrote to you this afternoon, a steamer came alongside with our 
 orders to proceed to the Downs, and if the squadron had left I was to follow to 
 the Baltic. I shall leave at 4 a.m. to-morrow (Wednesday), and the next you 
 hear from me will probably be from Elsinore. The weather is fine — the glass 
 rising ; and all promises well. 
 
 " The negotiations certainly have a peaceful tendency. Do you observe that 
 Nicholas always began his addresses with professions of his desire for peace, but 
 urged on the war? whereas Alexander 11. begins with a determination to carry 
 on the war, and I believe will come to a peace if he can." 
 
 The Amphion accordingly went to the Downs next 
 morning, where she found what was then called " the flying 
 squadron," l under command of Rear- Admiral Bains, already 
 under way. Key took his station as sternmost ship in the 
 
 1 It consisted of Imperieuse, Watson ; Euryalus, G. Ramsay ; Arrogant ', 
 Yelverton ; JSsk, Birch ; Tartar, Dunlop ; and Archer, Heathcote. 
 
 252 
 
THE AMPmON—iS55-i$ 5 6 253 
 
 weather line, and they all sailed away for the Baltic. On 
 the 31st of March, Key was off the Skaw, and wrote — 
 
 " We have had wonderfully fine weather to cross the North Sea, and it is only 
 this morning that anything like a strong breeze has sprung up, which is dead 
 against us, but I have still hopes that we may get in to-morrow. The ship is 
 somewhat improved by the alteration in her boilers ; she steams and sails better. 
 I had looked forward to having some considerable trouble in getting the men into 
 condition again after three months' disorganisation in England, but I find all — 
 officers and men — so willing, so anxious to do right, that the task is comparatively 
 an easy one. The Impirieuse and Euryalus go to Kiel, and the rest of us to 
 Elsinore, where we complete with water and coal ; and then, if the ice is broken 
 up, proceed up the Baltic. I fell in with the frigate squadron off the N. Fore- 
 land, for which I was rather sorry, as I should have preferred a solitary passage 
 out. But we have had such fine weather as more than compensates. . . . 
 
 " 2nd April. — Last night we were all obliged to anchor about fifteen miles 
 below Elsinore, on account of the ice, which is coming through the Sound in 
 large masses. We are now under way, and are pushing through to Elsinore 
 with some difficulty — the current is very strong ; but I will close this so as to 
 send by to-day's post. We can't anchor at Elsinore on account of the ice, but 
 go on to Landscrona." 1 
 
 On the 4th April, from Landscrona, we have — 
 
 "We have been compelled to seek refuge here, as the ice is drifting about in 
 large masses, and the current being so strong, it is unsafe either to anchor or to 
 keep the sea. On Sunday afternoon, Arrogant, Esk, and Tartar were driven 
 from their anchors by the ice, breaking their cables, and drifted out to sea. We 
 got aground on Monday, but no damage. Impirieuse, Euryalus, and Conflict 
 are gone (?) to Kiel by the Great Belt, but they cannot possibly get there, and 
 must put into some bay for safety. Archer is adrift somewhere in the Kattegat 
 still. We are all quite snug here, and I have Yelverton and Fanshawe 3 (of 
 Cossack) for companions, which is pleasant." 
 
 On the 1 1 th April he wrote — 
 
 "We are still icebound in this outlandish place, but the strong winds of the 
 last few days have done much towards our release, and we expect to get out to- 
 morrow. Then we go to Elsinore for a day, and on to the Baltic. We hear 
 that it— the Baltic— is quite blocked up with ice, having been frozen entirely 
 over this year, which is very unusual, and people are still driving sledges across 
 the Gulf of Finland. We have been very fortunate to get into such a snug har- 
 bour. The Impirieuse got on shore in the Great Belt— had to get her guns out, 
 etc. ; was twelve hours before they could start her. Luckily, it was smooth water 
 and little wind, or she would have been done for. ... We have had falls of 
 snow for three days ; the winter seems interminable, nevertheless our men are 
 comparatively healthy— a very great blessing. I have perpetrated a sketch in the 
 snow— oh ! so cold ! The Landscrona people are so proud of our visit that they 
 have sent for the artists from Stockholm to make pictures of their town with the 
 
 1 A little farther north, opposite Copenhagen. 
 
 2 The present Admiral Sir E. Fanshawe, G.C.B. 
 
254 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 British squadron in the harbour. Such large ships have never before entered. 
 They have also established an electric telegraph for our especial use ! . . . 
 Fanshawe, of Cossack, has his brother-in-law with him, Mr. Cardwell, 1 ... a 
 pleasant, quiet barrister. We have snug little dinner-parties among ourselves 
 every evening. Yelverton is a charming -senior officer, but he is not in good 
 health, poor fellow ! He suffers continually from influenza ; we have, never- 
 theless, pleasant tHe-a-teie evenings. 
 
 "April \$th. — The ice has entirely left this part of the world, and we are 
 now pushing on for the Gulf of Riga, to establish the blockade as soon as 
 possible. I am now anchoring at Copenhagen, and must take this on shore. . . . 
 We leave at daybreak to-morrow ; the weather is promising well. Sulivan 
 arrived at Elsinore yesterday in the Merlin. The fleet has not yet made its 
 appearance. Probably I shall not see our Commander-in-Chief for some weeks." 
 
 The Amphion got away on the 15th as expected, and 
 found herself pushing up over her tracks of the last year, 
 but this time through fields of ice. She was once more off 
 Libau on the 17th, and was full of the wearying and 
 unsatisfactory duty of "warning" neutral ships that the 
 coast was blockaded, and that any attempt to run the 
 blockade would entail their capture. On the 22nd of 
 April, on his old ground at the northern part of his station, 
 off the island of Osel, Key wrote — 
 
 " Here we are, boxing about on our old cruising-ground, waiting for the 
 Impcrieuse to take us up the Gulf of Finland. The ice is breaking up fast, 
 though we had considerable difficulty to get here. We were for twenty-four 
 hours alternately immovable and progressing. We ought now to be off Revel, but 
 it would seem as if all energy and enterprise were buried at the close of last war. 
 I am so longing to get a letter from home — not one line have I had since I left. 
 When Nelson was here in 1801, he complained bitterly that they were thirty-five 
 days without receiving letters ; I have now been thirty, — fifty-four years later. 
 The fleet has passed the Great Belt, and probably my letters are on board the 
 flagship. ... It is still very cold ; freezing hard at night, and the thermometer 
 at 33 at noon ; but we have fine clear weather, and blue sky, which is cheerful. 
 
 " I have re-established my garden, though not quite in its former splendour. 
 The frost makes me anxious for my heaths ; I have two roses in bloom. 
 
 " I am pleased to find that the sailing of this ship is much improved. Yester- 
 day we beat Arrogant, Cossack, Tartar, and Esk, though it was not a regular 
 trial. This cold weather causes a heavy sick-list ; so many rheumatics and catarrhs. 
 
 "April 2$t/i. — I have been all this time without an opportunity of sending a 
 letter. It is trying. We first established the blockade of the Gulf of Riga and 
 coast of Kourland, and, after cruising there for a few days, Watson 2 joined us, 
 and then he and I entered the gulf to endeavour to reconnoitre Riga, but we 
 found it entirely blocked up with impenetrable ice ; so we returned, and are now 
 
 1 Brother of the late Lord Cardwell, whose sister Captain Fanshawe had 
 married. 
 
 2 Captain Rundel Bruges Watson, of the Impdrieuse. 
 
THE AMPH/ON— 1855-1856 255 
 
 cruising off the entrance of the Gulf of Finland, much to my disgust, for we ought 
 to have taken advantage of the clear weather we have lately had, to reconnoitre 
 Sveaborg. The fogs will be on us very soon, and then we can do nothing. . . . 
 " Sunday, 29th. — The Imperieuse is running down towards us, and I think 
 will send a vessel to the Admiralty to-day with despatches, so I must close this. 
 I am not in spirits to write — I am so disappointed at our inactivity. ... I must 
 tell you that we are sailing so remarkably well. We beat all the ships in the 
 advanced squadron — Imperieuse, Euryalus, and all. I am now going on 
 board to see Watson, and I think between us we shall manage to get up to 
 Sveaborg in a day or two. It is now or never. If these Russians can be brought 
 to try their strength at sea, it will be now, for they know that we are out of 
 reach of our fleet." 
 
 Nothing came of Key's hopes, however. On the i oth 
 of May the ships were still at the entrance to the gulf, and 
 on ;that day Key witnessed a bad collision between the 
 Impdrieuse and the Tartar ; the former carrying away her 
 bowsprit, and the latter lost her mainmast and her mizzen 
 topmast. 
 
 Meantime the main fleet had been pushing up, and 
 had passed the advanced squadron. Key reached Nargen 
 Island, on the south side of the gulf, which was the head- 
 quarters of the fleet for the rest of the year, on the 1 2 th 
 of May, and there found the flagship of Rear- Admiral Sir 
 Richard Dundas, the Duke of Wellington, and eight other 
 steam line-of-battle ships, were constantly coming and going. 
 
 Amphion having coaled, and made herself otherwise 
 ready, Key was, on the 15 th of May, ordered to take the 
 Firefly l under his command, and to proceed to the Aland 
 Islands, to ascertain whether there had been any attempt 
 on the part of the Russians to reoccupy them. Key was 
 off on the next day, but, being stopped by fogs, did not 
 arrive at Bomarsund till the 1 7th. On the 24th he was 
 back again at Nargen, and on the 26th wrote — 
 
 " We are on the point of leaving this anchorage for one nearer Cronstadt, off 
 Leskar ; and Sulivan and I, with some other vessels, are going to reconnoitre 
 some forts in Biorke Sound. 
 
 " I like our chief more, daily, and the captain of the fleet 2 is doing remark- 
 ably well. Poor Yelverton is still at Faro, with a large number of his crew laid 
 up with smallpox. It is going right through his ship ; there has been a great 
 deal in the fleet, also of measles. 
 
 " I visited Bomarsund the other day to ascertain if the Russians had taken 
 
 1 Captain H. C. Otter. 2 Captain Hon. F. T. Pelham. 
 
256 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 steps towards rebuilding the forts, etc. ; they have not. While there I had a 
 case of smallpox break-out, so I rattled down to Faro without orders, 1 and landed 
 him, after which I fumigated the ship, and took every precaution I could think 
 of to prevent infection, since which, thank God ! no case has appeared. But we 
 are not considered free until a fortnight has elapsed. Two of the midshipmen 
 have the measles, so I keep clear of them. ... I have to write to the mids' 
 fathers about their measles, so I cannot say much more now. Our weather is 
 becoming fine, but the men still suffer from sore throats and colds. Half my 
 officers are laid up, including Wodehouse. 2 I am looking forward to getting a 
 sketch of Cronstadt, as that is all the dealing I expect to have with it. — Signal 
 to weigh ! so good-bye ! " 
 
 On the 28th May, Key wrote — 
 
 "We are now about twenty miles from Cronstadt, and I think the chief will 
 take the frigates up to-morrow to reconnoitre. ImpMeuse and Arrogant being 
 disabled, Euryalus and her ladyship 3 represent the frigates, which is a pleasure for 
 us, though I wish most heartily Yelverton were with us. His people are getting 
 better. . . . My measly youngsters are getting well fast ; they are now writing 
 in my cabin. I have just been asleep over my writing-table. I had not much 
 of that article last night. ... I can't tell you what a difference there is in the 
 pleasure of serving in this squadron compared with last year. Our weather is 
 still cold, though fine ; this is an advantage, as it may keep off the cholera, 
 which is very prevalent at Cronstadt during the summer." 
 
 On the 5 th June the admiral gave Key orders to " pro- 
 ceed to cruise near the port of Helsingfors, for the purpose 
 of watching the movements of the enemy's ships and inter- 
 cepting the traffic along the coast"; and he was to continue on 
 this service till further orders, " communicating occasionally 
 with the senior officers of any of H.M. ships which may be 
 stationed at Baro Sound and at Nargen, and forwarding 
 communications to the admiral, either through the officer at 
 the latter anchorage, or by any vessels which he might fall 
 in with on their passage to join his flag." Key was off at 
 once, and, reaching an anchorage near Helsingfors (Sveaborg) 
 next day, he then wrote — 
 
 " I left the fleet off Cronstadt yesterday, and am off Sveaborg to watch their 
 movements here — all alone ! We are now at anchor off the harbour, and no 
 English vessel within thirty miles of us ! 
 
 "June nth. — We have been lying off the fortifications for four days, closer 
 even than any of the small vessels have been in to reconnoitre. We hear their 
 bands playing and drums beating, and yet these sleepy-headed fellows will not 
 
 1 Nevertheless, the Commander-in-Chief approved of his action. 
 2 Armine Wodehouse, at this time first-lieutenant of Ampkion. Died a 
 commander in 1859. 
 
 3 Some allusion to the Amp/iwn, which is not discoverable. 
 
THE AMPmON—i8 55 -i8 5 6 257 
 
 send their steamers and gunboats out to try and take us. The navigation is 
 wonderfully intricate, which gives us some employment. Since Friday we have 
 had a very pretty island close to us, quite destitute of human beings, but covered 
 with what I infinitely prefer— wild flowers !— lilies of the valley, heartsease, etc. 
 I am now running over to Nargen to get letters and send them ; get bullocks, 
 and communicate with the admiral. Perhaps I shall manage a run on shore 
 with Muff. 1 I feel inclined to roll in the grass directly I land— it is so refreshing. 
 Our weather just now is delightful ; it has sprung into summer all at once, and 
 the trees and flowers on Miolo 3 appeared racing which should be first in bloom. 
 We have suffered considerably from smallpox and measles, but are getting better 
 
 now. Don't mention this to C . Everyone must feel in good health this 
 
 weather, though it is weakening — the sudden change." 
 
 Getting back again across the gulf, the Amphion was 
 daily on the move amongst the islands about Sveaborg, 
 taking note of all that was going on. An official report of 
 23rd June describes her first brush with the enemy's 
 batteries — 
 
 " I have the honour to inform you that on the morning of the 20th inst. I 
 anchored in H.M. ship under my command off the north point of the island of 
 Miolo, for the purpose of carrying out your orders ' to watch the movements of 
 the enemy's ships and stop the traffic along the coast.' Our position effectually 
 prevented any vessel from passing or entering Sveaborg by the ordinary route ; 
 but I soon observed that coasters and other small craft, laden with granite, etc., 
 for completing and increasing the fortifications, entered Helsingfors harbour by 
 the eastern passage, which, though intricate and shallow, is navigable by vessels 
 of light draught. Wishing to ascertain if I could take up such an anchorage that 
 the approach to that channel might also be closed, and at the same time to 
 reconnoitre the coast, I weighed on the morning of the 22nd, and proceeded to 
 the north-eastward. 
 
 "We unavoidably passed within range of the batteries forming the out- 
 works of Sveaborg, on the island of Sandham, which somewhat annoyed us ; 
 and, on nearing the islands of Storholm and Erstholm, three other batteries lately 
 constructed, and three gunboats, opened fire on the ship. As we were then obliged 
 to proceed with caution, with boats ahead, on account of the intricacy of the 
 channel and numerous rocks, I thought it advisable to disturb the accuracy of 
 their fire by returning it, and we effectually did so. When off the island of 
 Wellinge, finding no passage safely practicable for the ship, no secure anchorage, 
 and having accomplished my purpose of reconnoitring the entrance, examining 
 the channel, and proving to the trading vessels that we could follow them there, 
 I deemed it prudent to return by the same passage we had entered. We 
 returned, skilfully piloted by Mr. Batt, the master, and engaged the batteries as 
 before. 
 
 " I regret to have to report the loss of one man, Geo. Quenwell, leading sea- 
 man, killed, and one wounded, beyond which the ship suffered no serious injury, 
 though frequently struck. 
 
 " I can but attribute the little damage received from five batteries, mounting 
 
 1 His dog. 2 An island close to Sveaborg. 
 
 17 
 
258 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 from four to twelve guns each, together firing at H.M. ship with shot, shell, and 
 red-hot shot, to the diversion caused by the accuracy of our own fire. 
 
 "It gave me great pleasure to observe, as it does now to report, the steadi- 
 ness of the seamen and marines, which was much contributed to by the example 
 of Lieutenant Wodehouse and the rest of the officers. " 
 
 Still off Sveaborg, on the 6th July, Key writes — 
 
 "lam relieved from much of my anxiety on this station, which has been 
 considerable while alone, as Dragon l is placed under my orders. We have been 
 at anchor, very close to Sveaborg, during the last week, and I have been 
 amusing myself with nocturnal sounding expeditions. You should see my boat 
 and crew going away for their work ! We look like ghosts in a phantom boat. 
 The boat painted white — a dash of grey perhaps — and the men and I in white 
 shirts with belts and pistols. Even in these twilight nights they can see us but a 
 very short distance. I have placed an embargo on Stewart's going. He is a 
 married man with two children, so I tell him to be prepared to bring his ship to 
 my assistance, etc., which is an excuse for preventing him. He is a glorious 
 fellow ! Sir E. Lyons said of him in the Black Sea, from which he has just 
 returned, ' His chivalrous bravery is unequalled.' . . . Our weather is still fine ; 
 not so hot as it was for a short time last year, and more healthy ; very little 
 cholera. What we intend to do up here I cannot say. I fear Cronstadt is given 
 up for want of a sufficient gunboat flotilla. I have sent a plan for an attack 
 on this place (Sveaborg), but with hopes only of partial success. 2 Imperieuse 
 is expected daily ; probably Dragon will find him at Nargen. It is not 
 unlikely that he will relieve me here, being my senior officer. I have received 
 most complimentary letters from the fleet regarding our reconnaisance the other 
 day. The commander-in-chief is more guarded in his terms of approbation. 3 I 
 knew he could officially approve very warily ; but I hear now he speaks of it in 
 private, which is better." 
 
 The day before this letter was written, a great nomina- 
 tion to the Order of the Bath had taken place at home, 
 and Key's name was amongst the C.B.'s. His remarks on 
 hearing the news are singularly characteristic of the man, 
 and of that honest and impersonal way of looking at things 
 which was a part of his strength. He heard of the honour 
 before the 1 7th of July, and on that day — off Nargen — he 
 wrote — 
 
 " They have made me a C.B. among a host. I cannot tell you how disgusted 
 I am ! I am indeed, as I have looked to earning it, and I have not done so. I 
 am not speaking comparatively (with the rest on the list), but positively. But 
 there is no help for it now, I suppose, so I must grin and bear it. I hope Sir 
 
 1 Commanded by Captain W. Houston Stewart, — the present Admiral Sir 
 Houston Stewart, G.C.B. 
 
 2 There is no other note of this plan in Sir Cooper Key's papers. 
 
 3 None of these letters are preserved. 
 
THE AMP ff ION— 1S55-1S56 259 
 
 Chas. Young > will not suffer, but I don't intend to pay any fees for it. I cannot 
 write more now — we shall be at something before long." 
 
 It was by this time known that a great bombardment 
 of Sveaborg was contemplated ; gun and mortar boats had 
 been arriving in a constant stream from England and 
 France. There was a great flotilla of all classes of ships at 
 Nargen in Key's view when he wrote as above, all intended 
 for the coming attack. Key was therefore looking for some 
 opportunity of " earning " the decoration, which it was his 
 opinion had been too easily conferred upon him. He was 
 soon back on his old ground, feeling over all the approaches 
 to Sveaborg and maturing his information. Full of hopes 
 of what he might think real distinction, it was no wonder 
 that when he found himself back at Nargen on the 3rd 
 July, with his hopes apparently dashed, he should say — 
 
 " I can think of but one subject just now, and I know you will feel for me. 
 I have had a squadron of four vessels for the last week in the neighbourhood of 
 Borgo, and when returning, our main shaft — that is, the axle of the screw — 
 broke, which of course disables the ship. The same day we were sent for by the 
 admiral to join him at Nargen. He wanted us to lead the ships in to attack 
 Sveaborg. When I told him of the accident he said, ' I don't know what I 
 shall do without you.' And here we are ! We are doing our best to repair it, 
 and hope to be ready in a few days ; but either to-day or to-morrow, or the day 
 after, they are going over in the mortar vessels to bombard only. The ships will 
 not attack ; we do not look for much result ; but to be shut out from this even 
 is very trying. I am in hopes of getting ready in time to take part, and am 
 working day and night." 
 
 While in this anxious position, and in a state of mind 
 which made him — according to his own estimate, but un- 
 dreamt of probably by those in hourly communication with 
 him — " ready to knock anybody down who came near him," 
 it must have been excessively trying to see, on the 4th 
 of August, the " block ships," the Cornwallis, Russell, and 
 Hastings, weighing, and towing out behind them a group of 
 gun and mortar vessels destined for the attack. It would 
 have been worse to see the major portion of the flotilla 
 part company for Sveaborg on the 6th. But by that time 
 it was pretty certain that the repairs to the shaft were 
 successful, so that at three o'clock on the morning of the 7th 
 the Amphion was under way and crossing to join the fleet. 
 
 1 Garter King of Arms. 
 
2 6o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Key found the fleet assembled in force off the fortress, 
 with the gun and mortar boats either in or drawing into 
 position. But Key was to have as much hand in ' what 
 was to come as it was possible to give him, and early 
 on the morning of the 9th he came round to near his 
 old anchorage at Stora Miolo, just out of range of 
 Sandham batteries forming the left flank of the Sveaborg 
 defences. Here were already the Cornwa/lis 1 and Hast- 
 ing?, 2 and all were under orders to attack the batteries 
 when the fire should open from the gun and mortar 
 boats on the central part of the works. He tells the 
 story in a letter from Nargen, dated 14th August, but 
 says little of his own share in it — 
 
 " I have a long story to tell, and not much time to tell it. But for our dear 
 chiefs sake, I am sure you will all be pleased to hear of our successful bombard- 
 ment of Sveaborg. I think I told you that, on my return from Borgo with the 
 small squadron I had then, we broke our main shaft — the axle of the screw. 
 But by working night and day at Nargen we were ready to leave for Sveaborg a 
 few hours after the fleet. The attack was intended to be made by mortar-boats 
 and gunboats only, against the fortifications which protect the arsenal, building- 
 yard, and government buildings. Sulivan had the task of placing the mortar- 
 boats, which he accomplished wonderfully. The ships were not to be engaged, 
 but three of us, the Cornwallis, Hastings, and Amphion, were ordered to divert 
 the attention of the batteries on the island of Sandham, the eastern defences of 
 Sveaborg. 
 
 "We opened fire on Thursday morning — entirely along the line; by noon 
 two enormous explosions had taken place, and the buildings were on fire in 
 several places. The fire continued with scarcely any interruption until Saturday 
 morning, when our mortars were nearly all split or unfit for service. By this 
 time the entire works inside the fortress, except the large buildings, were 
 destroyed. These are the works which the fortress was built to protect, and 
 therefore, though it would be satisfactory to destroy the batteries, yet it would be 
 useless and the success doubtful. 
 
 "Now listen to the wonderful part of this attack. All this has been done 
 without the loss of a life ; a few wounded (we had three), but none dangerously. 
 My clerk, Mr. Sturgess, 3 is wounded severely in the jaw and eye, poor fellow ! — 
 but he is doing well. We can form no idea of the loss of the enemy, but it must 
 have been very great. 
 
 11 On Monday morning we left Sveaborg in ashes, and returned to Nargen ; 
 our chief wisely attempting nothing that he did not feel he could complete. . . . 
 
 1 Captain G. G. Wellesley, afterwards Admiral Sir George G. Wellesley, 
 G.C.B. 
 
 2 Captain R. Crawford Caffin. Died admiral and K.C.B., 1883. 
 
 3 Retired as paymaster-in-chief, 1884. 
 
THE AMPHION— 1855-1856 261 
 
 " The admiral has some idea of attempting Vyborg, but it is not decided. I 
 am in favour of it ; Sulivan against it. 
 
 "You have seen our chief, and can judge what an undemonstrative man he 
 is. Well ! after the affair was over, and Sulivan went to congratulate him, he 
 shook him warmly by the hand, and said — almost choking — ' I owe you a debt 
 of gratitude I can never repay. Everyone in the fleet knows that our success is 
 due to you,' — and tears dropped from his eyes, which seem as if they had been 
 dry since he left his mother's lap ! No one knows of this but you, so do not talk 
 of it beyond your circle. . . . You will feel with us, I am sure, the wonderful 
 way in which the Lord has shown Himself on our side ! . . . Our mainyard is 
 shot in two — among other hard knocks we received." 
 
 I had the honour of serving in H.M.S. Hastings on this 
 occasion, and I well remember the feelings with which the 
 officers regarded the arrival of the Amphion to take part in 
 the action. It was perfectly understood by all, that when 
 the three ships weighed at half-past seven on the morning 
 of the 9th of August, to engage the series of batteries 
 which crowned, half hidden by fir trees, the higher ground 
 of the island of Sandham, Key would push in closest, 
 and remain under fire the longest, be the other who he 
 might. 
 
 The Russian shot, though plentiful, were not very well 
 directed. The Hastings only had some ropes shot away ; 
 the Cornwallis was less fortunate ; but it appeared to those 
 looking at Amphion as if she must be suffering heavily. 
 She was seen to be cautiously working her way in and 
 feeling for deep water to allow her to do so, running, of 
 course, the greatest risks of grounding in the unexplored 
 water. It was observed that her mainyard was shot through, 
 and it was thought at one time that she had taken fire; 
 but there was a consensus of opinion that her commander 
 was as fortunate and as skilful as he was daring, so that no 
 actual anxiety was felt — only admiration for the young 
 commander, who had carried with him the sympathies of 
 high and low. 
 
 The three ships spent two hours and a half in engaging 
 the batteries and in driving off some gunboats, which 
 made a feeble show of flanking the fire of the works 
 on their extreme left. Then, at half-past ten, the ships 
 came out and took up their old anchorage under Stora 
 Miolo. 
 
262 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Writing on 28th August, Key describes his proceed- 
 ings— 
 
 " I am now returning to the commander-in-chief (at Nargen). . . . The 
 admiral is getting anxious about finding a secure anchorage for the fleet, as the 
 winter gales have begun already [Amphion had experienced one on the 2ist 
 and another on the 24th]. He sent me to examine the islands of Lavanran and 
 Seskar, to let him know what I thought of the anchorage there. It will not do ; 
 and I think he can't do better than remain where he is (at Nargen). 
 
 "We shall not be home any earlier this year than last, I fear. Oh dear! 
 we have a heavy three months before us ; but it is such a pleasure to serve under 
 our present chief ! I fear the papers seem inclined to overrate our success at 
 Sveaborg, for which I am sorry, as there will be a reaction. The destruction 
 was very great, but not entire. The fortress is as strong as ever, but it protects 
 nothing — a thick shell with the kernel gone ! " 
 
 During another blockading expedition, — this time at 
 Libbo Fiord, east of Helsingfors, on the 7th September, — we 
 have some moralising over the prospects of what are called 
 successful naval officers — 
 
 " It is a hard position for a man rising quickly in the navy with no income 
 besides his pay. When he is employed he is much better off in the lower ranks. 
 It is so rare for a poor man to rise quickly, that it is more difficult for him to 
 keep on equal terms with his brother-officers. Think what the same amount of 
 exertion expended in any other profession, that I have in this, would have 
 produced ! Bah ! I must not talk in this way ! 
 
 " I am glad to see that the papers generally take the bombardment of Svea- 
 borg in so sensible a manner. I feared they would overrate its value and then 
 cause a reaction. The fact is, the destruction of government property was im- 
 mense, but we can no more bring our ships to bear on the fortifications than 
 before. Did I tell you that if her ladyship l had had her internal arrangements 
 put to rights in time, / was to have had command of the gunboats ? You need 
 not fear that we shall be absent from any fighting. We are now at an anchorage 
 near Helsingfors, to the eastward, to stop the inshore trade, with two gunboats. 
 Our appearance does that, and we amuse ourselves playing cricket, etc., — rather 
 cold for it, certainly ; but I find that the exercise does my old bones good. I am 
 wretchedly thin, but very few headaches. Nothing like abstemious living for 
 keeping good health ; but I should like a few weeks on shore amazingly." 
 
 Off Sveaborg, on the 2nd October, he writes — 
 
 "I am getting rather weary of this, and no work. We are here alone, 
 except two gunboats, blockading Sveaborg, and the coast twenty miles to the east- 
 ward of it, and we have far from a pleasant time of it. We — that is, the admiral 
 — have been informed that the Russians are preparing an expedition to capture 
 us some dark night, consisting of 200 boats, containing between 3000 and 4000 
 
 1 This is the second time we find Key speaking of Amphion as " her lady- 
 ship," and it is not understood. 
 
THE AMPHION— iS 55 -i8 5 6 263 
 
 men. We are therefore at quarters x all night, and precious little rest / get. 
 They came out one night — at least we fancy so, for, at about midnight one thick 
 misty night last week, we were disturbed by a ship's fire of musketry close to us. 
 We were under arms immediately, of course, and in the morning learnt from a 
 fisherman that he was fishing near us, and suddenly found himself surrounded 
 by boats which fired on him, saying they took him for an English boat. The 
 rascals, I suppose, thought their firing would put us on the alert, or the mist 
 was too thick, but they did not visit us that night. In addition to this, six 
 steamers have eluded the fleet at Cronstadt, and intend trying to force their way 
 into Sveaborg, when we alone are to stop them. 
 
 "Now (5 p.m.) we are indeed alone, for Sulivan has just come in to send 
 our gunboats home ; and, as he returns immediately, I must close this sketchy 
 letter." 
 
 Back again at Nargen on the 1 ith October, it was not 
 a pleasant sight to see ships and gunboats daily quitting 
 the anchorage on their homeward voyage; knowing that 
 the excitement of the year was over, and that for the 
 Amphion there were still weeks of only toil and weariness. 
 So any change was welcome, and one was promised — 
 
 " I am on the point of starting on a very pleasant cruise, if the weather will 
 allow us any pleasure at this season. I am going with Magicienne 2 under my 
 orders to examine the south and north coasts of the Gulf of Finland, for a 
 parting reconnaissance ; looking into every creek and inlet. A snowstorm is just 
 commencing, so I shall not start till it is over, probably, which may be to-morrow. 
 ... I see the papers send us to Sheerness again for the winter. It is a horrid 
 hole, but nevertheless for a single man I think it not so bad, for one can go on 
 leave from there more easily — much — than from Portsmouth or Plymouth. I 
 fear, however, I cannot expect nearly so much as last year." 
 
 Key then goes on to express his desire that the 
 marriage already arranged should take place during the 
 winter, pointing out that time was advancing, and that he 
 and his future wife had made up their minds to face the 
 question of the moderate income which was before them, 
 declaring at the same time that he did not think it fair 
 towards his future wife to keep an engagement hanging on 
 while he made a second expedition to sea as a bachelor. 
 
 The Amphion was back at Nargen on the 28th, having 
 completed the reconnoitring cruise without much to note. 
 The time and circumstances were dreary in the extreme. 
 The Arrogant had broken her shaft, and was going home, 
 
 1 That is, ready for action. 
 
 2 Captain Nicholas Vansitthart, afterwards vice-admiral on the retired list, 
 and C.B. 
 
264 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 taking away Captain Yelverton, one of his best friends. 
 The weather was very bad — 
 
 "I have been," wrote Key on the 30th, "not laid up — for I have had too 
 much to do knocking the ship about — but very shaky with influenza, and that 
 sort of thing. To-day I am much better, but I sadly want a little rest." 
 
 The early part of November was spent chiefly at 
 anchor, watching points in the Gulf of Finland, such as 
 Hango and Wormso Roads, with visits to Nargen between 
 whiles. On the 16th of November Amphion was there, 
 and Key wrote — 
 
 " Shooting is the staple amusement of the squadron, as the weather is very 
 fine, though cold — therm, at 28 . This is a great improvement on last year. 
 No cruising, and few gales. However, it is somewhat tedious, especially when 
 I don't get my letters. 1 . . . 
 
 " I feel sadly the want of a helping hand at the Admiralty just now. I have 
 no one to back me up — no private friend, I mean, to put in a good word when 
 anything is to dispose of. I have a larger ship now than my standing entitles 
 me to, so I cannot complain, but I do want an increase of pay." 2 
 
 But the ship was drawing homewards. The latter part 
 of November was spent at anchor in Wormso Roads, near 
 the entrance to the gulf, on the south shore. On the 30th 
 the ship had fallen as far back as Faro Sound. On the 
 1st December, Key was able to write that he was home- 
 ward bound, and expected to reach England earlier than 
 he did in 1854. He was considering his approaching 
 marriage, declaring that he would do nothing hasty or 
 foolish, but declining to be certain that he would not some 
 day do what many would consider imprudent. " We can- 
 not foresee everything," he said, " and must at times trust 
 much." 
 
 "We left Wormso on the 29th. Thermometer at 8° ; ice extended half-way 
 from the shore to the ship. Time for us to go ! But the weather is wonderfully 
 fine for the time of the year ; nothing like the gales of last year." 
 
 He had heard from his friend Captain Sulivan, who 
 had written from England — 
 
 "He gave me a good account of an interview — indeed of two — with Sir C. 
 
 1 They were all in the admiral's bag, which had been sent back unopened to 
 Kiel. 
 
 2 Captain Key's pay in the Amphion was just under ,£400 a year. 
 
THE AMPH/ON—i8 55 -iS 5 6 265 
 
 Wood, 1 where my name was favourably mentioned. I am not without hope of 
 some advance this winter." 
 
 On the 8th of December the Amphion reached Copen- 
 hagen, and on the 16th she was once more moored in 
 Sheerness harbour, after her absence of eight and a half 
 months. 
 
 This was the conclusion of Captain Key's share in the 
 Russian War. His name was by this time a familiar one 
 with the public, as it had so long been in the service. He 
 had in all respects preserved and extended his reputation 
 not only as a capable and enterprising commander, but as 
 a man of judgment and as a reliable friend. 
 
 There is a distinct change to be observed in his char- 
 acter in these two years. His letters up to the time of his 
 obtaining captain's rank showed the man of reflection as 
 well as the man of action. His letters from the Baltic are 
 chiefly hurried notes, betraying throughout the suppression 
 of reflection and the domination of action in his mind. He 
 was full of his everyday work. Everything was to him an 
 excitement calling out active energies. He must have been 
 by day and by night wholly absorbed in doing what he had 
 to do perfectly, and taking care that nothing slipped through 
 or was slurred over. He did much, and he said little. 
 
 Yet it was not really a change of character. It was 
 the old one developing under new circumstances. The 
 strong affections manifest themselves not only as of old, in 
 the remembrances of, and the messages to, the different 
 members of his family, but we can see them breaking out, 
 as it were, in the occasional references to his brother-captains, 
 and to his commander-in-chief in the second year — Sir 
 Richard Dundas. 
 
 If we think of it, these were the qualities which marked 
 the greatness, and perhaps some of the weakness, of the 
 greatest admiral we know of, — the desire for completeness, 
 for absolute finish in the work of the war ; the anxiety to 
 be as much in the middle of it as possible; the strong 
 belief in himself, which kept him modest and made him 
 bold ; the warm heart which won everybody over. These 
 
 1 The First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
266 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 qualities were present in both men, and it is not easy to say 
 how far they might have carried the more modern com- 
 mander had opportunity offered. 
 
 Captain Key in the Amphion was a strong disciplinarian. 
 It is not easy in these days, when our men are picked as 
 boys, trained by the navy with care, and highly educated, 
 to realise that in a "crack ship" like the Ampkion y where 
 everything prospered, and where the commander was univer- 
 sally popular, there should have been an enormous amount 
 of the crimes of insubordination, violence, and drunkenness. 
 Evidently these crimes were attacked by a strong hand. 
 The corporal punishments were numerous and severe. 
 Something may be said on the part of the men, when so 
 much of the life was characterised by the extreme of mono- 
 tony, if not by the extreme of privation. Scarcely anyone 
 could have been a sharer in the captain's hopes, in his 
 anxieties, in his eagerness. The monotony was relieved to 
 them only by occasional expectations of a brush with the 
 enemy, by the rare capture of a prize, and by the three 
 tastes of the excitements of war which were granted to the 
 Amphions at Bomarsund in 1854, and at Sveaborg twice in 
 1855. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 i 
 
 THE SANS PAREIL — 1856-1858 
 
 ON the 9th of January 1856 Captain Key was trans- 
 ferred from the Amphion to the Sans Pareil^ then 
 lying in Plymouth Sound, and he joined her there 
 on the 22nd. He was taking the place of Captain W. T. 
 Williams, 1 who passed to the command of the Centurion. 
 It was so far remarkable that this was Captain Key's third 
 command, and yet he had never " commissioned " a ship, 
 and had not any of the advantages of patronage, and none 
 of the choice of officers, which commissioning a ship then 
 allowed to her captain. 2 
 
 The Sans Pareil was a new screw line-of-battle ship, 
 and, except for her engines and boilers, differed little from 
 the sailing line-of-battle ship of that or of an earlier day. 
 She carried twenty-eight 32-pounders on her lower-deck; 
 six 8-inch and twenty-four 32-pounders on her main-deck; 
 four 32-pounders on her quarter-deck; and eight 32-pounders 
 on her forecastle. Though heavier, the character of her 
 armament did not differ greatly from that which Key had 
 met in the Russell on first coming to sea twenty-one years 
 before. Her displacement was about 3000 tons. Her 
 engines were by James Watt & Co., of 400 nominal horse- 
 power, and they had only been placed on board the year 
 before. Her coal capacity was only 140 tons. 
 
 She carried a complement of 40 officers, 455 seamen 
 
 1 Died an admiral on the retired list, 1893. 
 
 2 Several officers, however, followed him into the Sans Pareil from the 
 Amphion ; amongst whom were the cousins Charles and Francis Stirling, the 
 one of whom disappeared in the mail steamer Boston, and the other in the train- 
 ing ship Atlanta, the fate of neither ship being ever ascertained. 
 
 267 
 
268 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and boys, and 125 marines; in all, 620 men, which was 
 a small complement for a line-of-battle ship of those days. 
 Her commander, when Captain Key joined, was Julian F. 
 Slight — a well-known name in those days. 1 Amongst the 
 other officers there were many changes before the ship 
 finally left England. 
 
 The crews of none of the ships seemed in those days to 
 be well behaved. The frequency of punishment for serious 
 offences was rather striking in the Amphion, and things in 
 the Sans Pareil did not look better for her new captain. 
 There were thefts, desertions, drunkenness, quitting post of 
 duty, stealing boats to run away with, and so on, before his 
 command was six weeks old. But, as Captain Key was 
 never one to avoid the duty which lay before him, heavy 
 punishments were duly meted out. But it may here be 
 said that the Sans Pareil ultimately became what is called 
 " a happy ship," and remained so to an exceptional degree 
 all through the commission. 
 
 Although at the date of Captain Key's appointment to 
 the Sans Pareil, proposals for peace were already in the 
 hands of the Russian Government, there was no cessation 
 in the preparations for another year's war. Public opinion 
 in England was much excited by what publicists called the 
 failure of the British fleets in the Baltic, — that is, the absence 
 of attempts on the part of the ships to attack the powerful 
 stone batteries of Cronstadt. To meet the popular view, it 
 was considered that by means of light-draught steam gun 
 and mortar boats, to be prepared and used in the same 
 way as those employed at Sveaborg, but in much greater 
 numbers, something effective might be done, even against 
 Cronstadt. No less than 1 2 8 light-draught gunboats and 
 gun vessels had, in fact, been added to the navy in 1855 
 with this object in view, and their completion was energeti- 
 cally pushed forward. 
 
 It was intended to despatch the gunboats to the Baltic in 
 four divisions, each under charge of the captain of a line-of- 
 battle ship, and it was in order that he might command the 
 
 1 Commander Slight was promoted into Captain Peel's death-vacancy on 
 nth September 1858. 
 
THE SANS PAJ?£/L-i8 5 6-i8 5 8 269 
 
 fourth of these divisions that Captain Key was appointed 
 to the Sans Pareil. He was ordered to land her lower- 
 deck guns in order to take in the stores necessary to 
 enable her to act as the dep6t of the gunboat division. 
 The gunboats at Devonport, which were to form part of 
 his division, were every day advanced towards readiness 
 for sea. 
 
 The negotiations for peace were not in a sufficiently for- 
 ward state to justify any relaxation of effort, and when Parlia- 
 ment opened on the 3 1st of January, Her Majesty announced 
 her readiness to continue the war. By the middle of 
 February a considerable fleet of warships and gunboats 
 were assembling at Spithead. On the 25th an advanced 
 squadron of steam frigates and corvettes sailed for the 
 Baltic. The third and fourth divisions of gunboats were 
 ordered to assemble at Portland, and on the 28th Captain 
 Key, in command of the Sans Pareil, loaded up with 
 stores, and without her lower-deck and upper-deck guns, 
 sailed for Portland accompanied by seven gunboats of 
 the fourth division. About the same time the Imptrieuse 
 and other ships of the advanced squadron passed into the 
 Baltic. 
 
 The depot -ship of the third division of the gun- 
 boats soon joined the Sans Pareil, and both divisions 
 were continually augmented by the arrivals of fresh gun- 
 boats. 
 
 It was a busy and an anxious time. Great doubts 
 hung over the result of the negotiations for peace; the 
 advanced squadron was pushing up the Baltic to the edge 
 of the ice ; ships of all classes and in great numbers were 
 daily issuing from our harbours to points of assemblage, ready 
 to open the spring campaign. The columns in the news- 
 papers describing the annexation of Oude were lightly 
 scanned at a time when the question of war or peace with 
 Russia seemed the only one of importance. 
 
 But towards the end of March it was generally under- 
 stood that there would be peace, and it began to be 
 rumoured that there would be a great Naval Review at Spit- 
 head before the Queen, as a fitting ceremony to close the 
 
270 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 war, and as a proof to all who chose to understand, that it 
 was not until after two years of war that England began to 
 really exert herself. 
 
 On the 25th of March the Lords of the Admiralty, with 
 their flag flying in the Black Eagle, paid a visit of inspection 
 to the flotilla at Portland, and on the 28th the Sans Pareil 
 and Colossus, with no less than 4 1 gunboats, left Portland in 
 the early morning, and anchored off the Motherbank in the 
 evening. There were already 17 warships at and about 
 Spithead, so that the arrival of the Sans Pareil and 
 Colossus, with their gunboats, made the total up to 60 
 sail. 
 
 Peace was now assured, so the assemblage was only in 
 preparation for the great review. Peace was, in fact, 
 signed two days after the Sans Pareil' s arrival at Spithead, 
 and it was publicly announced on the 31st of March. 
 
 Before long there were collected to take part in the 
 review — 22 steam line-of-battle ships, 3 screw frigates, 16 
 screw corvettes and small vessels, 1 7 paddle-wheel corvettes 
 and small vessels, and 160 gunboats; in all, 218 steam 
 ships. It was a force numerically large beyond comparison, 
 but marvellous at a time when steam was, as it were, only 
 just springing into being. Considering that we still had 
 great naval forces abroad, and that the war had lasted two 
 years, the assembly was a momentous display of naval 
 power. 
 
 The gunboats had been rearranged before reaching Spit- 
 head. They were organised in four divisions, termed White, 
 Red, Blue, and Light Divisions. The White and Red 
 comprised 46 gunboats, the Blue 44, and the Light 24. 
 It was this division that was under Captain Key's 
 command. 
 
 There were rehearsals of the intended movements before 
 the Queen. It was impossible that with so vast a force, 
 confined within such narrow waters, there could be any- 
 thing beyond evolutions of the simplest character. But, 
 simple as they might be, some preliminary exercise was 
 necessary if all was to go off well, so that on the 7th of 
 April the great fleet weighed and stood out to the Nab and 
 
THE SANS PARE/L— 1856-1858 271 
 
 back again ; and then, on the 1 8th, the pivot-ships, round 
 which the two immense lines were to wheel, being put in 
 position near the Nab light-vessel, the fleet weighed and 
 went through an exact representation of what was to be 
 done before the Queen. And then the great day came, 
 glowing with the weather it has been Her Majesty's fortune 
 to enjoy on every great function. 
 
 Dry notes in the ship's log assist us to estimate the 
 naval temper of the day, and how a man like Captain Key 
 was affected by it. It happened that a young officer had, 
 two or three days earlier, committed a very serious offence, 
 and had been placed under arrest. This 23rd of April 
 1856 was no day for rigour. Captain Key opened it by 
 releasing and forgiving the culprit. 
 
 After the review was over there was nothing for the 
 fleet but dispersion, and, for most of the ships, paying off 
 and dismantling. But as the British army had to be 
 brought home from the Crimea, some of the line-of-battle 
 ships were chosen for that duty, and the Sans Pareil was 
 one. For this duty the guns were to be removed, and it 
 was necessary to make many fittings. Captain Key therefore 
 obtained leave of absence, and, proceeding to Jersey, was 
 on the 28th of April married at Gonville, in that island, to 
 Charlotte Lavinia, youngest daughter of E. A. M'Niell, Esq., 
 of Cushendun, Co. Antrim, Ireland. 
 
 On the 30th of May the Sans Pareil sailed for the 
 Crimea, and, touching at Gibraltar for a day on the 6th of 
 June, passed on to Algiers and coaled there on the nth, 
 leaving again the same day. She was at Malta coaling 
 and provisioning on the 1 5 th and 16th ; she steamed up the 
 Dardanelles on the 21st, and on the 22nd anchored in the 
 Bosphorus, being in company with several other warships, 
 English and French, — some of the former nationality she had 
 already met at Gibraltar, — and all were on the same quest 
 as herself. Weighing again on the 24th, she anchored in 
 Kazatch Bay on the 26th. On the 27th of June she 
 passed into Balaklava harbour, and began at once to assist 
 in loading transports, removing stores, etc. She finally 
 took on board the 72nd Highlanders, and sailed for England 
 
272 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 on the 6th July. She anchored at Spithead late on the 
 night of the 29th. 1 
 
 The ship now returned to Plymouth, and, having taken 
 on board her armament again and completed for sea, she 
 joined Sir Richard Dundas's fleet at Lisbon on the 22nd Sep- 
 tember, and lay there till the 16th of January 1857. Then 
 the fleet, consisting of the Duke of Wellington, Exmouth, 
 James Watt y Colossus, and Sans Pareil, put to sea for a 
 cruise. On the sixth day of this cruise, which had been 
 wholly under sail, Captain Key found that his rudder-head 
 was sprung, and that the ordinary method of steering was 
 not available. The admiral directed him to make the best 
 of his way to Lisbon, and he did so under sail, as far as the 
 mouth of the river went. It was a pretty bit of the sea- 
 manship of those days. Every rudder was fitted with what 
 were called "rudder-pendants," fastened with a ring and 
 copper chains to the outer edge of the rudder just at the 
 water-line. The idea was, that if the rudder-head should 
 be wrung, so that the tiller could not be used, spars should 
 be " rigged out " on each quarter of the ship with blocks at 
 their extremities through which the " rudder-pendants " 
 could be " rove," and, on purchases being applied to the one 
 pendant or to the other, the rudder might be moved from 
 side to side, without a tiller, and by appliances outside the 
 ship altogether. The use of this apparatus was so extremely 
 rare, that it was generally doubted whether it would be 
 found applicable. But it was just the sort of nicety in 
 seamanship to take Captain Key's fancy, and he was no 
 
 1 The Rev. Percy Rogers, now the vicar of Simonburn, who was chaplain of 
 the Sans Pareil, and to whom I am indebted for some notes of the ship's com- 
 mission, speaks of Captain Key dwelling in conversation on his continued ill- 
 health in the Baltic, owing, as he thought, to the want of fruit, etc. He had set 
 up in his cabin in the Sans Pareil an ingenious plan for detecting at sight the 
 number of revolutions the screw was making. He had bullets attached by strings 
 of different lengths attached to a brass rod. " When the screw made, say, thirty- 
 six revolutions, one vibrated much more than the rest. Should the number of 
 revolutions be increased or diminished, the oscillation of this one nearly ceased, 
 and another took it up ; the length of the strings was, of course, determined by 
 experiment." 
 
 Mr. Rogers speaks in warm terms of Cooper Key's markedly religious character 
 — of his practice of having evening prayer in his cabin on Sundays, and of his 
 admiration for religious poetry. 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1 856-1 858 273 
 
 doubt delighted to be able to put it into use, and to steer 
 the ship under sail for three days to an anchorage in the 
 Tagus, and then on the 26th to pass up under steam to the 
 usual anchorage off the city. 
 
 It seems to have been while his artificers were repairing 
 the rudder on shore that Captain Key received orders which 
 sent him to England. He got his rudder back on the 7th 
 of February, proceeded to sea on the 9th, and anchored in 
 Plymouth Sound on the 1 8th. 
 
 Troubles in China were at this time coming to a head, 
 and the Sans Pareil had been recalled for despatch thither 
 with reinforcements. After receiving a new rudder and a 
 general refit, she took on board, on the 12th of March, 
 9 officers and 300 rank and file of Royal Marines, under 
 the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Lemon, as well as a 
 number of seamen, and put to sea finally on the 1 7th. 1 
 
 Her passage, made chiefly under sail, was necessarily 
 a long one. She was at Madeira on the 27th of March; 
 at Ascension on the 20th of April, for coals and provisions ; 
 at Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the 16th of May, 
 where she lay till the 25 th. 2 
 
 Passing through the Straits of Sunda at night, the 
 Sans Pareil was stopped off Angier by the guns and signals 
 of H.M.S. Actceon, which was lying in mid-channel with 
 
 1 Lieutenant-Colonel Lemon died a lieutenant-general and C.B. in 1875. Mr. 
 Percy Rogers observes : " Popular fashions vary. The good folk of my native 
 1 Three Towns ' were fairly deranged over the departure of a marine battalion 
 to Zululand a few years later, who returned without seeing a shot fired in 
 anger ; while the old Sans Pareil^ bearing many who would ' come back no 
 more ' from the battlefields of India and China, steamed away solitary and quite 
 unnoticed, save from a brief paragraph in a local paper that she was overladen, 
 and would probably terminate her career in the Bay of Biscay ! Sic semper 
 turba remi ! " 
 
 2 Mr. Rogers speaks of Captain Key's interest in watching the change in the 
 deviation of the compass corresponding to a change of latitude ; from i° E. in 
 the north to 23° W. in the south. He attributed it chiefly to the well-known 
 change of magnetism in upright iron, — in this case in the funnel, which was abaft 
 the mainmast in the Sans Pareil. At Simon's Bay, Key drew attention, with 
 pleasant humour, to the change that came over the spirit of the flagship's dream, 
 on the termination of Commodore Trotter's command and the arrival of Admiral 
 Frederick Grey, — how slackness of ropes, unsquared yards, and general easiness 
 of demeanour suddenly changed to every outward sign of alertness and zeal. 
 
 18 
 
274 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 orders to intercept the Simoom and Himalaya that were on 
 their way to China, and divert them to India in consequence 
 of the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. Passing on with 
 this startling news, the Sans Pareil reached Singapore 
 on the 30th of June, and Hong Kong on the 1 2th July. 
 She was thus 122 days on the passage — a lapse of time 
 which shows how little steam, in its auxiliary form, had 
 done to increase speed, and how the Ministry of that date 
 were justified in sending the reinforcements required for 
 India in sailing vessels. 
 
 Captain Key found the Calcutta, Captain W. K. Hall, 
 bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, 
 K.C.B. ; Sybille, Commodore Hon. C. G. B. Elliot ; Shannon, 
 Captain William Peel; Amethyst, Captain Sidney Grenfel ; 
 Pearl, Captain E. S. Sotheby ; Sampson, Captain G. S. 
 Hand ; Hornet, Commander C. C. Forsyth ; Haughty, 
 Lieutenant R. V. Hamilton ; Cormorant, Commander T. 
 Saumarez ; Opossum, Lieutenant Colin A. Campbell ; and 
 Inflexible, Commander John Corbett. There was also the 
 French sailing frigate La Virginie, bearing the flag of 
 Rear-Admiral Guerin, 1 and another French corvette. The 
 assemblage was part of the force destined for an attack 
 upon the city of Canton, which, however, news of the most 
 serious character not many weeks old had postponed. 
 
 News had, in fact, reached Singapore of " the serious 
 revolt of some of the native troops near Delhi " before the 
 first week of June was out. Sir William Hoste, of the 
 Spartan, the senior officer there, had received a request 
 from Lord Elgin, who was then at Singapore on his way to 
 represent the English Government in China, to divert the 
 Himalaya and Simoom, which were bringing troops for 
 China, to Calcutta. Captain Key had heard the news con- 
 firmed at Singapore, but had pushed on to Hong Kong, in 
 the absence of discretionary orders. Lord Elgin had him- 
 self gone on in the Shannon to Hong Kong, arriving there 
 ten days earlier than Captain Key. 
 
 On the Sans Pa?-eil's arrival, it had become clear that 
 
 1 Admiral Guerin sailed for France on the 15th, and was succeeded by Rear- 
 Admiral Rigault de Genouilly. 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1856-1858 275 
 
 the Indian difficulty was of far more importance than any 
 operations against Canton. The admiral determined to 
 send the Shannon and Pearl at once to Calcutta, the former 
 taking over the marines which the Sans Pareil had brought 
 out; and these ships accordingly sailed on the 16th July. 
 
 But it was necessary, as active operations against the 
 Chinese were thus checked, to control their possible counter 
 approaches. Accordingly, on the 1st or 2nd of August, 
 the Sans Pareil proceeded to Chuenpee, and on the 3rd and 
 4th she landed marines to hold the Chuenpee forts, return- 
 ing herself to Hong Kong. But it was determined to send 
 further reinforcements to Calcutta, and on the 16th the 
 Sans Pareil, having previously taken on board 7 officers 
 and 258 men of the Royal Artillery from Hong Kong, was 
 towed to sea by the Sampson, which did not drop her for 
 a week. This help was necessary for speed, as the Sans 
 Pareil by herself had not coal enough to steam down the 
 China Sea against the monsoon. 
 
 The ship reached Singapore, as it was, not until the 
 3 I st, but then, having coaled and taken on board 2 officers 
 and 50 rank and file of the Royal Engineers, she put to 
 sea again on the 2nd September, and, after a stay of a 
 day at a port — for coal — was moored off the esplanade at 
 Calcutta on the 17th. It was said locally, that no line-of- 
 battle ship had been in her place since the days of Warren 
 Hastings and Admiral Watson. The marines which the 
 Sans Pareil had brought out had been placed in garrison 
 at Fort William, and they were added to by detachments 
 from the Sans Pareil. 
 
 During the heat of the Mutiny, from the 1 7th of Sep- 
 tember to the 31st October, the Sans Pareil lay in the 
 Hoogley, Captain Key acting as senior officer, dealing with 
 the stream of transports and troops arriving, and acting as 
 adviser to the Governor-General in everything relating to 
 transport and the naval service. It was not till the 1 7th 
 of December that the ship again reached Hong Kong. 
 
 Sir Michael Seymour, in the Calcutta, was up at the 
 Bogue forts when Key reached Hong Kong, but he found 
 orders there directing him to complete with water and 
 
276 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 supplies, and to join the flag off Wontang Island. Accord- 
 ingly the Sans Pareil anchored as directed on the 1.9th, 
 but, finding the commander-in-chief was not on board his 
 flagship, but higher up the river, Captain Key, on the 21st, 
 went up to confer with him on board the Firm gunboat, 
 returning the next day. 
 
 The preparations for the postponed attack on Canton 
 were now almost completed. Some days before the Satis 
 Pareil's arrival, Honan Point had been occupied by the 
 allied French and English without opposition. At the 
 same time an ultimatum had been sent in by the Ambassa- 
 dors of the allied Powers to the Imperial High Commissioner 
 Yeh, stating the demands of the two Governments, granting 
 him ten days for consideration of the same, and informing 
 him that if the demands were not complied with within 
 that time, coercive measures would be commenced against 
 the city of Canton. 
 
 The brigade of the Marines and Marine Artillery had 
 been brought up, and, as well as a portion of the Naval 
 Brigade, had been quartered in the large storehouses on 
 Honan. The troops were still on board transports at 
 Whampoa. The total forces in hand at this time were — 
 
 From the ships — officers and seamen . . 1489 
 
 Royal Marines and Marine Artillery . . 2325 
 
 Troops from Hong Kong (59th Regiment) . 800 
 
 French Division . . . . . .968 
 
 Total . 5582 
 
 Further additions were expected to have been made 
 from the Sans Pareil, Princess Chai'lotte, and Fury, all daily 
 expected at Hong Kong. 
 
 When Captain Key reported himself to Sir M. Seymour, 
 the last word to the High Commissioner Yeh had indeed 
 been spoken. Plain demands had been put before him, 
 and he had replied, Chinese fashion, a propos of nothing. 
 So that, on the 18th of December, the Plenipotentiaries, 
 Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, wrote to Sir M. Seymour in- 
 forming him officially of the collapse in the negotiations, 
 
THE SANS PAXE/L—1S56-1S5S 277 
 
 and inviting him, Rear- Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, and 
 Major-General Van Straubenzie, to a conference on board 
 the French ship Audacieuse, at noon on the 21st December. 
 Captain Key therefore heard the immediate results of this 
 conference when he met the commander-in-chief. The 
 result of it was a letter to High Commissioner Yeh and the 
 other rulers of Canton, from the French and English com- 
 manders-in-chief, informing them that if within forty-eight 
 hours the city was surrendered, it would be occupied with- 
 out bloodshed, but if not, then it would be attacked. 
 
 The more immediate result to Captain Key was his 
 return to his ship, and his quitting her again at 8.45 on 
 the morning of the 23rd in the Firm, at the head of the 
 following force — 
 
 Commander, 3 lieutenants, 1 acting mate, 1 assistant 
 surgeon, 13 subordinate officers, and 267 petty officers, 
 seamen, and boys, to form part of the Naval Brigade to be 
 organised for the attack upon the city of Canton. The 
 Firm towed up two launches, two cutters, and a galley, for 
 landing the force. 
 
 The city of Canton lies on a plain, compassed on two 
 sides by the river, and at the foot of a mountain of con- 
 siderable elevation, called the White Cloud Mountain. 
 Immediately at the back, and forming a termination to a 
 ridge of mountains, are three or four hills of small elevation, 
 but sufficiently high to command the city. On these, at 
 this time, were forts and encamped troops, Manchus, Tartars, 
 etc. These heights were taken in the last war in 1 84 1 , when 
 the city was ransomed. The city was surrounded by a wall 
 front 2 5 feet thick at the base, and lay four square, sur- 
 rounded, or nearly so, by suburbs. The irregular square 
 enclosed by the outer wall was divided by an interior wall 
 running nearly east and west, into spaces called the old and 
 the new city. The walls were six or seven miles round ; 
 the wide top, bounded on its outer side by a parapet, 
 formed an unbroken means of communication right round 
 the city, and therefore put troops who were in possession of 
 the walls in possession of the city also. There were twelve 
 gates in the outer wall. 
 
278 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Inside the walls the city was composed of a dense 
 labyrinth of narrow streets, estimated at 156, not more 
 than 20 feet wide, shut in by houses of no great height. 
 
 The attack on Canton was arranged to begin by 
 bombardment of the river faces of the walls, with the 
 intention of breaching them, after which an assault was to 
 be delivered on the eastern wall by the armed force landed 
 on that side. 
 
 Between the French and Dutch Folly forts were 
 anchored 2 5 gunboats beside ships' boats ; and the Dutch 
 Folly had been turned into a mortar battery. For many 
 days these vessels had been moving up and taking their 
 positions, the inert Chinese permitting every preparation to 
 be made without interference from them. The population 
 thus crowded up was supposed to amount to a million. 
 
 Sir Michael Seymour's flag flew in the Coromandel ; his 
 own flagship, the Calcutta, with the Sans Pareil and other 
 ships, whose size forbade them taking a direct part in the 
 proceedings, were left at Tycocktow, 35 miles below 
 Canton. The bombardment was ordered to commence on 
 the 28th of December, under the following arrangements. 
 
 The Actczon, PhUge'ton, and gunboats were to open fire 
 on the south-western angle of the city walls, with a view to 
 breach them and impede the communications of the Chinese 
 troops along the parapet to the eastward. 
 
 The Mitraille and Fuse*e (French), with the Cruiser, 
 Hoi'net, and gunboats, were to breach the city walls 
 opposite the Viceroy's residence. The mortars in the 
 Dutch Folly, with the Niger and Avalanche, were to shell 
 the city, the heights, and Gough's Heights. The Nimrod 
 and Surprise, Dragonne (French), and Marceau (French), 
 and gunboats, between the Dutch and French Follies, were 
 to open fire on the south-eastern angles of the new and 
 old city walls, forming the east side of the city. 
 
 These several attacks were to commence simultan- 
 eously, when a white ensign was hoisted at the fore-top- 
 gallant mast of the Actceon, and a yellow flag as a cor- 
 responding signal was at the same time hoisted on board 
 the PhUge'ton. The Hornet and Avalanche were to repeat 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1 856-1 858 279 
 
 these signals, and keep them flying as long as they were 
 kept flying on board the other ships. 
 
 The bombardment was ordered to be very deliberate, 
 but to be continued day and night. Each gun was not to 
 exceed sixty rounds in the first twenty-four hours. 
 
 The orders were, that as soon as the bombardment 
 began, the allied forces were to land at the creek in the 
 Kuper Passage, to the eastward of the city, where the 
 French and English flags were to be planted. The whole 
 force was prepared for landing, in six separate bodies, as 
 follows : — 
 
 1. The Sappers and Miners, 59th Regiment, Royal 
 Artillery ; stores and ammunition. 
 
 2. The French Naval Brigade ; stores, etc. 
 
 3. The British Naval Brigade, under the command of 
 Commodore the Hon. Charles Elliot. 1 
 
 4. Naval Brigade from Canton. 
 
 5. Battalion of Royal Marines, under Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Lemon. 
 
 6. Battalion of Royal Marines and Marine Artillery, 
 under Colonel Holloway. 2 
 
 The landing was intended to be carried out in order as 
 above ; and, as it was completed, the force was to be dis- 
 posed with the British Naval Brigade on the right ; Colonel 
 Lemon's battalion, the 59th Regiment, and the Sappers and 
 Miners, in the centre; the French Brigade on the left; and 
 Colonel Holloway's Brigade, with the Royal Marine Artillery, 
 in reserve. 
 
 After getting into position, the allied forces were to 
 remain in line of contiguous columns of brigade until 
 further orders for an advance to a position for the night 
 were given, preparative to orders for active service on the 
 following morning. The bombardment was to open at 
 daylight, and the forces were to begin the landing at the 
 same time. 
 
 The total force to be landed was over 5600 men, the 
 Naval Brigade making up 1554. The latter was arranged 
 
 1 Died admiral of the fleet and K.C.B., 1895. 
 
 2 Died lieutenant-general and K.C.B., 1875. 
 
2 8o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 in three divisions, all under the command of Commodore 
 Elliot. The 1st Division consisted of the men of the 
 Sybille, Nankin, Sampson, Racehorse, Elk, and Inflexible. 
 It was 584 strong, and was commanded by Captain Hon. 
 Keith Stewart, 1 supported by Captain G. S. Hand 2 and 
 Commanders J. F. C. Hamilton 3 and G. A. C. Brooker. 4 
 The 2nd Division consisted of men from the Calcutta, Sans 
 Pareil, Actceon, and Acorn ; in all, 504, commanded by 
 Captain Key, supported by Commander A. W. A. Hood 6 
 and Commander Julian F. Slight. 6 The 3rd Division was 
 commanded by Captain Sir Robert M'Clure, Kt., 7 sup- 
 ported by Captain Hon. A. A. Cochrane, C.B., 8 Captain 
 Sherard Osborn, C.B., 9 Commander W. M. Dowell, 10 and 
 Commander Charles Fellowes. 11 It comprised 584 officers 
 and men of the Esk, Niger, Highflyer, Hornet, Cruiser, and 
 Furious. 
 
 The field-pieces of the Calcutta were to be landed — 
 three light 1 2-pounders under Lieutenant Goodenough, 12 
 and two heavy 1 2-pounders under Lieutenant Beamish. 13 
 The two first companies of each division of the Naval 
 Brigade were to carry scaling ladders ; every man was to 
 carry three days' provisions with him ; and each division 
 was to carry four bags containing 100 lbs. of powder, to 
 be used, if necessary, for blowing the gates of the city 
 in. The dress of the divisions conspicuously differed, so 
 that there should be no confusion or intermixture. The 
 1st Division was to wear blue frocks and white trousers ; 
 the 2nd Division was altogether in blue ; and the 3rd 
 Division was to wear white frocks and blue trousers. 
 
 The further operations, when the assault was deter- 
 mined on, were arranged as follows : 
 
 1 Died retired admiral and C.B., 1879. 2 Died admiral and C.B., 1883. 
 
 a Became captain, and was killed at the attack on Tauranga, New Zealand, 
 1864. 
 
 4 Died rear-admiral and C.B., 1889. 
 
 6 Afterwards Admiral Lord Hood of Avalon. 
 
 6 Died admiral and C.B., 1800. ' 7 Died rear-admiral and C.B., 1873. 
 
 8 Afterwards admiral and K.C.B. 9 Died rear-admiral and C.B., 1875. 
 
 10 Afterwards admiral and G.C.B. " Died vice-admiral and K.C.B., 1885. 
 
 12 Killed by poisoned arrow when commodore in Australasia. 
 18 Afterwards rear-admiral and C.B. 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1856-1858 281 
 
 The 59th Regiment was to be told off for the attack 
 on Fort Lin, supported by a battalion of the French Brigade. 
 Fort Lin was to be afterwards occupied by Colonel Hollo- 
 way's Brigade. This was to be done on the first day. 
 
 On the second morning the whole of the 59th and 
 Madras Native Infantry were to form the covering party 
 to keep down the fire from the walls. 
 
 The ladders of the French, Centre, and Naval Brigades 
 were to have been placed over-night as near the ditch as 
 practicable ; the parties told off for them were, when 
 ordered, to advance and form the storming party, the 
 remainder being in support. 
 
 The French Brigade was to escalade as near as possible 
 to the north side of the "Blind Man's House." The 
 British Naval Brigade was to escalade 600 yards to the 
 north, and the Centre Brigade between the two. 
 
 After entering the place, the French Brigade was to 
 form on the open ground inside the wall, advancing south- 
 wards to take, close, and occupy the eastern gate. This 
 accomplished, the remainder of the brigade was to move 
 northwards along the wall. 
 
 The British Naval Brigade was to form on the wall 
 and advance northwards along the ramparts, taking the 
 north-eastern gate, which they were to open for the 
 artillery and continue to hold. 
 
 Colonel Lemon was to form his battalion on the wall, 
 and was to follow and support the French Naval Brigade. 
 
 Colonel Graham having formed the 59th Regiment so 
 soon as the walls were in our possession, was to order it 
 to advance in support of the British Naval Brigade, unless 
 he should see that the French Naval Brigade was more 
 in want of his assistance in the attack on the east gate ; 
 in which case he was to afford it. 
 
 Each battalion was to leave one company on the wall 
 to assist in mounting on the ramparts such howitzers and 
 field-pieces as might not be in position outside the walls. 
 They were afterwards to rejoin their respective brigades. 
 
 The whole force was to bear in mind that the principal 
 object was to capture the heights within the city ; no more, 
 
282 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 therefore, was to take place after the capture of the two 
 northern gates, magazine hill, and five-storeyed pagoda till 
 special orders were given. 
 
 Colonel Holloway's Brigade being in reserve, he was to 
 superintend the forwarding of the reserve ammunition and 
 the protection of the wounded, and see that such artillery 
 as might be in position was properly supported. He was 
 to occupy as much of the first position vacated by the other 
 brigades as he deemed necessary with a view to oppose 
 any attack that might be made from the hills on our flank 
 and rear. The parole throughout the operations was to be 
 " France and England." The guns on the walls and on 
 the captured forts were to be turned on the city, except the 
 northern ones, which were to be directed upon Gough's and 
 the adjacent forts. 
 
 All things were thus in readiness to begin the attack, 
 pending the reply of the High Commissioner Yeh to 
 the peremptory summons of the naval and military com- 
 manders. 
 
 It was penned on the 25th of December, and was most 
 characteristic. Yeh, with the utmost grace and politeness, 
 recognised nothing, asserted nothing, and promised nothing. 
 He noticed that it was stated that the correspondence had 
 terminated unsatisfactorily. On this point he begged to 
 observe that he had already written six letters expressing 
 his willingness that commercial relations should be resumed 
 on their old footing — the precise demand of the allies being 
 that there should be a new footing. Yeh was of opinion 
 that there was nothing unsatisfactory in this, and that the 
 whole Province was of the same mind with him here. 
 
 The records showed, Yeh declared, that these letters 
 truly represented the situation of the city of Canton. 
 
 " Discernment and practical knowledge have distin- 
 guished the long professional career of the Hon. Admiral 
 Seymour; and if the Hon. Rigault de Genouilly and the 
 Hon. General Van Straubenzie are not yet familiar with all 
 the particulars of the case, a careful inspection of the letters 
 written by me to the Hon. Admiral Seymour will place the 
 whole matter clearly before them." 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1 856-1 858 283 
 
 " It may be observed," Yeh went on with the imper- 
 turbable but maddening coolness of Chinese diplomacy, 
 " that the English and French nations have hitherto been 
 celebrated for their good faith. When, on the 1 2th of 
 December, the nations met the Deputy of the Imperial 
 Commission at the Macao Passage, they displayed in front 
 of their vessels flags of truce. All foreign nations know 
 this rule, and you, the Hon. Commanders-in-Chief, should 
 well consider the proper application of it. The under- 
 signed wish the Hon. Commanders-in-Chief prosperity." 
 
 From what point of view Commissioner Yeh thus 
 applied Sam Weller's philosophy of letter-writing, it might 
 be difficult to say — as difficult, perhaps, as to imagine that 
 the allied Commanders-in-Chief would, as Mr. Weller con- 
 ceived, have " wished there was more." But, clearly, nothing 
 was left to them but to acknowledge the receipt, and to 
 announce that the attack would proceed. 
 
 Accordingly, the bombardment began at daylight on the 
 morning of the 28th of December, and continued steadily 
 all day and next night. The various forces for landing 
 passed away to the eastward in gunboats and boats to the 
 landing-place appointed. The landing actually began " at 
 10 a.m. on the 28th, but, owing to shoal water, some of the 
 gunboats carrying the men got on shore, which caused great 
 delay; and Captain Key's Division was not ready to march 
 towards the part of the city on which it had been decided 
 to make the assault until nearly five o'clock." 1 
 
 But in the meantime directions had been given to 
 Colonel Lemon and the 1st and 3rd Divisions of the 
 Naval Brigade to advance and take possession of a large 
 temple in front of our position, and within 100 yards 
 of the wall. These divisions were therefore well in ad- 
 vance of Captain Key's Division when it was ready to 
 march. It moved at five o'clock "to endeavour to catch 
 up the two other divisions of the Naval Brigade, which 
 had started some time before, but darkness coming on 
 we failed to join them, and lay down for the night on 
 some very rough ground about a mile and a half from 
 
 1 Notes kindly supplied to me by Admiral Lord Hood of Avalon. 
 
284 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the walls of the city. 1 Desultory firing was kept up by the 
 Chinese during the night ; but although several shots came 
 close over our position, and some fell among the men, no 
 casualties occurred. At daylight we got under arms, and ad- 
 vanced towards the position which had been selected for the 
 assault. We were exposed to the fire from the walls and two 
 forts during the advance, but, the cover and nature of the 
 ground being very favourable for us, no casualties occurred. 
 We halted under cover of large buildings outside the walls." 2 
 
 These were the temple buildings, which the other 
 divisions had occupied on the previous evening; they 
 afforded cover from the fire of Gough's Fort, and also from 
 that which continued to be maintained from the city walls. 
 
 "The artillery now opened fire from four 9-pounders 
 on the top of the parapet, to clear away the Chinese troops 
 assembled there. A large body of Chinese troops sallied 
 out through a large gate in the walls, and endeavoured 
 to outflank us ; and a good deal of skirmishing took 
 place. A heavy fire of musketry was also kept up from 
 the walls upon us. Here Captain Bate and Mr. Thompson, 
 midshipman, and five or six men, were killed, and I think 
 about fifteen or twenty wounded. The fire from the 
 parapet being kept down by the artillery, the scaling- 
 ladder party ran forward into the ditch which surrounded 
 the walls and planted the ladders, up which the assaulting 
 party rushed. This was no easy work, as the walls at 
 the place where the assault was delivered were more than 
 thirty feet high. On gaining the top of the parapet, a 
 rush was made along the walls towards a fort which was 
 just inside the walls and commanded the whole city. 
 The Chinese fled from the fort as we reached it, and we 
 at once took possession. Here Lord Gilford 3 was badly 
 wounded, and several men were killed and wounded. . . . 
 
 1 Key's ever-faithful coxswain, Cornish, had managed to make a fire, and 
 brewed some cocoa for his captain, which he brought to him when the bivouac 
 settled down. Everyone had not so faithful an attendant, and there was not 
 cocoa for all. It was a sad disappointment to Cornish that on such grounds his 
 captain would take naught at his hands. 
 
 2 Lord Hood's Notes. 
 
 3 Afterwards Admiral Earl Clanwilliam, G.C.B., K.C.M.G. 
 
THE SANS PAREIL— 1 856-1 858 285 
 
 Captain Key's Division encamped on the heights and in 
 the captured fort on the nights of the 29th and 30th." 1 
 
 " Sir M. Seymour and General Straubenzie wished to 
 make a reconnaissance, and a force consisting of the 2nd 
 Division Naval Brigade, 400 marines and 100 French 
 seamen, marched on the ramparts round the whole city, 
 and spiked 150 guns, all of which were loaded and 
 
 1 Lord Hood's Notes. The Times correspondent, occupying a position from 
 which everything could be seen, thus describes the morning's work:— "The 
 ships that had been enfilading the eastern wall now ceased firing. It was the 
 moment for the assault. In the neighbourhood of the east fort the three 
 divisions formed, and the rush was made. For two hours nothing is visible 
 but smoke, nothing heard but the rattle of musketry and loud cheering. What 
 deeds are done amongst this broken ground — among these trees and brushwood, 
 on the tops, and in the interstices of these grove-covered hillocks, — how far these 
 forces spread over more than a mile of attack, what divisions are first, who fall 
 and who survive, I must tell hereafter. At eight o'clock the wall is gained, and 
 I see the bluejackets, English and French, racing along it northwards. Gough's 
 Fort gives out its fire, let us hope without effect ; but well served, its guns 
 might sweep the wall. There is a check, and silence for half an hour. I can 
 recognise the blue trousers of one of the divisions of the Naval Brigade. The 
 leaders are probably teaching them how to take the five-storeyed pagoda on the 
 north-eastern wall. Along the city wall, and protected by its battlements, they 
 pass, I think unscathed, the fire of a gleaming white battery, newly built and 
 full of guns, erected upon a ledge of rock upon which the wall and the five- 
 storeyed pagoda here stand. If the assailants would only go to a proper distance, 
 how the guns would riddle them. But, with a rush and a cheer, a detachment 
 strikes from the cover of the wall which the guns do not command, and houses 
 itself safely at the foot of the very rock which bears the battery. Not a shot 
 can it fire. The riflemen from the walls now ply this half-moon for some 
 minutes, and in a quarter of an hour the detachment at the foot of the rock has 
 gone round and taken the position from behind. Relieved of these guns, which 
 might have swept them down by hundreds, our men in serried masses are now 
 swarming along the wall. The five-storeyed pagoda (which is no more a pagoda, 
 according to our notion, than it is a bum-boat, but an old square red brick 
 building divided into five storeys) is carried by the bayonet, and the French and 
 English colours are hoisted simultaneously [by Captain Key's coxswain — 
 Cornish]. Now Gough's P*ort opens sulkily upon its late ally ; but the assailants, 
 not waiting to reply, hurry along the intervening wall, westward. I can follow 
 them for some time from my position, and I hear them cheering when I lose 
 them in the hollow. A few minutes of sharp fusillade, and bluejackets emerge 
 from the trees and buildings upon Magazine Hill. A moment after and up go 
 two bits of bunting, which tell us that the key of Canton is our own. 
 
 " It is now twenty minutes after ten. In four hours, therefore, the hill 
 defences of this city have been captured. Gough's Fort yet holds out, but this 
 is a mere question of a few hours, or minutes, more or less — the Magazine 
 Hill commands it, and is within point-blank range." — Times ; February 28th, 
 1858. 
 
286 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 pointed in the direction of that part of the walls on 
 which they evidently thought that the assault would have 
 been made. The next day the 1st and 3rd Divisions 
 of the Naval Brigade returned to their ships, and Captain 
 Key received orders from Sir Michael Seymour to provide 
 a party of 100 seamen to accompany a body of marines 
 and French seamen in the endeavour to effect the capture 
 of Yeh, the Viceroy, who was supposed to be concealed 
 in one of the temples in the heart of the city. During 
 the march the marines lost their way ; Captain Key at 
 once offered to take his party of 100 seamen to endeavour 
 to effect the capture of Yeh. A Chinese gave information 
 that he was concealed in the palace of the lieutenant- 
 governor of the city, and after a great deal of trouble was 
 induced to show us the way. We marched for more than 
 half an hour through thousands of Chinese, who offered 
 no offensive action. At last we arrived at the palace, 
 the gates of which were chained and barricaded. We 
 burst open the gates, marched through several courtyards 
 and small temples, and at last reached a large room in 
 which were seated several mandarins, one of whom came 
 forward and informed our Chinese interpreter x that he 
 was Yeh. Captain Key, however, rushed on through a 
 door into a garden, from which a mandarin (who proved 
 to be the veritable Yeh) was in the act of making his 
 escape. He was captured and placed in an armchair 
 under my charge. 2 Information was sent to Sir M. 
 
 1 This was Consul (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes, K.C.M.G. 
 
 2 Captain Key's coxswain, Cornish, who had followed him from the Amphion, 
 and was his faithful attendant for years afterwards, thus describes the occurrence : 
 " Captain Key had the help of Consul Parkes. We caught one person. It 
 appears Consul Parkes was mistaken. The man was the aide-de-camp, and 
 Consul Parkes thought it was Governor Yeh. I had to collar him by Parkes's 
 orders. I took him to the front, and put him under the guard of some of the 
 bluejackets. We went into Governor Yeh's settlement. There were two horses 
 in the yard, and there was everything ready to go away. Consul Parkes says, 
 ' We have made a mistake ; that is Governor Yeh ' ! Sir Cooper Key caught 
 him round the neck and said, 'I presume you are Governor Yeh?' He 
 resisted a little bit, but we was all round him like a flock of sheep, and he sank 
 down in a chair. There was three bluejackets on each side of him, and a petty 
 officer, and there was a man taking his photograph." 
 
THE SANS PAREIL—1%56-1%5% 287 
 
 Seymour and General Straubenzie of the capture; and 
 in the meantime a careful search was made in the palace, 
 and boxes were found full of important papers with secret 
 information from spies at Hong Kong relative to all our 
 proceedings. No attempt at rescue was made by the 
 Chinese. We subsequently made twelve Chinese carry 
 Yeh in his sedan - chair right through the heart of 
 Canton to the General's headquarters. He was subse- 
 quently sent as a prisoner on board the Inflexible, anchored 
 off Tiger Island, in the Canton River. Some of his per- 
 sonal attendants were allowed to accompany him, and he 
 was afterwards conveyed to Calcutta, where, some time 
 afterwards, he died. 
 
 " Captain Key, the officers and men of the 2nd 
 Division of the Naval Brigade, were subsequently quartered 
 in a very large temple in the heart of Canton for nearly a 
 month, after which, as everything was quiet, they returned 
 to their ships." * 
 
 Captain Key's health at this time began to fail. Quite 
 possibly, the reaction after the anxieties of the Indian 
 Mutiny, the few days of moving incident and great activity 
 involved in the capture of Canton, to be followed by the 
 dead quiet of lying in Hong Kong harbour, aggravated the 
 disease. On the 1 6th of April, Captain Key was invalided 
 on board the Nankin for " climatic cachexia and derange- 
 ment of the digestive organs," and was ordered a passage 
 home, for the re-establishment of his health, in the P. & O. 
 steamer, which sailed on the 23rd. 
 
 1 Lord Hood's Notes. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A ROYAL COMMISSIONER CAPTAIN OF THE DEVONPORT 
 
 STEAM ORDINARY — 1859-1863 
 
 AT the time of Captain Key's return to England a 
 strong feeling possessed the official mind of the de- 
 fencelessness of some of our ports against French 
 attack, especially of such ports as Portsmouth and Plymouth. 
 It scarcely appears that any authority of the time had studied 
 the proceedings of the Royal Commission of 1785, when 
 the same sort of local alarm had spread, and which was 
 only allayed by the common-sense of Sir John Jervis 
 and the moiety of the Royal Commission that acted with 
 him. 
 
 The theory of 1785 was that of 1859 — namely, that 
 the natural defenders of these ports, the only defenders 
 which experience had shown to be effective, our warships, 
 would all be conveniently absent when such attacks were 
 in the wind. As in 1785, so in 1859, the alarm was 
 cultivated in the highest quarters, and designs to spend 
 considerable sums of money in erecting great protective 
 works at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and other ports were 
 fostered. 
 
 There is no record that Captain Key had made a special 
 study of the great principles which should underlie all con- 
 ceptions of this sort, but on his return to England he 
 seems to have fallen into the company of those who were 
 thoroughly impressed with these alarms, and he certainly 
 adopted them in the fullest degree. In January 1859 he 
 addressed a paper to the Admiralty, which is a monograph 
 of the defenceless state of Portsmouth, containing most of 
 those propositions which afterwards were embodied in the 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 289 
 
 report of the subsequent Royal Commission, and which are 
 now generally held to be fallacies. 
 In this paper he said — 
 
 "The destruction of Portsmouth, at the outbreak of a war, might prove a 
 blow of vital importance to this country. . . . England's natural and most 
 efficient defence has ever been, and will ever be, in her fleet ; but many causes 
 may operate to withdraw that fleet from our shores, and any expedition of im- 
 portance would probably be reinforced by every available vessel of war. It would 
 seem imperative, therefore, to secure our naval arsenals from a sudden attack of 
 ships by permanent defences either on land or afloat. . . . The defences of 
 Portsmouth are at present totally insufficient to prevent a bombardment of the 
 dockyard, in the absence of our fleet, by gunboats or mortar-boats armed with 
 long-ranged guns, etc. These vessels might station themselves on the Horse 
 Sand, and, without anchoring, might with tolerable certainty throw shell of 
 any description into the dockyard, being then at about 6000 yards distance from 
 it. ... A detachment of the enemy's fleet might at the same time silence the 
 guns bearing on Stokes Bay, and — the direction being indicated from the mast- 
 head of one of the ships — they might shell the dockyard from that position. 
 
 "The attack now spoken of is, as before mentioned, only possible if the 
 enemy is capable of maintaining the command of the Channel for a few days by 
 a superior naval force. A small squadron of our ships would be of little avail at 
 Spithead for its defence. They would be so entirely unsupported by land batteries 
 that they must necessarily retire before a superior force." 
 
 These views, which are the roots of the subsequent 
 report of the Royal Commission, surprise one who has had 
 opportunities of observing the general keenness and clear- 
 ness of Key's intellect. He appears to have narrowed his 
 conceptions in a remarkable degree in this instance. 
 
 He had close personal knowledge of all the conditions 
 which made the bombardment of Sveaborg possible, and 
 he was well aware of the real impotence of that demon- 
 stration. But if he could have reasonably surmised like 
 conditions available to the French in the problematical 
 bombardment of Portsmouth, those very conditions made 
 such bombardment the unlikeliest possible event of war. 
 For, given this absence of naval defence, what was to 
 hinder successful invasion ? If it was open to the French 
 to destroy Portsmouth Dockyard by bombardment, it was 
 at least equally open to them to conquer the country by 
 invasion. Was it possible to suppose the French choosing 
 the minor and inconclusive operation when the major and 
 conclusive operation was ready to their hand ? The allies 
 in the Baltic were restricted to the minor operation because 
 19 
 
2 9 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 of the strength of the Russian army. No such restriction 
 existed upon French armies under the hypothesis put 
 forward. 
 
 But had anyone at that date been competent to ask 
 how it was possible to conceive of the Channel being left 
 without sufficient naval defence — not owing to want of 
 means, but owing to the transfer of the naval defence to 
 some unknown quarter — at a time when France had 
 accumulated such a bombarding material as would suffice 
 to destroy Portsmouth Dockyard in " a few days," the 
 whole position must have crumbled to pieces. Captain 
 Key did not ask himself the question, and, having granted 
 the fundamental postulate, he at once found himself in 
 overwhelming difficulties — 
 
 " It must be evident," he said, " that no half-measures can be of any service. 
 If a position is to be defended, it must be made secure ; no weak point should be 
 overlooked by which an attack could have a reasonable probability of success." 
 
 And then he goes on to show that Portsmouth cannot 
 be made secure unless the Isle of Wight is first made 
 secure ; and he submits the erection of a chain of towers at 
 every point of the southern part of the island where a 
 landing could be effected. 
 
 The author of the paper is naturally, indeed necessarily, 
 led on to show that, after everything possible had been done 
 to protect Portsmouth from an attack by sea, it would be 
 all of no avail unless the defences by land were equally 
 impregnable, and he sketches the necessity of fortifying 
 Portsdown Hill and the country surrounding Portsmouth. 
 
 That a man of such real power, and of such remarkable 
 width of view, should have produced a paper containing so 
 much palpable fallacy, is a testimony to the strength of the 
 idea dominant at the time. Captain Key must have mixed 
 much with those who were then full of these fallacies. The 
 weight of opinion by which he was surrounded hindered 
 the independent action of his own mind, and led him to 
 put forward ideas which wanted the solid basis of data 
 before they could pass into physical being — 
 
 " In conclusion," he says, " I have the honour to submit for their Lordships' 
 consideration, that no plan less comprehensive than the one here proposed will 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 291 
 
 effectually protect Portsmouth in the event of our Channel Fleet being at any time 
 inferior to that of our enemy and his allies." 
 
 It is needless to say that only part of the plan was ever 
 put in force; it is also needless to say that if every tittle 
 of the plan had been put in force it would still have been 
 possible to declare that Portsmouth Dockyard was open to 
 destruction, if the naval force available for its defence was 
 inferior to that which might be brought to the attack. 
 
 Captain Key's mistake was the very common one of 
 confusing force with the position of force. The superior 
 force is secure because it is superior. The inferior force 
 may be made less inferior by its position, but it is the 
 inferior force still, and can never be secure. The inferior 
 force on one side of an unfordable river may be perfectly 
 secure from the attack of a superior force on the other side, 
 but only until the superior force has thrown a bridge across. 
 Wellington's position behind the lines of Torres Vedras 
 was no more secure than was Todleben's behind the ram- 
 parts of Sevastopol. The lines served the purposes of 
 delay, from which it followed that Wellington would grow 
 stronger and Massena weaker. But no one knew better 
 than Wellington, that if Massdna could have grown stronger 
 outside the lines while Wellington grew weaker inside 
 them, the lines themselves could not possibly save him. 
 
 And so with the question of Portsmouth. The hypo- 
 thesis makes its garrison the weaker, and the French forces 
 the stronger. The place can never be secure so long as 
 that is the case. To strengthen the position of the garrison 
 may delay its fall. It may even postpone its attack. But 
 if the attack is made, there can be no guarantee that it 
 will not succeed, no matter what steps may be taken to 
 strengthen the position of the inferior garrison. 
 
 It follows that superiority at sea, superiority which bars 
 the road to Portsmouth from France, is the only possible 
 guarantee against the attacks which Captain Key assumed. 
 Such reasoning does not forbid the erection of a certain 
 amount of fixed defences, but it absolutely forbids every 
 idea of making a place impregnable to the power which 
 has the command of the roads to it. 
 
292 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Men — especially naval men — who could hold the views 
 embodied in this paper were exceedingly valuable to those 
 in high places who were persuaded that local defence was, 
 if not superior to general defence, at least a substitute for 
 it. When, on the 20th of August 1859, a Royal Commis- 
 sion was issued " to consider the defences of the United 
 Kingdom," Captain Key was appointed one of the Commis- 
 sioners. On this Commission were four military men, two 
 naval men, Rear-Admiral George Elliot 1 and Captain 
 Key, and one civilian, Mr. Fergusson, who had made him- 
 self celebrated by the invention of a special system of 
 fortification. 
 
 Captain Key's letter, as well as the questions put by 
 the members of the Commission, show that they were 
 specially chosen to put their imprimatur on foregone 
 conclusions. The Government had determined on a great 
 expenditure on local defences, especially at Portsmouth and 
 Plymouth, rather than on strengthening the general — that 
 is, the naval — defence. Therefore, although the general 
 question appeared to be open to the Commission, special 
 instructions narrowed the scope of the reference. The 
 Commissioners were only desired to inquire " into the 
 present state, condition, and sufficiency of the fortifications 
 existing for the defence of our United Kingdom," and to 
 have examination " into all works at present in progress for 
 the improvement thereof"; and consideration was to be 
 given " to the most effectual means of rendering the same 
 complete, especially to all such works of defence as are 
 intended for the protection of our royal arsenals and dock- 
 yards, in case of any hostile attack being made by foreign 
 enemies both by sea and land." A memorandum by Mr. 
 Sidney Herbert, the War Minister, still further put limits to 
 the inquiry, by specifying the works to be examined as 
 those at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Portland, Pembroke, Dover, 
 Chatham, and the Medway. And it was intimated that all 
 the works in progress, or which had been decided upon, 
 should be treated as part of the general scheme of defence 
 which the Commissioners might recommend. 
 
 1 Afterwards Admiral Sir George Elliot, K.CB. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 293 
 
 With Captain Key's letter to the Admiralty before us, 
 we can see how entirely he was imbued with the prevailing 
 ideas, by the nature of the questions he put to the witnesses. 
 He very rarely goes beyond — no Commissioner often went 
 beyond — the terms of the reference in questioning, although 
 the signed report is entirely beyond them. Two principal 
 exceptions stand thus — 
 
 "Do you consider it advisable to leave the defence of Spithead and Ports- 
 mouth harbour to our ships, or would it be better to fortify it and keep our ships 
 for service elsewhere ? " l 
 
 "An opinion is sometimes expressed that the defence of the ports and naval 
 arsenals of Great Britain should be committed solely to the fleet ; you will 
 doubtless have considered the question. Will you inform the Commission what 
 your opinion is, and the grounds on which you have formed it ?" 2 
 
 Obviously, there is a flaw in the reasoning behind the 
 first question. Whether it might be judicious to guard 
 Portsmouth against destructive attempts, which might be 
 on too small a scale and too suddenly made to be inter- 
 fered with by warships not immediately on the spot, would 
 be, on any grounds, a legitimate question to put. Whether 
 Portsmouth could be defended by something which was not 
 naval force to such a degree that it might be entirely 
 denuded of naval protection, — and if so, whether, apart from 
 Portsmouth, that naval protection might be withdrawn, — 
 are altogether different questions of the greatest depth and 
 moment. Would it be possible, however well Portsmouth 
 might be locally defended, to send the fleet somewhere 
 else when such an attack was likely ? Could the French 
 be left in command of the waters surrounding these islands 
 if every port in them had ten millions spent on their local 
 defence ? 
 
 Sir Thomas Maitland gave answers which only required 
 following up to have placed the Royal Commission in a 
 serious predicament. He said — 
 
 "That is a point which requires consideration, whether the large sum of 
 money which would be required to build these fortifications, floating batteries, 
 etc. , might not be more profitably laid out in building ships ; because, if you can 
 
 1 (?• 53-— To Rear- Admiral Sir T. Maitland, C.B., afterwards Admiral Lord 
 Lauderdale. 
 
 2 Q- 323.— To Captain R. S. Hewlett, C.B., then captain of the Excellent. 
 
294 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ensure being masters of the Channel, I do not see any absolute necessity, as far 
 as security goes, for fortifying Spithead, but the batteries being placed in the 
 positions above alluded to would be a certain and permanent defence. " 
 
 General Cameron followed the point for a moment, 
 when he asked — 
 
 ft Then you are an advocate for them ? " 
 
 But Sir Thomas Maitland was by no means clear about 
 it — 
 
 11 It requires serious consideration," he said, " to say which I prefer ; but with 
 regard to my own opinion, I would first put the navy in such a position as to 
 secure the command of the Channel, at least against any one nation." 
 
 Such answers could not be followed up, because they 
 would have led the Commission away from the terms of 
 its reference altogether. The ice was very thin there, and 
 it was avoided. 
 
 Captain Hewlett's answer was more suitable to keep 
 the inquiry out of dangerous waters — 
 
 " I would not leave it entirely to the defence of the fleet, because it might 
 be absent. Many circumstances might arise to call it away. I think that heavy 
 batteries should be placed to protect our arsenals, and I would leave the coast 
 generally to the fleet." 
 
 This was a curious answer, because the natural re- 
 joinders were — " How could the fleet protect ' the coast 
 generally' if it could not protect the ports and arsenals 
 along the coast ? If the fleet is competent to protect the 
 ports and arsenals as part of ' the coast generally,' what is 
 the necessity for heavy batteries ? " 
 
 Colonel Lefroy instinctively perceived the difficulty, 
 and proceeded to assist the witness out of it — 
 
 " Is not the extent and the value of the commercial shipping which is always 
 entering the Channel, and directing itself towards our great ports, such as to 
 make it certain that we must detach powerful squadrons for its protection, to 
 prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy ? " 
 
 Captain Hewlett answered — 
 
 "There is no doubt of it ; we must always have a large force protecting our 
 commerce at the entrance of the Channel." 
 
 " And," pursued Colonel Lefroy, "it could not be at the dockyard, where 
 you want it for defence ? " 
 
 " No," replied Captain Hewlett ; " unless you had a very large fleet, sufficient 
 for both purposes. For instance, if a French Fleet came out and made its way 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 295 
 
 out of the Channel, not knowing where it was going, you could not allow that 
 fleet to scour the seas, and perhaps attack your colonies, without sending a fleet 
 after it." 
 
 The astonishing position into which the Royal Com- 
 mission had now got, and the absurd thesis it was endea- 
 vouring to sustain, does not seem to have been perceived 
 by any member. But, in plain terms, it was this — (i) We 
 must expect to have a fleet which might protect Ports- 
 mouth prevented from doing it by the necessity laid upon 
 it of protecting commerce " at the entrance of the Channel," 
 which commerce is to pass immediately into the hands of 
 the French Fleet in command of the higher waters of the 
 Channel; (2) When a French Fleet escapes to sea, and it 
 is impossible to say where it has gone to, it is necessary 
 to send the British Fleet away in some unknown direction, 
 which may or may not be that taken by the French Fleet ; 
 (3) Although the French Fleet has disappeared at sea, it is 
 ready to attack Portsmouth, which must therefore be forti- 
 fied against it. 
 
 It must ever remain somewhat of a puzzle how such 
 views as these were allowed by the Commissioners to main- 
 tain themselves for one moment. The strongest piece of 
 evidence they had before them was that of Lord Over- 
 stone, which rapidly became celebrated all over the kingdom. 
 This went to show most clearly that if there was the 
 remotest possibility of an enemy being left in a position 
 to bombard Portsmouth effectually, there must have been 
 previous national collapse. This witness made it clear, that 
 unless all territorial attack on these islands could be put 
 absolutely out of the thought of France, British power was 
 not worth a day's purchase. It was no use making such 
 attacks difficult by any system of defences. If places 
 could not be left locally open to attack, and yet impossible 
 of attack because of the general naval defence, there was 
 no use even discussing the question — 
 
 "If we prove," Lord Overstone had concluded, "too apathetic to take the 
 necessary precautions, or make the necessary efforts ; or too shortsighted and 
 selfish to submit to the necessary sacrifice, we must bow to the fate which the 
 whole world will declare that we have deserved." 
 
 With these tremendous warnings ringing in their ears, 
 
296 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the Royal Commission sat down to pen the first paragraph 
 of their report, as follows — 
 
 " In taking into consideration the general question of the defence of the 
 United Kingdom against foreign invasion, your Commissioners turned their 
 attention in the first instance to the Channel, and to our naval resources as the 
 means of retaining the command of it. This is the first and most obvious line of 
 defence ; but it is one which could not in our opinion be entirely relied upon at 
 the present day, even if England had had no greater external interests to protect 
 than the countries which may be opposed to her. Its adoption would involve 
 the necessity of retaining in the Channel, for purely defensive purposes, a fleet 
 equal to any which could be brought against it, not only by one European State, 
 but by any probable combination of European Powers ; and this in addition to 
 the other fleets and armies which are required for the protection of our vast 
 Colonial Empire, our military communication with distant dependencies, our 
 extended commerce and interests in every quarter of the globe. 
 
 " Even if it were possible that a fleet sufficient to meet the emergency of a 
 sudden naval combination against this country could be kept available and fully 
 manned in time of peace, such an application of the resources of the nation would 
 lead to an outlay of the public revenue far exceeding the expenditure which 
 would suffice for that object under other circumstances." 
 
 Although commissions, committees, and boards, as- 
 sembled for constructive rather than for critical and 
 amending work, sometimes say strange things, none per- 
 haps ever laid down more strange propositions than these. 
 They may be placed in the form of antitheses — 
 
 1. We cannot possibly expect to keep the command of 
 the Channel in the next war; but there is a substitute 
 for it. 
 
 2. We must certainly expect to be cut off from com- 
 munication with our own shores by the fleets of our 
 enemies ; but that will not prevent us from keeping up 
 communication between our own shores and our colonies, — 
 we can keep "our military communications with distant 
 dependencies " while they are cut at the base. 
 
 3. We cannot possibly guarantee free passage of our 
 commerce up and down the Channel ; but that does not 
 matter, since we can protect it at more distant points. 
 
 4. It is perfectly true, as Lord Overstone has said, that 
 even the more " serious apprehension of invasion " will bring 
 about general collapse in the country ; but collapse may be 
 avoided by preparations for meeting invasion after it has 
 come about. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 297 
 
 5. It is true that collapse will come on the landing, 
 " without reference to any ulterior operations " ; l but pre- 
 parations to meet these will prevent the collapse. 
 
 6. It is true that " if we prove too apathetic to take the 
 necessary precautions or make the requisite efforts, or too 
 shortsighted and selfish to submit to the necessary sacrifice, 
 we must bow to the fate which the world will declare that 
 we deserve ; but as it would cost a good deal not to bow 
 to the fate, we had better bow to it. 
 
 Under what pressure of circumstances the Royal Com- 
 mission undertook to make a case for justifying a predeter- 
 mined and very large expenditure, which the only evidence 
 before them showed to be practically useless, will perhaps 
 never be known. There remains no record of how far 
 Captain Key's opinions influenced his colleagues ; but if he 
 put forward in council the views he had expressed already 
 to the Admiralty, his position and antecedents must have 
 given them very great weight. Sir Thomas Maitland's 
 evidence is enough to show that such views were not even 
 then everywhere prevalent in the navy ; but if they were 
 held by Captain Key and Admiral Elliot independently, 
 the military members would have been content, without 
 further evidence, to embody them in the report, and their 
 being held by distinguished naval officers would have been 
 a reason for going beyond the terms of the reference in 
 exhibiting them. 
 
 It is true, and made abundantly clear in contemporary 
 documents, that the statesmen, the public, and even the 
 navy of that day, were full to overflowing with fallacies as 
 to our naval position. We might even go so far as to say 
 that had Lord Overstone himself been cross-examined, 
 he might have been found to suppose that the absolute 
 command of the Channel was only a sort of alternative 
 policy, to be adopted or discarded according to circum- 
 stances. But notwithstanding this incomprehensible atti- 
 tude of the public mind, reasoning power, acuteness of 
 perception, and breadth of view, such as Captain Key's 
 were at this time, make it most surprising that he should 
 
 1 Lord Overstone. 
 
298 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 have fallen in with it. The fact can only be explained by 
 supposing he was called upon for a hasty opinion on the 
 subject shortly after his return to England, and was led to 
 express one before he had heard anything on the other 
 side. 
 
 The strangeness of the report was not confined to 
 the paragraphs quoted. The Royal Commissioners having 
 taken up a false scent, were carried more and more away 
 from the true scent, and over a very rough country. 
 
 Though it could not guarantee a Channel fleet at all, 
 the report held it of all things necessary that there should 
 be huge fortifications on all sides of the naval ports for the 
 Channel fleet to shelter in — of course, from the enemy who 
 had command of the Channel, and was therefore free to 
 invade. 
 
 " Since the application of steam to the propulsion of 
 vessels, we could no longer rely upon being able to prevent 
 the landing of a hostile force in the country." So says the 
 report, without assigning any better reason than asserting 
 that a small force might be thrown suddenly on some 
 unprotected part of the coast — which was, of course, true 
 enough — under cover of which an invading army might be 
 landed, which was a complete non sequitur. How could 
 a small force landed " cover " the landing of a great one ? 
 If it could so act, what had the fact got to do with the 
 introduction of steam propulsion ? 
 
 Then the Commissioners go on to say that " circum- 
 stances may no doubt arise to prevent the success of such 
 an attempt; but your Commissioners submit that it would 
 be unwise in the extreme to rely upon such a contingency ; 
 that to do so only tends to invite invasion, and to give rise 
 to those recurring alarms which periodically, and not with- 
 out grounds, take possession of the public mind." Such a 
 paragraph could only properly precede a statement of the 
 proposals which, if adopted, would make the success of 
 invasion impossible. But nothing was further from the 
 thought of the Commissioners. They said — 
 
 "Having carefully weighed the foregoing considerations, we are led to the 
 opinion that neither our fleet, our standing army, nor our volunteer forces, nor 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 299 
 
 even the three combined, can be relied on as sufficient in themselves for the 
 security of the kingdom against foreign invasion. We therefore proceed to 
 consider that part of our instructions which directs our attention especially to 
 fortifications." 
 
 We have to recollect that the fortifications of the naval 
 ports was not a " part," but the whole, of the matter before 
 the Commissioners in the reference ; further, we must re- 
 member that the Commissioners only apprehended invasion 
 on " unprotected " parts of the coast, — of which they pro- 
 posed to leave 750 miles open, — and that all the naval 
 ports were already protected ; thirdly, it is to be observed 
 that Captain Key's fears for Portsmouth went no further 
 than its destructive bombardment, and that therefore the 
 further fortification of the naval ports could have had no 
 connection at all with preventing invasion. Taking it alto- 
 gether, therefore, the Royal Commissioners joined in a 
 report which left invasion exactly where they found it, but 
 impressed the country with its liability to invasion more 
 distinctly than it had ever before been done officially. 
 They entirely abstained from making any proposals to 
 mitigate the dangers they pointed out, but advocated a 
 large expenditure in a direction which, in spite of the 
 evidence before them, they were obliged to admit was 
 without justification. 
 
 Captain Key's position taken up in his letter to the 
 Admiralty was logical, if mistaken ; the report which he 
 ultimately signed did not take up his position. It main- 
 tained his mistake, but abandoned his logic. 
 
 In later years it fell to Captain Key's lot to fight the 
 battle of our naval position on the only grounds possible, 
 namely, by denying the whole of the reasoning put forward 
 both in his original letter and in the report which he had 
 signed. Though no record of the fact remains amongst 
 accessible papers, the singular and unique failure of his 
 judgment in 1859—60 must have seriously hampered his 
 position as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty under Lord 
 Northbrook. I might even go further, and say that it was 
 the want of a clear apprehension of the very basis of naval 
 strategy, an apprehension which was present to his younger 
 
3 oo MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 mind, 1 that left him open to the reproaches of some of his 
 brother-officers in the closing years of his life. The Royal 
 Commission reported in February i860, and in the follow- 
 ing June Captain Key was appointed to succeed Captain 
 Robert Spencer Robinson 2 in the most congenial post of 
 captain of the Steam Ordinary at Devonport. 
 
 Here, that delight in and mastery over questions re- 
 lating to material, which we have seen springing up even 
 during his childhood in the navy, — markedly showing itself 
 in his action about the recovery of the Gorgon, and in his 
 book on that feat ; and cropping up now and then, even 
 under the pressures of diplomacy in the Bulldog, and of 
 active service against the enemy in the Amphion, — had 
 full play. 
 
 The office of captain of the Steam Ordinary, or, as it 
 came to be called while Captain Key held the office, the 
 " Steam Reserve," was somewhat peculiar. The Steam 
 Ordinary was, in its essence and general character, only a 
 continuation of what had been going on time out of mind 
 with the sailing ships of the navy. 
 
 From the days of James Duke of York, at least, there 
 had been an " Ordinary " consisting of the ships of the 
 navy, not in commission but in reserve; and there had 
 always been officers and a regular staff in charge of it. In 
 the days of pattern-following and simplicity, care-taking 
 was the chief duty of the staff of the Ordinary ; but as we 
 began to accumulate steam ships which were out of com- 
 mission, it was found that there was more than mere care- 
 taking to be done to them. Presently the Steam Ordinary 
 became separated from the Sailing Ordinary under the two 
 differentiating terms, and we had the captain of the Steam 
 Ordinary as well as the captain of the Sailing Ordinary at 
 each port. But perhaps the appointment of the captain of 
 the Steam Ordinary did not arise so much in view of 
 separate care-taking and charge, as from other necessities. 
 
 Every sailing ship was either completely or nearly built 
 
 1 Reference is made to the concluding paragraph of the tenth chapter. 
 
 a Afterwards Admiral Sir R. S. Robinson, K.C.B., and Controller of the 
 
 Navy. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 301 
 
 and fitted to pattern. I have seen, in the older records, orders 
 from the Navy Board to " their affectionate friend " the 
 master shipwright at a dockyard to build " a fourth-rate," 
 to be so long, so broad, and so deep, which dimensions he 
 could only vary "at his peril." I have naturally looked 
 for some further detail, supposing that the brief mandate 
 was a little wanting, and that the threat did not quite 
 supply the want. But the fourth-rate was built without 
 further instruction. The possibility existed, because all 
 was then done by rule and pattern ; and rule and pattern 
 were little disturbed till steam arose. But it was soon 
 found that every steamer was a new experiment, offering 
 endless matters for discussion and settlement before she 
 was complete. Who was to take the side of the active 
 navy in the discussion at the port where the ship was to 
 be built and fitted ? There was no one. And so a cap- 
 tain of the Steam Ordinary was appointed, whose primary 
 duty was to watch construction and material of all kinds 
 as new designs of steam ships were put forward. He was 
 responsible to the active navy that what passed through 
 his hands was of the right sort and in the proper place ; 
 and he necessarily had a voice in arranging every part of 
 the ship, except the original designs for hull, engines, and 
 armament. But even here he had a power of effecting 
 changes, where change was possible after progress towards 
 completion had been made. 
 
 The secondary duty of the captain of the Steam 
 Ordinary became the care of the steam ships ; such duty 
 being exactly parallel with that of the captain of the Sailing 
 Ordinary, who was Captain Woodford J. Williams at the 
 time Captain Key took up his appointment. The third 
 duty of the captain of the Steam Ordinary was the command 
 and discipline of the staff attached to him for carrying out 
 his business, which included considerable numbers of men 
 and officers, with all the engineer officers especially, 
 attached to ships in the Steam Ordinary for the care of the 
 machinery. Where every ship under his care was an experi- 
 ment, it followed that much that it was proposed to apply to 
 them needed experimental trial before it was applied ; and, 
 
3 02 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 apart from any wishes that the captain of the Steam 
 Ordinary might have on this head, the Admiralty soon 
 became accustomed to refer every question in material, 
 which was not wholly related either to ordnance, to cloth- 
 ing, or to victualling, and which required experimental 
 treatment, to the captain of the Steam Ordinary. And, 
 indeed, there were very few questions of material as to 
 which the captain of the Steam Ordinary did not find him- 
 self, in some sort, an arbitrator between dockyard authorities, 
 ordnance authorities, the Admiralty, and the active service. 
 
 The captain of the Steam Ordinary reported to the 
 Admiral Superintendent on all questions of material, and 
 to the Commander-in-Chief on all questions of personnel. 
 He was really in a most independent position, and, accord- 
 ing to his view of his duties, he might make himself an 
 automatic recorder of the views of the strongest side, or 
 he might impress his personality on every branch of the 
 naval service. 
 
 Captain Key settled down with his wife and family in 
 the pretty little house of Carbele, near Torpoint, immedi- 
 ately opposite the dockyard. It was to all intents and 
 purposes a little country house. He went across the water 
 in his gig to his work in the morning, visiting his own office 
 at Keyham early enough to master the morning's intelli- 
 gence, and then to attend the " reading " in the board- 
 room of the Admiral Superintendent's office at Devonport 
 Dockyard at half-past nine. 
 
 My subordinate duties also called me there at the same 
 time, and I was soon delighted and honoured by the in- 
 timacy of the new captain of the Steam Ordinary, which 
 lasted as a close friendship till the hour of his death. 
 
 Captain Key was the last man in the world to be an 
 automaton in any matter on which he might be engaged. 
 He at once realised his position as a principal guide of the 
 material progress of the navy, and threw all his force and 
 energy, backed by the splendid allies of an open mind and 
 a genial temper that nothing could ruffle, into his task. 
 As I knew him at this time, he seemed positively to revel 
 in his work. He was always full of it; always turning 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 303 
 
 over this point and that point ; discussing with anyone and 
 everyone who was capable of dealing with the arguments pro 
 and con, the prospects of such and such a proposed advance, 
 the dangers of such and such a possibly backward step. 
 
 In going over his public letter-book at this time, I am 
 struck by the enormous number of points that he carried, 
 and his great influence on material progress ; while there 
 does not occur one single word which indicates irritation or 
 impatience. Yet he often had justifiable occasion for both. 
 It is scarcely possible for one who has had to do with this 
 kind of business not to admire the way Captain Key 
 carried his points and did his work. Nor can it be doubted 
 that the personal character of the captain of the Steam 
 Ordinary had to do with his success over material, quite as 
 much as the reason of the thing itself, for he was not — as 
 we might infer — always right. 
 
 The increasing length of steamships; the cumbering 
 of the decks with immense engine-room hatches, with 
 funnels and their casings ; the necessarily increasing weight 
 of anchors and cables, was throwing all the orthodox 
 arrangements for weighing the anchors out of gear. It 
 may be explained that in the time of Sir Walter Raleigh 
 the now familiar capstan had been devised. The plan was 
 to place the capstan well aft in the ship, and to arrange 
 that not very far before it was the hatchway, or opening, 
 down which the great and unwieldy hemp cable was to be 
 " payed down " for coiling away in the " tiers." Then 
 round the capstan were placed two or three turns of the 
 hemp " messenger," a stout cable, but less stout than the 
 ship's cable. One end of the messenger was taken forward 
 and passed — or "rove" — through two immense pulleys called 
 voyal, vowel, or viol blocks, right forward, in the " eyes " of 
 the ship. This end, which had a loop in it, having been 
 passed along the deck forward on one side, through the block 
 on that side, across through the other block, was then brought 
 aft along the other side of the deck, and its loop or " eye " 
 was lashed to a similar loop or eye which was found in the 
 other end of the messenger. Thus was formed an endless 
 rope running along the deck, and pretty well all round it. 
 
3 04 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 When in place, it lay touching, from the hawse-hole (the 
 pipe through which it passed outside the ship to the anchor), 
 the cable of the anchor that was to be weighed. The 
 manner of weighing was to pass short lengths of soft rope, 
 called " nippers," spirally round and round both cable and 
 messenger, and so as to grip both tightly. It followed that 
 as the men walked round and round at the capstan bars, 
 the endless messenger dragged in the cable with it. Men 
 walked slowly aft as the cable came in, holding the ends 
 of the nippers tightly, and only unwinding them when they 
 reached the hatch, down which the incoming cable passed 
 below. Fresh and fresh nippers were wound round cable 
 and messenger in the forepart of the ship, so that there was 
 always a great length of cable tightly bound to and travel- 
 ling aft with the messenger. In the days of hemp cables, 
 this was the dirtiest and most offensive part of a ship's life. 
 The cable brought up mud on it, greasy slippery mud, fall- 
 ing on the decks in splotches of filth, hardly to be cleared 
 off the cable by the rough washing which time alone allowed, 
 and swarming with animalculae which died and tainted the 
 air of the ship with the stench of putrefaction. But not 
 alone was this the inconvenience of mud. When the heave 
 was heavy, and the mud greasy, the cable "rendered" 
 through the nippers, and the capstan went round without 
 producing any effect. Whatever the inconveniences, this 
 system of Sir Walter Raleigh's time held its own not only 
 till hemp was superseded by iron as the material of cables, 
 but long after it. A chain messenger, actuated by a 
 " sprocket wheel," or series of spikes sticking out radially 
 round the base of the capstan to fit into the links, took 
 the place of the hemp messenger ; and the old soft hemp 
 nippers, with their three hundred years of ancestry behind 
 them, still bound the two chains together as they had done 
 the two ropes in Raleigh's day. 
 
 Our ancestors had submitted to the inconvenience 
 of the method because there was no alternative. There 
 had been an alternative actually in use in the navy for 
 at least fourteen years. But Captain Key found the 
 antiquity, not flourishing — for that was impossible — but 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 305 
 
 dragging out a miserable senility in a new corvette then 
 fitting, called the Jason ; and, just a month and three days 
 after taking up his appointment, he fell upon its useless old 
 life and choked it out. 
 
 The attempt to put new wine into old bottles placed 
 the capstan 153 feet from the bow of the ship, and entailed 
 dragging a chain messenger 312 feet long, and presumably 
 weighing tons, over a track diverted and hindered by funnel 
 casings and pumps, resulting in all sorts of inconveniences, the 
 least being the loss of power in the men to weigh the anchor. 
 
 The remedy was the putting of an anchor capstan in 
 a suitable place forward, and bringing the cable direct to it. 
 Captain Key had first seen it in the French ship the Jena} 
 It was fourteen or fifteen years old as the invention of 
 Messrs. Brown & Harfield, of which Captain Key — probably 
 in the Amphion and Sans Pareil — had had five years' 
 experience. " It was needless," said the new and energetic 
 captain of the Steam Ordinary, " to point out the advantages 
 of this plan, such as the saving of expense, and economy of 
 men and labour." 
 
 Messrs. Brown & Harfield had, in fact, observed that if 
 a chain messenger could be gripped and held by the capstan 
 in passing round it, so also could a chain cable. Captain 
 Key pressed the simple truth home, but he was not without 
 subsequent combats with the error. Even though he won 
 in the Jason, the friends of letting-things-be managed to 
 complete the fitting by leaving out its main features, which 
 he had to represent four months later. At the same time, 
 he made good his ground by claiming that the well-tried 
 arrangement should be adopted in the new line-of-battle 
 ship Gibraltar ', and in the new frigate Liverpool. His action 
 appears to have determined the ultimate course of things. 
 Chain messengers, and all belonging to them, have for years 
 disappeared ; and whatever the form of purchase adopted, 
 the chain cable is now brought direct to the capstan or 
 windlass, the most common as well as the most effective 
 arrangements still bearing the name — Harfield — of one of 
 the original projectors. 
 
 1 See p. 141. 
 
 20 
 
3 o6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 A few days after his declaration against the obsolete 
 " messenger " system of weighing the anchor, we find him 
 striking against a numerous group of small gunnery fittings 
 common to every ship in the service, each of them obsolete, 
 each of them of no account, but costing in the aggregate 
 great sums of money and employing much labour uselessly. 
 No one can ever estimate the waste that goes on in this 
 way in the navy from the continued supply and fitting of 
 things which are only concomitants of things superseded. 
 It is always difficult to see at first how many things in a 
 ship some novel fitting will render obsolete. If no one takes 
 pains to do it, obsolete and perfectly useless fittings will 
 continue for decades and scores of years, until at last they 
 can retain their places in security because no one can prove 
 the negative — everyone having forgotten their origin — that 
 they might not be of some use. 
 
 Captain Key was ever on the watch for this kind of 
 thing. Now it was the useless supply of " range tables " at 
 the guns superseded by marking the "tangent sight" in 
 yards, instead of as formerly in degrees. Now it was very 
 ancient instruments, called " side scales," superseded by 
 marking the " beds and coins " of guns. Now it was show- 
 ing how the authorities were going on supplying a double 
 set of spare masts and yards of exactly the same size, to 
 ships whose fore and whose main masts and yards had been 
 made identical, just in order that one set of spare masts 
 and yards might be sufficient. 
 
 In the matter of reducing the unnecessary supply of spare 
 stores, in order to reduce weight, save expense, and gain 
 space, so much valued on board ship, Captain Key was 
 always active. He had notable opportunities, of which 
 he fully availed himself, in the matter of the screw-pro- 
 peller. 
 
 At this time the paddle-wheel was quite obsolete for war- 
 ships. It had belied Commander Key's earlier prognostica- 
 tions when his pride in his Bulldog coloured his thought, and 
 had disappeared. But as the warship, to be perfect, must be 
 as good a sailing ship of the old school as she was a steamer 
 of the new school, it was necessary that when the steamer 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 307 
 
 had to sail, the instrument of propulsion, the screw-propeller, 
 should be lifted out of the water, so as not to impede her 
 progress. As it could be so lifted, it could, of course, be 
 replaced on board the ship in case of its being broken 
 accidentally. Screws were at first cast solid, and therefore, 
 for good or evil, the " pitch " — that is, the angle at which 
 the blades were set — was fixed in the casting. The diffi- 
 culty was that the proper pitch for a screw in any ship was 
 matter for experiment, — such experiment as the captain 
 of the Steam Ordinary at Devonport was constantly engaged 
 in carrying out, — and it was a serious matter to cast a fresh 
 screw for every experiment. 1 Inventors, on these grounds, 
 bethought them of constructing screw - propellers with 
 movable blades, so that the pitch could be altered to any 
 required angle. A Mr. Griffiths was, in Captain Key's time, 
 making great progress not only in this way, but in very 
 much altering for the better the forms of the blades 
 themselves. 
 
 Captain Key began to seize upon the points within a 
 few weeks after he took up his office. As the theory was 
 that a damaged screw could be hoisted out of the water and 
 replaced by an undamaged one, the supply of a complete 
 spare screw-propeller became a fixed arrangement of the 
 ship's fittings. The complete spare propeller was necessarily 
 very heavy, and occupied a great deal of space. But if 
 blades were to become movable, it was reasonable to suppose 
 that the replacing a damaged blade might be substituted for 
 replacing the complete screw. 
 
 The Jason again became Captain Key's exemplar for 
 the whole service. As she was to have a Griffiths propeller, 
 it ought to follow, as a matter of course, that she might be 
 supplied with a spare blade only, instead of a spare screw. 
 Captain Key followed up the idea. As, said he, we are 
 going to gain weight and space by getting rid of a super- 
 fluity, let us take full advantage of it. The Jason, if proper 
 arrangements are made, can carry 16 tons more coal in 
 place of the spare screw removed. Accordingly, the ship 
 
 1 He had recommended alteration in the pitch of the AmphiotJs screw. See 
 p. 225. 
 
3 o8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 went to sea with only a spare blade, but with 286 tons, 
 instead of 270 tons, in her bunkers. The example was 
 constantly put forward, and no doubt, in a great degree 
 owing to the activity and clear insight of the captain of the 
 Steam Ordinary at Devonport, screws with shifting blades 
 became common ; the spare blade everywhere superseded 
 the spare screw, and the space and weight gained were 
 utilised in other ways. 
 
 In a week or two Captain Key is found noticing the 
 wear and tear and decay of the exposed upper decks of 
 ships in reserve, from the action of rain and sun. He 
 submits the value of preservative paint or varnish, and his 
 suggestion becomes the rule in the Ordinary. 
 
 As the theory was that the screw-propeller in a sailing 
 steamer was to be continually in the water and out of the 
 water, the methods of raising and lowering it engaged much 
 attention, and exercised the talents of many inventors. One 
 of these made a model of a plan supposed to be an improve- 
 ment on what existed, and it was sent to the captain of the 
 Steam Ordinary for report. As is not uncommon in these 
 things, either the inventor, or some agent for him, considered 
 the improvement self-evident, and sent no account of it. 
 Captain Key, a little shortly, requires, amongst other things, 
 to be told " on what points the model claims a superiority 
 over that now in use " ? It turned out only to be intended 
 for use in frigates and corvettes. Captain Key studied it 
 carefully from this point of view, analysed the claims to 
 improvement point by point, and condemned it. Yet still, 
 in the careful way he had of recognising the uncertainty of 
 opinion and the certainty of experiment, he would not let 
 his words prevent some confirmatory trial, and he recom- 
 mended that that should be made on a sufficient scale. 
 Probably it was never made. Men in office, driven to the 
 wall with current business, are not seldom rejoiced at an 
 excuse for inaction. All have not that eagerness to get at 
 the bottom truth of things, small and great, which was one 
 of Cooper Key's strongest characteristics. 
 
 But this whole question of raising and lowering the 
 screw-propeller was now stirring in the mind of the captain 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 309 
 
 of the Steam Ordinary. He began to slowly tear it up by 
 the roots. This new model had made a great point of 
 facilitating the shifting of the screw; a great point, that 
 is, of the basis on which spare screws were supplied. Was 
 it necessary, Captain Key asked himself, to go much out of 
 the way on behalf of preparation for remedying the defect 
 of a damaged screw? Was the screw, in fact, often 
 damaged ? It was not. We were, in fact, submitting to 
 many serious inconveniences which were partly due to a 
 false belief. " The operation," wrote Captain Key, " of 
 shifting a screw is of so rare occurrence that it does not 
 appear advisable to take into consideration the arrangements 
 for doing so by the same means that are adopted for raising 
 the screw out of the water." This was, as it were, a sort of 
 first breach with existing opinion as to lifting the screws of 
 warships. He worked at it till it was destroyed. 
 
 The apparatus arranged for lifting screws out of the 
 water, when it was intended to convert the steamer into 
 the sailing vessel, was that a great square tube was cut from 
 the upper-deck of the ship down to the water, immediately 
 over the place where the screw was to work ; that is, 
 immediately between the foremost and after stern-posts, 
 the latter being that to which the rudder was attached. 
 In the after-part of the foremost stern-post, and the fore- 
 part of the after stern-post, metal guides were fixed, and 
 between these guides a metal frame containing the screw, 
 which was placed in bearings ready to revolve, was lowered 
 into its fixed position. On the end of the screw-shaft a 
 metal disc, called a cheese-coupling, was fixed, and diamet- 
 rically across this disc a deep and wide slot was cut, like 
 the slot in the head of an ordinary wood screw, and the 
 shaft being turned so that the slot was perpendicular, a 
 corresponding feather or flange on the after-part of the axis 
 of the screw in the frame, fitted when the screw was lowered. 
 Thus, in hoisting the screw out of the water, it was a mere 
 question of turning the engine shaft so as to place the screw 
 upright, then reeving a purchase through pulleys in the screw- 
 frame (called the " banjo "), and in a suitable erection on the 
 deck, and applying the muscular power of the ship's com- 
 
3 io MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 pany to the work. In lowering the screw, the process was 
 reversed. 
 
 In theory all this was quite a simple matter, and doubt- 
 less the arrangement was as perfect as it could be made. 
 But in practice endless troubles were connected with it. 
 Those who knew them were constantly making or suggest- 
 ing improvements, and over and over again Captain Key 
 was engaged in this way, and in seeing his plans adopted 
 one after the other. Now it was a simplification of the 
 erection necessary to be made on the upper-deck to carry 
 the upper block of the purchase ; now it was showing how 
 needless it was to prepare to do more than to hoist the 
 lower blade of the screw when sailing just out of the water, 
 instead of several feet out of water as ordered, to the use- 
 less increase of expense, weight, and inconvenience; now 
 it was showing how the general adoption of the form of 
 screw-blade recommended by Mr. Griffiths would permit all 
 " screw-wells," as the trunks were called, to be reduced in size, 
 so as to mitigate a certain grave defect against which he fought 
 steadily the whole time he commanded the Steam Reserve. 
 
 But all the time, it appears, he was growing to one 
 general conclusion, which he put boldly forward and carried 
 towards the close of 1861. Practically, it may be said that 
 every proposal he put forward with regard to material was 
 approved by the authorities, and ordered to be adopted, 
 though often with modifications. It was very possible that 
 one secret of his success was that he seldom spoke till 
 he had made the matter ripe by a succession of smaller 
 suggestions leading up to his main position. That now 
 was, that the whole practice and system of raising screws 
 was a mistake ; and he took the opportunity of the coming 
 rise of the ironclad, to nail the false coin to the counter. 
 
 In September 1861 he submitted the whole case, recom- 
 mending that the idea of lifting the screws of ironclad ships 
 should be wholly given up. He represented the incon- 
 veniences to which ships were subjected by the idea that it 
 was necessary to lift the screws out of the water, and the 
 subordinate, but really consequent, idea that screws were so 
 liable to injury that ships must be prepared to substitute at 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 311 
 
 least undamaged blades for those which were damaged. 
 The screw-well weakened the after-part of the ship, necessi- 
 tating heavy additional fittings, fastenings, " banjo-frames " 
 (weighing 5 1 tons in cases), necessitating a fuller after-body 
 for their support — the one thing which should be avoided 
 if speed was to be increased. The screw-well complicated 
 the mode of steering, generally involving such a short yoke 
 or tiller as to lead to much inconvenience and difficulty. 
 It impeded the effective armament of the stern. 
 
 These being glaring inconveniences, what advantages 
 were claimed to justify their continuance? 
 
 The screw-well enabled the screw to be raised when the 
 ship was under sail alone. If a screw-blade was broken, it 
 enabled the spare blade to be substituted. If the screw 
 was " fouled " by any means, — that is, entangled by heavy 
 ropes or chains, etc., — it allowed of its being cleared. 
 
 Captain Key, careful as usual to go only so far as he 
 thought he could then carry his point, said that the first 
 advantage claimed was not of importance for ironclad 
 ships, presumably intended for home service. In any case, 
 the reduction of speed under sail was much lessened by the 
 diminution of the size of the blade (which was Griffiths' 
 discovery). The Renown line -of- battle ship had lately 
 made a voyage under sail with her screw down the whole 
 time; it proved but little impediment; yet her propeller 
 was the large-bladed Admiralty screw. An ironclad would 
 be less inconvenienced, and might always use coal enough 
 to turn the screw. The second advantage claimed was 
 also of small importance. Experience had shown how 
 rarely screws were injured; and if they were made a little 
 stronger, injuries would be still rarer. In any case, ships 
 on home service are within reach of a dock in case of 
 accident. The third advantage claimed was doubtful. It 
 was highly probable that a screw fouled by a hawser or 
 chain could not be raised. If diving apparatuses were 
 supplied, they would be much more to the purpose. 
 
 Weighing advantages and disadvantages, Captain Key 
 could not avoid the conclusion that the latter preponderated. 
 He had been led, he said, to consider this subject from 
 
3 i2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 knowing that in the French navy lifting screws had been 
 entirely discontinued for two years; but he then only 
 suggested it for British ships intended for home service. 
 The ships of the French navy obtained a speed equal to 
 that of ours with less power, for their engines were worked 
 up to only double their normal power, whereas ours would 
 generally achieve four times that amount. This result was 
 due to the fineness they gave to the after-body, and this 
 induced them to give up the screw-well. 
 
 Captain Key was scarcely just to himself in declaring 
 that his mind followed French example. As a fact, he 
 began to consider these points before he had been many 
 weeks at Devonport. The French example only confirmed 
 his views originally arrived at. 
 
 In three weeks from the date of this letter the Admiralty 
 had given orders to abolish the lifting-screw in all ironclads 
 building; and as Captain Key's letter covered the whole 
 ground, the doom of the lifting-screw was sealed, to the 
 great advantage of the navy. 
 
 A curious illustration of defective official method is 
 disclosed by a discovery of Captain Key's regarding the 
 apparatus supplied to ships for firing Congreve rockets. In 
 those days these rockets were in much higher estimation 
 than they now are, and it would have seemed that when it 
 was ascertained that the apparatus for firing them was so 
 arranged as to derange the aim and mislead the firer in 
 every case, not a moment would be lost in calling in all the 
 defective apparatuses and correcting them. But the matter 
 was one for the Ordnance Department of the army, and a 
 different view prevailed. 
 
 Captain Key found that the degrees for giving elevation 
 to the rocket tube, according to the range required, were 
 marked with gross irregularity ; and that, as no radius was 
 given, it was impossible to re-mark them, or to know what 
 they were intended to mean. Nothing whatever came of 
 the representation of this grave defect, and Captain Key 
 wrote to say so in the middle of February 1861. In reply, 
 he was informed that trials were now being made in H.M.S. 
 Excellent, and that his letters had been forwarded to the 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 313 
 
 War Office. There was now a pause until the middle of 
 March 1862, when the captain of the Steam Reserve reported 
 that even the new supplies of rocket apparatus had not been 
 touched, and contained all the mischiefs he had pointed 
 out fifteen months before. The reply was simply that no 
 attempt had been made to correct the defect, because no 
 rocket tubes had been issued from the arsenal since the 
 correct arrangement was approved. 
 
 The locomotion of the warship is, of course, her prin- 
 cipal element. It consists of two parts — propulsion and 
 manoeuvring power. We have seen how Captain Key dealt 
 with that part of propulsion power which was under his 
 immediate control — the screw-propeller. The manoeuvring 
 power was, under the conditions of the day, in a far more 
 defective state, and presented a far more complex and 
 difficult problem. Captain Key began to attack it when 
 he had been three months in office, and he never ceased to 
 work at it as long as he held office. He was, in fact, at 
 the time the one man who understood the fundamental 
 importance of excessive steering power in a warship. 1 All 
 the rest of the naval world of the day was content with the 
 good the gods — that is, the routine ideas of the dockyard 
 draughtsman — gave it, and rested content in admitting that 
 the helm, which answered very well under sail, or under 
 very low speed under steam, should be hopelessly ineffective 
 under high steam. 
 
 The physical difficulties of the problem were bad 
 enough; the mental or subjective difficulties were far 
 worse, and it may even be said that they have not wholly 
 disappeared even now. 2 
 
 The rudder, tiller, wheel -ropes, and steering-wheel 
 found in the paddle-wheel steam ship were practically those 
 of the time of Nelson, and long before him. The rudder 
 was wider, and, by making the axis of the rudder-head 
 correspond with that of the pintles which worked in the 
 gudgeons fixed to the stern-post, the rudder-head passed 
 
 1 About this time he wrote the chapter on " Rudders and Steering" in Boyd's 
 Naval Cadets' Manual, 
 
 2 1393. 
 
3 i 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 up into the ship through a water-tight bearing ; but this was 
 the sole difference, unless the substitution of hide and 
 leather wheel-ropes for hemp was a novelty in Nelson's 
 day. But the paddle-wheel steamer was short and broad, 
 like the old pattern sailing vessel, and her speed was so 
 low generally, that probably defective steering power was 
 never before Key in the Gorgon or the Bulldog. He 
 might have had hints of the difficulties before him in the 
 Amphion and Sans Pareil, but their low maximum speed 
 would have hindered their pressing on him. 
 
 Now they were patent to a mind which reflected and 
 looked forward. The screw-well forbade the use of the old 
 tiller. It was necessary to substitute a cross piece, or yoke, 
 on the rudder-head, and the " run " of the ship — the 
 narrowing in of the sides towards the rudder-head — only 
 allowed of a very short yoke. Here was a loss of power 
 which could only be made up by increasing the purchase in 
 the wheel-ropes, or by giving more turns to the wheel for 
 any given helm angle. In the former case, friction carried 
 away half the advantage ; by the latter hung a tale. The 
 mental or subjective difficulties were bound up in it, and 
 could not clear themselves. 
 
 When ships were short and slow of speed, as propelled 
 by sail, four men at the wheel could put the helm of the 
 largest ship over to 35° or 40° at the highest speed such a 
 vessel was likely to attain, with great quickness, and by 
 revolving the steering-wheel no more than three times. 
 The measure of the power gained was evidently the length 
 of the arc described by the hindmost edge of the rudder, 
 compared with the length of the space described by any 
 single " spoke " of the wheel in three revolutions. The 
 diameter of the circle described by this single " spoke " was 
 fixed, being determined by the average height of the man 
 who stood beside it. The rudders of sailing ships were 
 narrow, and consequently the difference between the motion 
 of the after-edge of the rudder in moving over 35° or 40°, 
 and that of the motion of a single " spoke " of the wheel 
 going round three times, was considerable. Partly influ- 
 enced by a reasonable idea that if the attachments of the 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 315 
 
 rudder were made elastic, a sea striking it would be less 
 likely to " wring " the rudder-head, — an accident not of 
 uncommon occurrence, — but more influenced by the heri- 
 tage descending from the ancient seamen, the belief that 
 everything in a ship ought to be loose and yielding, as the 
 sea was itself loose and yielding, had introduced the wheel- 
 ropes made of hide instead of hemp, and capable of almost 
 infinite stretching. So long, therefore, as the pressure on 
 the rudder was small, — rudders being narrow and speed 
 low, — hide wheel-ropes gave whatever advantage could be 
 reasonably expected, without much disadvantage. But 
 when rudders broadened and speed increased, the muscular 
 power of the men at the wheel was employed in stretching 
 the wheel-ropes, and not in putting the helm over beyond a 
 certain small angle. 
 
 Still, short "yokes" or tillers and stretching wheel- 
 ropes presented no difficulties whatever, could the elemen- 
 tary principles of mechanics have been recognised. But 
 they could not be, because of tradition. Every improver 
 of steering powers in warships was called upon to do that 
 which it was impossible to do, namely, to assist the mus- 
 cular power of two, four, or perhaps six men at the wheel, 
 without either increasing the diameter of the wheel itself or 
 increasing the number of turns of the wheel required to put 
 the helm over to a given angle. As straws blown by the 
 wind of human error, the treatment of these elementary 
 mechanical questions give a measure of its capacity. For 
 years the ingenuity of naval officers and naval architects 
 was hard at work endeavouring to give greater power to a 
 lever of given length without shifting the fulcrum, — working, 
 by means of yokes and purchases, to increase power be- 
 tween a rudder at a given angle and a wheel of given 
 diameter revolving a given number of times. 1 
 
 1 I found the error in full force on board a new man-of-war in the eighties. 
 An additional steering-wheel for use in action had to be fitted by means of an 
 endless screw, shafting, and gearing. When the arrangement was completed, it 
 was found that the men at the wheel had little power over the rudder. On 
 tracing out the cause, it was found the multiplying gear put on near the rudder in 
 order to give power, was taken off again near the wheel in order that it might 
 not be necessary to revolve it more than three and a half times. 
 
316 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 These were the conditions which Captain Key began 
 to meet in his first report on steering appliances, dated 
 13th September i860 — 
 
 " Much attention," he said, " has been paid of late to effect an improvement 
 in the steering gear of our large ships, and I beg to submit the following ob- 
 servations on this subject : — 
 
 " The yoke at present in use appears to have three defects : — 
 
 "1. Insufficient power to move the rudder when the screw is propelling the 
 ship at full speed. 
 
 " 2. A difficulty in shipping and unshipping it, if disabled by shot. 
 
 " 3. Much inconvenience in setting up the wheel-ropes at sea, owing to the 
 position of the standing part and the confined space abaft the yoke. 
 
 " Various remedies for the first defect have been proposed, nearly all of which 
 are modifications of the same principle, introducing a tiller and rods or chains 
 arranged in different ways for transmitting the power from the wheel to the 
 rudder. 
 
 " It has, however, been considered necessary (whatever the mechanical arrange- 
 ment may be) that the number of turns of the wheel required to move the rudder 
 to its extreme position shall not be altered. 
 
 11 If, therefore, it has been found that more turns are required, owing to the 
 introduction of a long tiller or otherwise, other modifications have been made, 
 such as increase in the barrel of the wheel, or reduction in number of parts of 
 the wheel-ropes, until the established number of revolutions is produced. 
 
 " Now, I submit that it may be assumed as an axiom, that as long as the number 
 of turns of the wheel remains the same for a certain motion of the rudder, the 
 power applied to the rudder remains unaltered, whatever may be the arrange- 
 ment or combination of rods, joints, or ropes. I mean by this, that increased 
 purchase cannot be obtained without an increase in the number of turns of the 
 wheel in putting the helm hard over. 
 
 " The motion of the spokes of the wheel for a given motion of the yoke is an 
 accurate measure of the force applied to the extremity of the yoke. For instance, 
 if the wheel be 6 ft. in diameter, and one arm of the yoke 6 ft. in length ; then, 
 if it requires three turns of the wheel to put the rudder over 32 , each spoke of 
 the wheel has to move through 56. 5 ft. , by which the end of the yoke is moved 
 3.2 ft. The power, therefore, of this combination is 17.6 to 1, without any 
 reference whatever to the intervening arrangement, except as regards friction. 
 
 " I wish by this to show that no advantage is gained by transmitting the move- 
 ment of the wheel through a tiller to the yoke, unless the wheel is allowed to 
 take more turns for a given movement of the rudder, and much disadvantage 
 arises from the multiplication of parts to be struck by shot, and greater liability 
 to disarrangement. 1 
 
 "The remedies I would propose for the defects mentioned above are as 
 follows : — 
 
 "I, If an increase of purchase is required in steam ships of large power, I would 
 
 1 Captain Key was alluding to a plan, then highly thought of, and being fitted ; 
 where there was a cross "yoke" on the real rudder-head actuated by rods passing 
 on each side of the screw-well, and connected with a false rudder-head and tiller 
 worked k by wheel-ropes. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 317 
 
 reeve the wheel-rope through the spare sheeve in the yoke, securing the standing 
 part to the ship's stern, and thus allow the wheel to take an additional half-turn 
 when the helm is put hard-over. Any purchase can be gained in this manner 
 without any additional gear, and a broken wheel-rope is readily replaced. 
 
 " The objections to this are : 1st, That the friction is increased ; but this must 
 be the case with any additional purchase. 2nd, That when under canvas, or 
 easy steam, the motion of the rudder would be very slow. To obviate this, I 
 would propose to come up the standing part and hitch or seize it to the next part 
 close to the yoke, 1 which would restore it to the present purchase. 
 
 "2. To make the yoke more manageable for shifting or shipping it, I would 
 propose that it should be made in two separate arms, each clasping the rudder- 
 head, or being connected in any way thought desirable ; a spare arm might be 
 easily replaced. 
 
 "3. I would also suggest that the standing part of the wheel-rope, when rove 
 through the spare sheeve in the yoke, should pass round a sheeve in the stern, and 
 then be set up on the quarter with a lanyard or otherwise. A pull of the wheel- 
 ropes might then be got at any time without difficulty, and without interfering 
 with the steerage. It seems probable that many a rudder-head has been sprung 2 
 and yoke broke by slack wheel-ropes." 
 
 The above is quoted in full, because of its disclosure of 
 how great mechanical errors may continue unrecognised, 
 and because it is so characteristic of Captain Key's method. 
 
 The really gross and glaring error in elementary 
 mechanics to which he draws attention was all round him. 
 It was being perpetuated in every large ship. He puts for- 
 ward its grossness in the plainest language, but he does not 
 suffer a word of condemnation to escape him, and he does 
 not even insist on its entire removal then and there. 
 
 Why not? Simply because he knew the error to be 
 too firmly entrenched to be carried by assault, and he pro- 
 ceeded by the method of sap. He worked to get three 
 and a half turns instead of three turns of the wheel admitted 
 as a rule, so that when this point was gained he might be 
 able to get rid of the tradition, and have the whole question 
 regarded with an open mind. 
 
 Accordingly, we find him, after a lapse of several months, 
 recommending, on the 20th September 1861, that all ships 
 over 400 horse-power should be allowed four turns of the 
 wheel to put the helm hard-over. Later, on the 8th 
 
 1 A highly technical form of expression, meaning to unfasten that end of the 
 wheel-rope which was fastened to the ship's side, and to fasten it instead to the 
 end of the yoke ; thus using one pulley less than before. 
 
 3 That is, strained by twisting or wringing. 
 
3 i8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 February 1862, he asks that a comparative test of hemp 
 and hide wheel-ropes should be made, as he believes from his 
 own tests that the hide ropes have only half the strength of 
 the hemp. He says nothing of what must have been fore- 
 most in his mind, namely, the fallacy which existed in having 
 selected wheel-ropes, not for their strength, but for their 
 elasticity, the quality which increased the difficulty of putting 
 the helm over to high angles. His instinct forbade him to 
 raise a point which would have called tradition into action 
 against him, so he worked to displace hide wheel-ropes by 
 a side wind. 
 
 But he was all the time mentally considering and dis- 
 cussing with others the possibility of adopting a form of 
 rudder which might remove all the difficulties of steering, 
 might enable rudders of any size to be put over to any 
 desired angle, at any speed of the ship, without requiring 
 more power to be employed than was necessary to over- 
 come the friction of the moving parts. This was the now 
 well-known " balanced rudder," a rudder, that is, which, 
 instead of having the whole of its surface on the after-side 
 of the axis, has just enough surface on the fore-side to 
 balance the pressure of the water on the after-side, and to 
 leave the rudder so that at any angle it shall have no in- 
 clination to move from the angle at which it is set. The 
 idea was entirely original to his own mind, and it was, of 
 course, a disappointment to him to discover, when he had 
 brought the matter to maturity, that the balanced rudder 
 was a forgotten and not a new invention. 
 
 He reported on his proposal, and sent drawings of the 
 rudder to the Admiralty on the 6th of December 1862. 
 He was at once authorised to carry out his proposed experi- 
 ments in the gunboat Delight, and these were completely 
 reported on in his letter of the 12th February 1863. 
 
 These were the first systematic trials of manoeuvring 
 powers ever made in England. They not only established 
 the balanced rudder in the navy, but they gave rise to the 
 practice of systematically measuring the spaces, as well as 
 the times, required by H.M. ships to turn in — a matter which 
 has shown itself ever since to be of the gravest importance. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 319 
 
 The report showed that, while in no case could one of 
 Her Majesty's large ships put her helm over to more than 
 25° at full speed, there were some which could not put it 
 over to more than 1 1° under like conditions. The balanced 
 rudder, it was proved, was not affected by speed, and could 
 be put over to any angle with no more force than was required 
 to move it in still water. Further, it was shown that every 
 degree of helm that could be given, up to 45 , was of ad- 
 vantage to the turning powers of the ship, while there was 
 no difference in the power of the common and balanced 
 rudder, area for area, and angle and angle. 
 
 The balanced rudder was immediately introduced into 
 the navy, and it is somewhat singular to note that when the 
 Bellerophon was shown to have what were then remarkable 
 turning powers, very little of the advantage was laid at the 
 door of Key's balanced rudder, and the unusually high helm 
 angle that could be given to it ; and it was usual to attri- 
 bute everything to the decreased length of the ship in com- 
 parison with her tonnage. When the case is examined, it 
 can be seen that the greater part of the improvement was 
 due to the rudder, and the lesser part to the length of the 
 ship. The error in too much overlooking the effect of 
 Key's invention unquestionably retarded the progress of 
 naval architecture for a time. 
 
 While Key's active mind and clear well-balanced in- 
 tellect was thus touching, for its good, every part of naval 
 material, there were not wanting opportunities of his im- 
 pressing himself on the larger questions of personnel, which, 
 like everything else in the navy, were showing signs of rest- 
 less movement. 
 
 In the early part of 1862 dissatisfaction had long 
 been rife amongst the separate class of navigating officers, 
 — masters, second masters, and masters' assistants — the 
 direct descendants of a time when the sailoring and fighting 
 elements in a warship were held to be distinct, and when 
 the fighting captain brought his fighting place-holder or 
 lieutenant with him, who knew no more than he did of sea- 
 manship and navigation. Nothing of handling the spars 
 and sails of a ship was now left to the master. The dignified 
 
3 20 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 captain no longer " directed his master to place him along- 
 side " a certain ship of the enemy's. The master might 
 look after the boatswain's stores and the setting up of the 
 rigging, but, though he was nominally an executive officer, 
 there was nobody in the ship actually under his command 
 except the man at the wheel, and then only when "all 
 hands " were on deck. 
 
 The increasing anomalies of the master's position were 
 producing their natural effect : he was asking for more rank 
 and more pay, and a better definition of his actual position. 
 A committee was appointed to inquire into the grievances 
 of his class, and, on the 3rd of March 1862, Captain Key 
 forwarded a letter to the Commander-in-Chief expressing 
 his views at length. 
 
 He admitted the anomalies of their position, and the 
 justice of their claim for more rank and more pay, but 
 asserted that neither could be given without prohibitory in- 
 conveniences. He took a broad and, for that date, a 
 startling view of the whole situation. Masters, he said, 
 were only of importance because no one else was trained 
 to do their special duties of navigation and pilotage ; but 
 yet their general education was very much neglected. He 
 thought the class ought to be abolished, and that the navi- 
 gation of H.M. ships should be placed in the hands of the 
 executive officers, who had already absorbed, out of the 
 master's hands, the executive seamanship, which was his 
 original raison d'etre in the days when the pilot held high 
 office. 
 
 Captain Key, in this case, wrote as an independent 
 naval officer who was concerned to give an honest opinion, 
 but was not concerned that it should prevail. Hence we 
 see him change his method. He no longer stops short at 
 what he thinks he can carry, but gives the whole of his 
 thought to be taken or left by those who are responsible for 
 forming a judgment, which he is not. 
 
 His views did not then prevail, but they did so ten years 
 later. Then the authorities contented themselves with in- 
 creasing the pay of the " master " class, increasing their 
 nominal rank, and giving them new titles. Philosophers 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 321 
 
 might have urged that it was always the thing which char- 
 acterised the name, and not the name which characterised 
 the thing. If a rose by any other name would smell as 
 sweet, its thorn by any other name would prove as sharp. 
 The change of name could not upset Captain Key's argu- 
 ments, and when the master was labelled "staff-commander" 
 they marked him obsolete, and prepared to abolish him as 
 Key proposed. 
 
 The question of engineer officers for the navy was at 
 this time, if it be not so still, a more embarrassing one than 
 that of the navigating officers. Captain Key was directed 
 to submit his views and proposals in respect of the whole 
 matter, and he did so in a letter dated 1 3th of April 1863. 
 The difficulty was then, as the difficulty is now, as to how 
 much of the engineer officer should be head-worker, and how 
 much of him should be hand-worker. It may be a sub- 
 ject of dispute as long as warships are driven by steam 
 machinery ; but it may be said that, at the time we are 
 dealing with, the balance inclined heavily towards hand- 
 working, and that it has ever since been inclining more and 
 more towards head-working. The state of things existing, 
 as revealed in Captain Key's letter, is almost startling to 
 look back upon. 
 
 By existing regulations, he says, no theoretical or 
 mathematical qualification was required on entry, beyond 
 ability to keep accounts. For the next two grades, 
 assistant engineers first class, and engineers, no more was 
 required. The chief engineer must know the elements of 
 mechanics, but got no help to learn in the lower grades. 
 
 The engineers of that day came chiefly from the 
 " factory boys " of the dockyard. Such a boy had been 
 working in the fitting or erecting shops for five years, on 
 wages of from eight shillings to twelve shillings per week ; 
 at the end of this time, being eighteen years of age, he was 
 selected by the chief engineer of the yard to undergo 
 an examination as to his ability to keep accounts and his 
 knowledge of the general principles of the steam-engine, 
 which was a less stringent one than he had had to pass 
 when he entered the yard. If he was successful in passing, 
 
322 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 he received an appointment in the navy as second-class 
 assistant engineer, with the pay of £109, 10s. a year, 
 and he put himself into the uniform of a naval officer. 
 
 The great step from " factory boy " to officer seemed 
 to Captain Key to be out of all proportion to the acquire- 
 ments necessary to attain it ; and, moreover, the suddenness 
 of the change was sufficient in many instances to unfit the 
 officer altogether. 
 
 It must be asserted generally that the engineer officers 
 of all ranks were insufficiently educated, and that the 
 position on entry was too high for the attainments required. 
 
 The real remedy was to make the engineers more 
 head - workers and less hand - workers. Their number 
 should be greatly reduced, and the hand-working necessary 
 should be carried out by a new class of petty officers to be 
 called " engineer mechanics," who would mess, with some 
 slight separation, beside the seamen on the lower-deck. 
 
 If the engineer officers were more carefully selected 
 and better educated, and there were fewer of them, there 
 would be no reason why they should not, on entry, become 
 members of the gun-room mess, and so get rid of the unques- 
 tionable inconveniences of a separate engineer officers' mess. 
 
 Here, again, we may observe the difference of procedure 
 exhibited by Captain Key, according to whether he was 
 working towards improvement, where he was respon- 
 sible, or discharging a general duty to the service. In 
 the one case he asked for no more than he thought he 
 could get — and generally got it in consequence; in the 
 other case he offered his whole mind on the subject, and 
 had no hesitation in advocating the most revolutionary 
 changes, as in the cases of the masters and the engineers. 
 He did not immediately gain his point. But years after- 
 wards the policy he advocated was carried out, and he 
 personally controlled the establishment of the engineer 
 colleges at Portsmouth and Devonport, while the " engine- 
 room artificers," first introduced in 1868-69, are nearly the 
 exact model of his "engineer mechanics." The roots of 
 his proposals struck deep, and the tree of his planting has 
 grown and flourished ever since. 
 
A ROYAL COMMISSIONER— 1859-1863 323 
 
 While he dealt in this broad and statesmanlike 
 manner with the great question of personnel, his detailed 
 dealings with the officers and men under his immediate 
 command were characterised by a marked spirit of kind- 
 ness. Though he was not, like Nelson, an enthusiastic and 
 unreasoning lover of his kind, until his kind seemed ready 
 to turn and rend him, he was, like Nelson, not a good hater. 
 The carrying out of the necessities of discipline was painful 
 to him, and though, whenever it came to a clear point, the 
 cold requirements of rule converted him into a mere dis- 
 ciplinary machine, yet, as long as there was a chance of a 
 culprit's reform, his hand was light upon him. To those 
 under his command whom he deemed to deserve well of 
 him, he was a strong friend ; and whether the object of his 
 regard were his second in command, or his office orderly, 
 their claims on the service were properly pressed. But he 
 was never extravagant of his praise, and he was the reverse 
 of indiscriminate or weak. A stern disciplinarian he was 
 not, but all through his letters during his service in the 
 Steam Reserve at Devonport can be traced the use of the 
 silken glove over the mailed hand. 
 
 In the December of 1863 Captain Key was offered 
 the post of captain of the Excellent, and head of the 
 Gunnery Department of the navy, and on the 2nd of July 
 he laid down his office at Devonport and proceeded to take 
 up his new one at Portsmouth. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE EXCELLENT — I 8 6 3- 1 8 6 6 
 
 CAPTAIN KEY joined the Excellent in July 1863, 
 and at once found himself in a most anomalous 
 and difficult position. The four ironclads, Warrior, 
 Black Prince, Defence, and Resistance, forming the first 
 instalment of that class of ship, were complete and at sea, 
 and were well reported on. In those ships a supposed 
 balance had been struck between steam-power and sail- 
 power ; between the 4 J-inch armour-plate and the 68- 
 pounder gun. The second instalment, the Minotaur, 
 Northumberland, Agincourt, Achilles, Hector, and Valiant, 
 was in course of completion, and several wooden line-of- 
 battle ships cut down and coated with armour — in cases 
 5|-inch — were also in hand. All these were also designed 
 under the idea that some balance between offensive and 
 defensive powers existed. It was only beginning to dawn 
 on us that there was no balance ; but we hardly realised 
 that there could be no balance, because no conclusive 
 experiments could be tried, and therefore the opinion of 
 the time was what governed. 
 
 So the third instalment was in view in the instance of 
 the Bellerophon, with 6-inch plating, which some gun — no 
 one could yet say what — would be set up to balance or 
 over-balance. 
 
 The fourth instalment was the Royal Sovereign, Captain 
 Coles's turret ship, which it was contended would sweep 
 away and supersede all before her by inaugurating an 
 entirely new system of mounting guns on board ship. 
 
 The real condition was that there was a crowd of 
 inventors, designers, and manufacturers, all let loose with 
 
 324 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 325 
 
 their inventive and constructive powers in the highest state 
 of activity, each of them intent on his own point, and none 
 of them under such control as could harmonise their work 
 with that of the others. 
 
 The designers of guns were only stopped in their 
 progress by the tenacity of the metals they dealt with ; the 
 makers of armour-plates felt little limit as to the thickness 
 they could roll, as it was only governed by the cost and 
 power of the machinery set up. As soon as the gun- 
 producer had demolished the last armour-plate he washed 
 his hands of matters till another plate beat him, and then 
 the armour-producer in his turn stood aside. How this 
 rivalry in inventive power was to affect the navy was 
 nothing to either of the rivals. There was an immense 
 public opinion clamouring for, and forcing on, the adoption 
 of each nominal advance in offensive and defensive power, 
 and those who clamoured loudest had least thought out the 
 nature of an excessively complex problem. What had to 
 be considered was the fighting power of a fleet armed and 
 armoured in one way, against that of a fleet armed and 
 armoured in another way, which cost the same money and 
 employed the same number of men. What was really 
 dealt with was — what weight of gun would penetrate a 
 certain thickness of armour ; and what thickness of armour 
 would resist the projectiles of a certain weight of gun ? 
 The mass of this rivalry was beside the naval question : if 
 the navy attempted to follow it, it would either be led into a 
 cul-de-sac or would collapse. Warships must be taken as a 
 whole, and could not in the end be constructed simply to 
 carry a certain thickness of armour or a certain weight of 
 gun. The difficulty at the juncture of which we speak 
 was, that most men thought this latter was the real 
 question, and urged it. Even the subsidiary question of 
 mounting, upon which the utilisation of the heavier gun 
 depended, was left more or less aside by the critics. But 
 those who saw the real case, and had to deal with it, 
 recognised that great bounds in advance were impossible 
 to the navy, and that, after all, existing ships had to be 
 armed and sent to sea. 
 
326 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 The fundamental difficulties which surrounded Captain 
 Key in the Excellent, and which almost beat him in the 
 end, were the attempts to put new wine into old bottles. 
 The Board of Ordnance had been done away with before 
 anyone saw that the gun revolution was at hand. Ord- 
 nance, which concerned the navy much more than the 
 army, was specially under the War Office ; and there was no 
 department of ordnance and no staff at the Admiralty. 
 The ultimate decision on a naval ordnance question rested 
 nominally with the Board ; practically with one Lord with- 
 out any staff whatever, and with or without consultation 
 with the Controller, who was also without expert staff. In 
 the matter of guns, the Royal Gun Factory at Woolwich 
 and Sir William Armstrong were the chief competitors, but 
 Whitworth was hotly contending for Armstrong's place, 
 and there was a crowd of independent inventors of guns 
 intervening. The Royal Carriage Department was by way 
 of controlling the mounting, but it was not easy to say 
 where its functions ended and those of the Royal Dock- 
 yards began. Here, again, a certain number of independent 
 inventors intervened ; but inasmuch as the gun-mounter met 
 a want which he did not create, while the gun-designer and 
 the armour-designer created the wants, this department of 
 gun-mounting, however indispensable, did not attract so 
 much public attention. 
 
 There was really only one person competent by his 
 position to control the whole of this seething mass of 
 rivalries, and to turn the rushing and foaming streams into 
 designed channels, and that was the captain of the Excel- 
 lent. He alone was assisted by a staff competent to take 
 every point bearing on naval ordnance into consideration, 
 and to give it its just weight. He alone put the guns and 
 the armour-plates under the conditions in which actual war 
 would find them, and tested them thus. He alone saw 
 with his own eyes, and was brought into personal contact 
 with, all the actual conditions of the time, material, personal, 
 and administrative, in regard to the fighting capacities of 
 ships, and was able to judge of the general direction in 
 which all things were tending. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 327 
 
 But his official position was such that it was impossible 
 to define its boundaries. He might be found with full 
 control and authority to decide any point finally. He 
 might be overruled and absolutely ignored, if it happened 
 that at any time someone was persuasive enough or powerful 
 enough to cause that course to be taken. The Excellent 
 had been established in 1830 as a school of gunnery, when 
 gunnery could be taught as you might teach the violin, 
 dealing with an unchanged and unchanging instrument, 
 and when there were no controversies. In theory it was a 
 teaching establishment still, and the captain of the Excellent 
 was chief instructor. In practice it was the final deter- 
 minator of the fitness or unfitness of fighting inventions 
 for use in the navy, and the captain of the Excellent was 
 the moderator in a tremendous experimental revolution^ 
 which was running riot in all directions. 
 
 It was the custom, Captain Key wrote towards the 
 close of his career in the ship, " to refer all questions con- 
 nected with ordnance and armament fittings for the opinion 
 of the captain of the Excellent y in order that he might afford 
 the Admiralty the benefit of his experience and that of the 
 officers of the ship as to the effect any alteration might 
 have on the instruction of our men in the exercise of the 
 guns, and the efficiency or otherwise of the proposals as 
 regards the offensive power of a ship's armament. This 
 mode of proceeding seems to have been wisely adopted, as 
 uniformity of system is a necessity for the efficiency of our 
 fleet, and the opinion of those whose attention is closely 
 directed to one point cannot fail to be of some service. I 
 should deprecate the idea that the captain of the Excellent, 
 or any other subordinate, should be considered in any way 
 as final authority. The decision must, of course, in all 
 cases rest with their Lordships." 
 
 But the fact was that their Lordships' authority was 
 necessarily weak from want of expert staff, and because 
 their absolute power of decision was more theoretical than 
 real. The cost of naval ordnance appeared in the army 
 estimates, and the War Office controlled the expenditure. 
 It therefore had opinions, and strong ones, on all that 
 
328 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 pertained to naval ordnance, and it was exceedingly diffi- 
 cult for the Admiralty to override them if they ran counter 
 to those entertained by the Board. 
 
 It might be said that, at the date of Captain Key's 
 joining the Excellent, there were at least six departments 
 with co-ordinate advisory powers, which pressed with 
 varying persistency and success upon the War Office and 
 Admiralty decisions. There was the Royal Gun Factory, 
 the Royal Carriage Department, and the Royal Laboratory 
 Department, into which Woolwich Arsenal was divided. 
 There was the Ordnance Select Committee, where military 
 opinion largely predominated. There was really Sir 
 William Armstrong with astonishing capacity, backed by 
 a powerful establishment, and a strong public opinion. 
 And there was the captain of the Excellent, the sole 
 authority, as has been said, who was called on to regard, 
 and to report on, naval fighting-power as a whole. 
 
 Every one of these several departments became, under 
 the stress of circumstances, a separate inventor. It either 
 originated designs, or modified those of others. Sometimes 
 it adopted and furthered designs of which it approved. 
 But in every case it could not escape a certain quantity 
 of partisanship, which inevitably led to friction and collision. 
 The general feeling a student of the time and circumstance 
 must have is one of wonder that things ever escaped from 
 chaos. 1 The Excellent, perhaps, was freer from the passion 
 to invent, and therefore from partisanship; but it is fair 
 to remember that the department had less control over 
 material and manufacturing power than any of the others, 
 and was therefore restricted from following out inventive 
 proclivities, if it had them. 
 
 Under the Admiralty was the Controller, at the head 
 of a separate department which was responsible for 
 building and completing our warships, and therefore 
 inextricably mixed up with their armaments. But his 
 control in this direction was limited all round. Each one 
 
 1 Mr. Baillie, in the House of Commons in June 1865, made it a special 
 subject of complaint that the Ordnance Select Committee were no more than a 
 body of inventors carrying out experiments at the public expense. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 329 
 
 of the departments above named might at any moment 
 have a voice predominating over the Controller's as to 
 what guns were to be carried, where they were to be 
 placed, and how they were to be mounted. He was the 
 subordinate of the Board of Admiralty, just as the captain 
 of the Excellent was, and, if the two differed on any 
 question, the Board alone could decide between them. 
 But then the captain of the Excellent parted with his 
 responsibility when he had given his opinion. If he 
 carried the Board with him, the Controller had to carry 
 out the captain of the Excellenfs views. The situation 
 was an impossible one. The old bottles answered very 
 well to hold the old wine of an almost unchanging artillery 
 and class of ship; but they were certain to burst when 
 the new wine of an ordnance that was in the highest 
 state of fermentation, upturning everything, and yet doubt- 
 ing as to whether it would not be vinegar in the end, 
 was poured into them. 
 
 In this undefined, difficult, and most unsatisfactory 
 position Captain Key now found himself. It was possible, 
 of course, for a man to constitute himself a mere repeating 
 post as captain of the Excellent^ to make no attempt to 
 moderate or reconcile ; to carry out the experiments he 
 was ordered to conduct ; to report the resulting facts and 
 leave the rest to others. It was an easy and a pleasant 
 course ; but Captain Key was always a man of convictions, 
 loyal to truth, and following, without flinching, the call of 
 his duty. No detail of the work now before him was 
 passed by or slurred over; but, as a consequence, he was 
 in constant collision with counteracting opinions. It was 
 really, for him, war all round, and it would have been 
 personal war for anyone with a less keen sense of public 
 good and a less imperturbable temper. 
 
 The general issues which were to be in course of 
 determination during the three years for which Captain 
 Key was to be at the head of the naval gunnery estab- 
 lishment were not very numerous, but they interlaced in 
 a remarkable way, and the subsidiary issues which they 
 dragged in their train were innumerable and baffling be- 
 
330 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 yond conception. The greater issues might be theoretically 
 determined, but not one of them could be practically 
 applied in the navy until all the subsidiary issues were 
 also determined ; and it was always possible, and some- 
 times came to pass, that the subsidiary issues swallowed 
 up the main one, and it was lost. 
 
 A gigantic mistake had been made in plunging with 
 scarcely a limit into the adoption of the Armstrong system 
 of breech-loading rifled guns. Very likely the truth is, 
 that Lord Armstrong's, or, as he then was, Mr. Armstrong's, 
 hand was as much forced as he could be said to have 
 forced the hand of the Government. By an exercise of 
 the most astonishing forethought and skill he had, as 
 early as the end of the year 1854, produced the finest 
 breech-loading rifled field-piece in the world, just at the 
 moment the demand arose for it. Doubtless, it was then 
 not in his mind to put the gun into the navy at all 
 except as a field-piece, probably he had never considered 
 whether a system which was so well adapted to a 
 12-pounder would answer if extended to a gun firing a 
 1 1 o-lb. projectile — heavier, that is, than any naval gun in 
 use at the time had fired. 
 
 But the system swept into the navy, or was swept 
 into it, so that at the end of Captain Key's career in the 
 Excellent there were fourteen different varieties of the gun 
 in use, while at the beginning of his career there was a 
 practical end of the manufacture, and a general con- 
 demnation of the whole system. It must be noted as 
 a characteristic of the man we are dealing with, that his 
 was the voice which appears to have been most uplifted 
 to make the best of our bad bargain. While most naval 
 officers were exclaiming against the retention of the 
 Armstrong breech-loader as a boat's gun, Key was for 
 overruling them. When the continued and almost in- 
 creasing difficulties with the breech-loading 1 1 o-pounder 
 determined the Ordnance Select Committee to propose 
 the reduction of the powder-charge and shell-charge, Key 
 urged that things were not so bad as they were painted ; 
 that we ought to do the best we could with it ; that the 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 331 
 
 range and the shell-charge were the best features of the 
 weapon ; and that, at least, the shell-charge might be 
 maintained. When the Committee carried the Board of 
 Admiralty against him, he wrote and expressed his 
 regret. 1 
 
 The failure of this system — all but the method of 
 building up the gun, which remained a perfect success — 
 left the two questions open, namely, whether we were to 
 seek a new system of rifled ordnance, or whether we were 
 to revert to smooth-bores and spherical shot and shell? 
 and secondly, whether we were to revert to our old muzzle- 
 loading, or seek a new system of breech-loading? The 
 cast-iron 6 8 -pounder of nearly 5 tons weight was the 
 plate-piercing gun of the time, but the 4 \ -inch plate with 
 backing was practically impenetrable to its cast-iron shot. 
 It no doubt seemed to press that there should be guns to 
 master such armour, but, after all was said and done, the 
 naval architects in our first batch of ironclads had only 
 succeeded in covering part of their sides with any armour, 
 and a large portion even at the water-line was penetrable 
 by the lightest shot or shell. The second batch had their 
 sides covered to a greater extent with armour, and, though 
 it was in places increased to Si inches, it was in others 
 reduced to 2 J inches, so that it was hardly true to suppose 
 that because a Warrior target was impervious to 68-lb. 
 cast-iron shot, therefore none of the first or second batches 
 of ironclads could be subdued by 68-pounders alone. 
 
 Captain Key had not been more than four months in 
 the ship when he began to raise this fundamental question 
 even as to 4j-inch plates. In November 1863, after noting 
 a good many 4^, 5, and 5|-inch plates resisting 68-lb. 
 cast-iron shot, he earnestly desired to see what the nature 
 of the material of which the shot was composed might 
 have to do with it. Getting his wish in January 1864, he 
 found that at 200 yards, when a 68-lb. cast-iron shot 
 
 1 The trouble with the vent-pieces of the Armstrong breech-loaders was a 
 subject of correspondence all through Captain Key's time in the Excellent. I 
 count, at least, five letters about them in 1863, seven in 1864, five in 1865, and 
 six in 1866. 
 
332 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 only indented a 4j-inch plate 2.1 inches, a Frith's steel 
 68-lb. shot passed clean through the plate and 7 inches 
 into the side behind it. Experiments with another gun 
 had shown the same results, and thereupon Captain Key 
 had asked whether it might not be possible still further 
 to improve the projectile, and if so, could not a steel shell 
 be forced through? Further, could not a more powerful 
 explosive than gunpowder be used as a charge for shell, 
 enabling its walls to be made thick enough to stand 
 penetration without breaking up ? Captain Key no doubt 
 had gun-cotton, which was then coming to the front, in 
 his mind, and we can easily note the general position as 
 he saw it. Men were then raging for a complete revolu- 
 tion and upturning of the whole offensive and defensive 
 naval question as regarded material. Was it — we can 
 conceive Captain Key saying — altogether wise to make 
 any tremendous plunges, when smaller and more certain 
 steps might bring about as good results ? The six ships 
 of the second batch of ironclads were not at all revolu- 
 tionary, and were not prepared for a revolutionary 
 armament. Must they not be carefully considered ? 
 
 It was claimed, indeed, that there was pressure to 
 advance by leaps and bounds, because of the progress of 
 armaments and armouring abroad. Attention was called 
 to France and the United States, but, when the matter 
 was looked coolly into, it was seen that the American 
 system of large calibre cast-iron guns was powerless against 
 our armour, and could in no case compare with the 
 Armstrong system of building up wrought - iron guns. 
 Their own system of plating would not for a moment 
 resist our 68-pounder. With France it was the same. 
 Her system of plating had been notoriously weaker than 
 ours, and her guns generally were little able to compete 
 with our armour. 1 
 
 1 It is true that, in the French ships of the Flandre class — wooden armour- 
 clad frigates, ten of which were building and completing between 1863 and 1866, 
 and which compared with our own Prince Consort class of corresponding date — 
 large areas of the side were covered with 5^-inch plating, while the Prince Consort 
 did not go beyond 4§ inches. Yet the Flandre target required only 16 foot-tons 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 333 
 
 But these general reasonings were not the main forces 
 in operation. It was always the practice to speak of the 
 maximum thickness of armour on any area of the ship's 
 side, which might cover a comparatively small part of it, as 
 if it covered the whole. In the same way, men were apt 
 to think and speak as if the mounting of a single ex- 
 cessively heavy gun in a ship would make her exceptionally 
 powerful, no matter what number of powerful, but still less 
 powerful, guns were displaced to make room for it. The 
 targets and the guns at Shoeburyness were held to be real 
 measures of the defensive and offensive powers of ships, 
 and, as we know now, controlled the aims of designers, 
 until they culminated in the production of the Inflexible, 
 with a small patch of 24-inch armour and four 80-ton 
 guns. Practically, since then, the pendulum has been 
 swinging back again, reducing the thickness and extending 
 the area of the armour carried, reducing the weight, and 
 increasing the number, of the guns carried. Doubtless, the 
 swing has been aided by inventions which have increased the 
 resistance of armour and the power of guns, weight for weight; 
 but the reaction is independent of these supports to it. 
 
 These things were natural, and reasonably congruous 
 with the conditions of the time. Sir William Armstrong's 
 first system of breech-loading rifled guns having proved, on 
 the whole, a mistake, it was natural that he should attempt 
 to replace it by a better ; and thus Captain Key found 
 himself almost immediately called on to consider the merits 
 of Armstrong's wedge system of breech-loading guns, which 
 was in some respects similar to a system being introduced 
 with apparent success by Krupp in Germany. 
 
 of energy per inch of shot's circumference to penetrate it, while the Warrior 
 target called for 33 foot-tons, and the Lord Clyde, which was in commission in 
 1866, required 58 foot-tons. Then as to guns, the latest French ships had not 
 got beyond an armament the bulk of which was composed of rifled 66-pounders 
 with but two 1 10-pounder rifled guns. The Prince Consorfs armament, when 
 she was commissioned six months after Captain Key joined the Excellent, was 
 twenty-four 68-pounder smooth-bores and eight of Armstrong's uo-pounder 
 rifled guns. Evidently, therefore, we were quite up to the French in the way 
 of progress, and if there was pressure on us at all it was to increase the quantity 
 rather than to improve the quality of what we had. — See Our Ironclad Ships, 
 P- 37- 
 
334 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 It was also natural that, having introduced the system 
 of lead-coated projectiles, which necessitated breech-loading 
 in rifled guns, but which had not proved on the whole 
 satisfactory, Sir William Armstrong should endeavour to 
 devise a system of rifling which did not involve lead-coated 
 projectiles, or necessarily enforce the use of breech-loading. 
 Therefore Captain Key, in a very few months, was called 
 on to experiment with, and pronounce upon, Armstrong's 
 " shunt " system of rifling — a system where projectiles with 
 copper studs fixed into the surface of the cylindrical pointed 
 projectile were rammed in from the muzzle, base first, with 
 the studs fitting loosely in one set of grooves, to come out, 
 when fired, point first, with the studs gripping tightly in 
 another set of grooves, and acquiring the necessary rotation 
 in the process. 
 
 Seeing, again, the larger areas of side which were 
 covered by armour in our second batch of ironclads — a 
 plan largely adopted in the French navy — and looking at 
 what had been done in the United States, even with cast- 
 iron, by the Rodman and Dahlgren systems, in increasing 
 the weight and power of their guns, it was natural and 
 appropriate that the Armstrong system of building up 
 guns should be applied to produce an improvement on the 
 6 8 -pounders. 
 
 The Admiralty itself appears to have stepped into the 
 inventive arena to this reasonable and limited extent. The 
 " Somerset " gun and the " Frederick " gun, christened after 
 the Duke of Somerset, the First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 and one of the Naval Lords, were the familiar titles of such 
 guns at the time. 
 
 Thus, as early as September 1863, we find Captain 
 Key reporting on a specimen gun of about six tons 
 weight, with a bore of 9.2 inches, firing a solid shot of 
 100 lbs. weight with a charge of 25 lbs. of powder. As 
 the 68-pounder weighed nearly five tons, had a bore of 8 
 inches, and fired a charge of 1 6 lbs. of powder, this was an 
 advance which might be supposed to be within compass, and 
 did not threaten to delay indefinitely the arming of the 
 second batch of ironclads. As early as November 1863 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 335 
 
 Captain Key found that this gun was master of 5|-inch 
 plating when steel shot was used at 200 yards range. He 
 was of opinion that, with 33 lbs. of powder — which the 
 gun would bear — it would master 5j-inch armour at 800 
 yards range. 
 
 But it was one thing to design an efficient gun of this 
 weight and character, and another to make it efficient on 
 board ship. The difficulty of controlling Armstrong's 
 breech-loading 110-pounders with a charge of 12 lbs. was 
 about to determine a reduction in the charge, which Captain 
 Key thought a serious reduction in the power of the gun. 
 In this new gun the weight of it was to be increased 
 26 per cent, over that of the well-known 6 8 -pounders, 
 but the charge of powder was to be increased from 56 
 to over 100 per cent. The appliances did not exist by 
 which such a gun could be made effective in the new ships 
 that might be called on to mount it. It was, as Captain 
 Key put it in September 1863, a question for the Controller 
 to determine whether such a gun, or rather a heavier one, 
 could be worked on the broadside. 
 
 These were all reasonable and congruous steps, but 
 they led, as above, only to this open question. So far as 
 the navy was concerned, there were no grounds for pushing 
 things further. What was pushing was the abstract problem 
 of ascertaining the point at which thickness of armour- 
 plate and weight of powder-charge in a gun, reached limits 
 beyond which manufacture could not carry them, and it 
 was expected that the whole navy was to wait upon its 
 determination. Rather, perhaps — as anonymous writers 
 claiming authority were found, as early as February 1864, 
 complaining of delay in adopting guns afloat that were, in 
 theory at least, eight times as powerful as the 6 8 -pounders 
 — it was expected that the navy should enter on a career 
 of adopting from month to month the newest inventions 
 in order to discard them also from month to month as soon 
 as a newer appeared ; and continually discarding and 
 renewing fleets in order to suit the proceeding. 
 
 So, long before the suitability of the 6 or 6 \ -ton 
 smooth-bore gun could be determined for the naval service, 
 
336 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and still longer before its mounting could be settled — 
 that is, early in September 1863 — smooth-bore guns of 
 1 2 -tons weight were being forwarded to the captain of the 
 Excellent for trial and report. Not only so, but even then 
 a gun was in being, nearly twice the weight of the last, to 
 fire a 500-lb. projectile with charges of 50, 60, 70, and 
 80 lb. of powder to begin with. 
 
 The two things which were becoming certain out of 
 all this racing that was pushing an unwilling navy in 
 directions it did not want to follow, were — that very 
 large guns could be made on Armstrong's principle, and 
 that there was a good deal of margin yet before the 
 maximum thickness of plating which it was possible to 
 roll and bolt to a ship's side was reached. What the two 
 things had to say to an efficient navy, was that which 
 very few people took note of. It was left for the captain 
 of the Excellent to pronounce opinions on, but it was nearly 
 impossible to say who, or what, would ultimately decide. 
 
 By the beginning of October 1863 he had sufficient ex- 
 perience of the 6|-ton smooth-bore 100-pounder to assign 
 its position. He found it superior to any service gun 
 against armour, and claimed that it should be substituted 
 for all guns that were to be fought behind armour on board 
 ship. He gave the height of axis which should govern 
 the mounting, and the dimensions of the port it should be 
 fought in. They were to allow it to have 30° of training 
 each way, and elevation sufficient to range 3300 yards, 
 which he considered ample. Modifications of the wooden 
 carriage and slide, on which 5 -ton guns were already 
 mounted, promised to suffice — at anyrate as an expedient 
 — to allow of the gun being carried in the ships already in 
 course of completion, but waiting to have their armament 
 settled. Before the end of the year, he was impressing on 
 the various bodies who had to deal with the matter the 
 necessity of getting maximum power out of the gun by 
 improving not only the projectile propelled, but the gun- 
 powder used to propel it. If all were done that might be 
 in these directions, the gun was probably master of 5 J -inch 
 armour at 800 yards. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 337 
 
 At the beginning of 1 864, after some little experience 
 of a 1 2-ton gun, Captain Key was laying it down that, with 
 the knowledge of the day, the 6^-ton gun reached the 
 limit of weight that could be worked in a sea-way. The 
 difficulties of controlling the gun were not surmounted, and 
 it was getting plain that wood was not a suitable material 
 for the mounting. 
 
 Immediately behind this question of adopting a 6§-ton 
 instead of a 5 -ton gun, as the staple armament of the 
 ironclad, which was, as Captain Key expressed it in March 
 1 864, " within our reach, and likely to be so for an indefinite 
 period," was the question whether it was to be a muzzle- 
 loading rifled 112-pounder, or to remain a 100-pounder 
 muzzle-loading smooth-bore? Armstrong's proposal was to 
 convert it into a 7-inch rifled shunt gun. It was a momen- 
 tous question of general principle, and as such, Captain Key 
 began to debate it before the end of 1863. K was clear 
 that if the penetration of armour-plates at long distances 
 was the object sought, then rifled guns, or guns to fire 
 elongated projectiles, were indispensable. It was not clear 
 to him that such was the object, but it must be taken 
 account of. There was yet another point which was strik- 
 ing him forcibly, and which he drew attention to in March 
 1864. The powerful elongated shell was an important 
 advantage which rifling gave. Would it be possible, while 
 keeping the 9-inch bore, and preserving the 6 J -ton gun as 
 an armour-piercing weapon with steel spherical shot, to 
 lightly rifle it so that it might throw — for bombarding pur- 
 poses, and against wooden ships — an elongated shell of 
 about 145 lb.? 
 
 He set out the pros and cons of the whole question at 
 this time. No rifled gun had yet come to the Excellent 
 that was efficient as a broadside gun. That was so far 
 certain. The advantages of rifling were : — ( 1 ) Great range ; 
 (2) great accuracy ; (3) the use of powerful shell ; (4) 
 retention of velocity (and therefore of capacity to penetrate 
 armour) to a considerable range. The two first of these 
 were of value to a ship of war under special circumstances 
 only, and would be to a great extent superfluous, if afforded 
 22 
 
33 S MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 to all the guns on a broadside. Similarly, the last was 
 applicable only to positions where great penetration was 
 required at long ranges. 
 
 No doubt this argument wanted completion. It was 
 in part characteristic of the man that in his position it 
 should not be absolutely complete, but perhaps it was more 
 of the temper of the time, and of the general condition of the 
 naval mind, that it should have been left incomplete. He 
 assumed, and in another place he defined the assumption, 
 that there would be close action in future naval battles. 
 Clearly, it did not follow. We could not predicate the 
 element of equal willingness to fight at close quarters on 
 the part of two hostile fleets. History was against it. 
 The complement of the shorter-ranged guns in one fleet 
 was higher speed, if it was not to be beaten by the longer- 
 ranged guns of the other. It was impossible, logically, to 
 recommend the shorter-ranged guns, unless the higher speed 
 was coupled with them. 1 
 
 The advantages of the smooth-bore were: — (i) Sim- 
 plicity; (2) rapidity of fire; (3) reduced strain on the gun, 
 and therefore greater durability ; (4) greater initial velocity. 
 Captain Key was here taking things as he found them. 
 The second and the fourth advantage were not inherent — 
 as we have since observed — in a smooth-bore system as 
 against a rifled system. They were perhaps true enough 
 of the smooth-bore system, and the rifled systems then 
 before him. 
 
 He was of opinion that, under the ordinary circum- 
 stances of action, the accuracy of a good smooth-bore gun 
 would be equal to that of a rifled gun at any distance 
 under 1 500 yards, as that of each depended on the skill of 
 the captain of the gun. 
 
 This was at the time undoubtedly the prevailing 
 opinion. It remains difficult to say what truth there was 
 in it, for I believe it has never been tested. The extreme 
 accuracy of the rifled gun, as gun, has been supplemented 
 
 1 Two months after this expression of opinion the battle of Heligoland was 
 fought between the Austro- Prussian and Danish Fleets. The Austro- Prussian 
 Fleet was beaten at long range. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-^1866 339 
 
 by advantages of mounting, which have never been con- 
 ferred on the smooth-bore, so that it is arguable to this day 
 whether, at the short range mentioned, the percentage of 
 hits would not be equalised by the difficulties of accurate 
 laying which obtain from an unsteady platform. 
 
 Captain Key went on to say, that at close quarters the 
 smooth-bore was in every respect superior to the rifled gun 
 of his day. But then, coming to the particular point of 
 dealing with the 6 \ -ton gun, he said that no accurate com- 
 parison could be drawn between it as a 9.2-inch smooth- 
 bore, and as a 7-inch muzzle-loading rifled gun, until the 
 latter was produced and tried against the former. But 
 still the practical question remained. We had in the 
 100-pounder smooth-bore 6|-ton gun practically the most 
 powerful weapon that was certainly fit for the service. If 
 the idea of the elongated shell was feasible, the advanced 
 power of the British fleet was assured. 
 
 A few days later he reiterated these views ; saying, that 
 after mature consideration, and looking to the ordinary 
 circumstances under which naval actions had been and 
 probably would be fought, great accuracy and long range 
 would be of inferior value to rapidity of fire, security against 
 derangement of the gun, and penetrating power at short 
 ranges. He thought, therefore, that smooth-bore guns 
 should continue to form a large proportion of the broadside 
 armament of our large ships, rifled guns being confined to 
 the upper-deck, and the bow and stern ports of gun-decks. 
 He repeated his queries as to the possibility of the 6 J -ton 
 gun being lightly rifled so as to fire a bombarding elongated 
 shell of 145 lbs., as well as the spherical shot and shell for 
 ordinary purposes. 
 
 This idea of keeping the rifled guns for upper-deck 
 service was evidently derived from his experience in the 
 Baltic, where there had often been attempts to use upper- 
 deck guns with great elevation, in order to bombard distant 
 points. The idea of firing spherical shot from rifled guns 
 became a common one, favoured by Sir William Armstrong, 
 from the converse point of view, that is, of firing spherical 
 shot from the small - bored rifle gun, instead of firing 
 
34 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 elongated shell from t-he large-bored smooth-bore, rifled for 
 the purpose. The general result was the introduction, in 
 the end, of what was called the " double shell " for those 
 special bombarding purposes which Key had mentioned. 
 
 It, of course, will appear that such general views as these 
 were short-sighted. We look now at the course that things 
 have taken, at the universal rifling of naval ordnance, and 
 at the ultimate 1 1 o-ton gun, and we think that Captain 
 Key might have made better forecasts. But we must 
 remember that had the navy been free and paramount in 
 its choice, it does not follow that it would have taken the 
 course ultimately pursued. There was not, as we have 
 seen, any real pressure on the part of foreign navies to force 
 the hands of our own, and it is by no means certain that 
 any decided course followed by the British Navy would not 
 have been generally adopted by others. The real pressure 
 came from the inventor acting on powers that were outside 
 the navy, forcing it to change its mind in spite of itself. 
 So, from September 1863, the 12-ton smooth-bore gun 
 came to be under trial in the Excellent, though no one in 
 the establishment could say what was to be done with it ; 
 and so by May 1864 the 7-inch muzzle-loading rifled shunt 
 gun of 6 J tons had been tried in the Excellent ', and had a 
 good deal shaken the position of the smooth-bore. Cap- 
 tain Key reported that it was more than equal to naval 
 requirements. It could be worked in a sea-way, and had 
 equal penetrative power with the smooth-bore at 200 yards. 
 It was admirably adapted for the naval service. No doubt, it 
 was still a question how far it should be introduced. It was 
 necessary to go on trying the smooth-bore and the rifled 
 gun side by side, until the question of endurance and all 
 other questions in controversy had been determined. 
 
 But the rifling of the heavy guns, and the consequent 
 gradual abolition of smooth-bores, went on apart altogether 
 from naval opinion. The navy, as represented by the Ex- 
 cellent y was glad to have the increased shell power which 
 the elongated projectile used in the rifled gun gave it, but 
 it did not so much desire increased energy at longer ranges, 
 which was the principal aim of the gun designers. Arm- 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 341 
 
 strong's shunt system of rifling, though it passed the Excel- 
 lent with limited approval, was superseded by the simpler 
 rifling, still based, however, upon the device of copper studs 
 in the projectile, which came to be called the " Woolwich 
 system." 
 
 By February 1865, Mr. Fraser, the superintendent of 
 the Royal Gun Factories, was beginning, indeed, to super- 
 sede not only the shunt rifling, but the structure of the 
 guns, which, by modifying Armstrong's plans, became as 
 efficient, but much less costly. 12^-ton guns embodying 
 these new principles were proved at Woolwich satisfactorily 
 about the 21st of that month. 
 
 The Hercules target with 9 inches of outer plating, 
 more than 3 feet of backing, and an inner skin of some 
 2 J inches of iron, altogether beat Armstrong's 300-pounder 
 i2j-ton muzzle-loading rifled gun in June 1865, and Sir 
 William Armstrong expressed the opinion that it would beat 
 a 600-lb. projectile, unless very abnormal charges were 
 used. The issue was, of course, a false one. It was nothing 
 that three 12-ton shunt guns, firing ioj-inch projectiles of 
 300-lb. weight, hardly broke through the plate at 200 
 yards, and left the backing uninjured. The Hercules was 
 only to have a small patch of this armoured side. It was 
 quite a chance whether so small a patch would ever be 
 touched at all in action. It was impossible to assert that 
 the Hercules could not be conquered unless that patch was 
 penetrated. Was it, then, necessary to greatly increase the 
 individual power of the guns in a ship destined to match 
 the Hercules, while, as a consequence, their number was 
 greatly decreased ? It was impossible so to argue ; but 
 Krupp, at Essen, was making 300 and 600-pounders for 
 foreign governments, and Blakeley had made thirty or 
 forty 600-pounders for Russia ; why stop to argue, when 
 England had only one 600-pounder under experiment at 
 Shoeburyness ? This was the sort of logic that took the 
 control of matters out of the hands of the Excellent and 
 of the navy, and pushed on the rifling of all guns. 
 
 All this time, it will be noticed, the question of breech- 
 loading versus muzzle-loading had been quietly dropping 
 
342 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 out. The real fact seems to have been that there was no 
 inventor pressing a likely system of breech-loading, while 
 there were almost scores of inventors pressing forward 
 systems of building guns or rifling them as muzzle-loaders. 
 It is evident from what has been said, that if Captain Key 
 truly represented the views of the navy, no pressure for 
 breech-loaders could come from it. It had, so far, had no 
 reason to believe that a breech-loader was a more rapid 
 firing gun than a muzzle-loader ; and if this were so, the 
 only merit of breech-loading was to develop increased 
 energy by the use of longer barrels. But no one was 
 asking, from the naval side, for increased energy. The 
 navy wanted rapid-firing guns capable of penetrating at 
 short range, and the muzzle-loading rifled guns offered were 
 already beyond its requirements. 
 
 Though, therefore, in September 1 864 the Excellent" s 
 people knew that there were eighty-three of Armstrong's 
 wedge 64-pounder breech-loaders in being, and though in 
 October Captain Key thought there was no serious defect 
 in that gun ; though, in treating of the Armstrong-Whit- 
 worth controversy in November, Captain Key thought that 
 the Armstrong 70-pounder wedge gun had the rapidity of 
 fire which he looked for, yet it is not surprising that he 
 should have considered that practical difficulties out- 
 weighed it. 
 
 In May 1865, though the 40-pounder breech-loading 
 wedge gun was considered a service gun, yet very few of 
 them had been made, and they were only to be supplied to 
 special classes of ships. The 64-pounder wedge breech- 
 loading gun was also thought fit for sea-service at this time 
 by Captain Key, but he was presently informed that it was 
 not intended to issue it to the navy. There were breech- 
 loading systems of other designers from time to time 
 under trial, but by the end of October 1865 Captain Key 
 was of opinion that none was as good as Armstrong's 
 wedge system. Moreover, he thought that if the existing 
 Armstrong breech-loaders could not all be converted to 
 the wedge system, they had better be done away with 
 altogether. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 343 
 
 At the opening of 1866, the question — apart from any 
 influence of Captain Key's — appears to have dropped down 
 to a consideration of the relative value of breech-loading 
 and muzzle-loading for field and boat guns only ; and Key, 
 in an elaborate and detailed assemblage of pros and cons, 
 advised that the breech-loading guns should be wholly 
 withdrawn from the navy. In fact, there never was before 
 the captain of the Excellent in these years any real question 
 of substituting breech-loading for muzzle-loading. There 
 was no plan suitable for use with the heavier guns that 
 were being adopted, and no sufficient advantages could be 
 shown to exist in preserving a breech-loading system for 
 the smaller guns. And thus breech-loading dropped out, 
 until, in the fulness of time, it was brought in by the 
 captain of the Excellent, then First Sea Lord of the 
 Admiralty. 
 
 Many descriptions of mounting had been tried with 
 these 6J-ton guns, with rolling motion in a gun-boat at 
 sea. All through the year 1864 such trials went on. 
 There were difficulties as to controlling recoil, owing to the 
 larger absolute and proportionate charges that were used. 
 Being called on in September 1863 to report on the ques- 
 tion of mounting heavy guns, Key was forced to say that 
 there was no data — he did not know enough to say what 
 course should be taken. The difficulty in the naval mind 
 arose from its intense dislike to depart from simplicity in 
 the character of the gun-carriages. The great bulk of the 
 guns then mounted afloat were on what were called " truck 
 carriages." The pattern was certainly not less, and it 
 might be much more, than a century old. It was a stout 
 wooden carriage, running on four wooden wheels or trucks, 
 controlled only on recoil, in firing, by a stout rope called a 
 " breeching," which ran through a ring cast in the breech 
 of the gun and was secured to rings in the ship's side. 
 When the gun was fired it flew back with a jerk, and was 
 caught and checked only by the breeching. Sometimes, 
 as the old artillerists expressed it, the gun recoiled " too 
 boisterously," and then the breeching gave way, causing 
 perhaps serious accidents. The great improvement — but 
 
344 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 only for carronades and lighter guns — had been the inven- 
 tion of Sir Thomas Hardy — Nelson's Trafalgar Hardy — 
 where the gun-carriage, without trucks, slid in and out on 
 iron rails which were fixed to a wooden slide fastened to 
 the ship's side by a " pivot," so as to allow of the gun's 
 being "trained" in its port. There was an arrangement 
 called a "compressor" attached to the carriage, which, 
 dropping through a slot in the centre of the slide, could 
 be set up to grip carriage and slide together, and so check 
 the recoil when the gun was fired, reducing the sudden 
 strain on the breeching, and perhaps enabling the space 
 necessary for recoil to be reduced. There were also certain 
 mountings, somewhat on the same principle, called " Mar- 
 shall's carriages," which had been in vogue thirty years 
 before, which had dropped out of use, but the memory of 
 which was now resuscitated in part solution of the general 
 difficulty. This idea of slide and carriage had been largely 
 developed in the arrangements made for working the heavy 
 io-inch and 8-inch shell guns mounted at the bows and 
 sterns of paddle-steamers. But these were " upper-deck 
 guns," and it was by no means congruous to the then naval 
 conception that there should be " slide carriages " for guns 
 mounted between decks and worked in ordinary broadside 
 ports. 
 
 So it was attempted to put the new wine of the Arm- 
 strong breech-loading rifled 1 1 o-pounder into the old bottles 
 of what were called " rear-chock carriages." These were 
 simply the old truck carriages, with the rear trucks removed 
 permanently ; it being part of the ordinary drill to remove 
 them temporarily when firing guns with rolling motion. 
 In the autumn of 1863 these new guns were so mounted 
 on old carriages in the flagship on the West India station 
 — the Nile. The plan would not answer, and yet we had 
 got no further than to try and make it answer. Captain 
 Key was not able to say, until 30th October 1863, that 
 slide carriages must be looked on as preferable to rear- 
 chock carriages. What we should now regard as a very 
 strange consideration, greatly hampered progress in adapt- 
 ing new mountings to the new guns. It was part of the 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 345 
 
 drill in most ships to transport guns working in one port 
 and to work them in another. The exercise was far from 
 incongruous to the conception of fighting under sail ; for 
 then, as experience had often shown, the wind and the 
 enemy between them had fixed the position of the ship, 
 and deprived her altogether of the power of firing at the 
 enemy unless guns were transported to ports where no 
 guns were usually carried. But, obviously, the idea was 
 not congruous to fighting under steam, where it would 
 probably take less time to move the whole ship than it 
 would take to move the gun. 1 But, nevertheless, it was 
 held to be a distinct objection to mounting guns on 
 slide carriages in broadside ports, that they could not 
 be transported. When this idea was abandoned, and the 
 general use of slide carriages was accepted, the advance 
 was still slow. The old compressors were of little service 
 when applied to these heavier guns with large charges, and 
 it was being discovered that wood was no longer sufficiently 
 strong to stand the shock. On the other hand, there was 
 the strongest objection to the employment of iron, because 
 of the danger held to attach to its splinters when struck by 
 the enemy's shot. 
 
 Behind these actual and traditional difficulties lay the 
 profoundly revolutionary ideas involved in Captain Coles's 
 turret, or turn-table, system of mounting guns. The Royal 
 Sovereign , a wooden line-of-battle ship, engined, and cut 
 down so as to mount four turrets to carry at least five 
 1 2 -ton guns, was day by day approaching completion under 
 Captain Coles's and Captain Key's superintendence. Her 
 claim was to drive out every other class of ship. Her 
 advocates, numerous and very powerful, declared that the 
 navy must find means to mount whatever guns the in- 
 ventor produced, and, whatever might be said and done, 
 12-ton and 22-ton guns, which were even then in exist- 
 ence, could not be worked and mounted on the broad- 
 
 1 The incongruity was shown in the fight in May 1864 between the Alabama 
 and the Kearsarge, when the ships circled seven times round a centre ; the form 
 of the battle being governed by the fact that the Alabama had trained all her 
 guns upon the starboard side. 
 
346 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 side. 1 Strong partisanship marked each side on the 
 broadside versus turret controversy, and it very much added 
 to Captain Key's difficulties. 
 
 The real points were, indeed, not then seen. If it was 
 going to be possible that what had been called line-of- 
 battle ships, or what we now call " battle ships " simply, 
 should carry eight or ten heavy guns in four or five turrets, 
 following the pattern of the Royal Sovereign, it would 
 hardly be possible to design a more powerful ship on the 
 same displacement ; for the Royal Sovereign was com- 
 pletely armoured, which no broadside ship was; and yet 
 she was essentially a broadside ship, capable of fighting 
 any other broadside ship, not only because of the individual 
 weight of her guns, but because of their number. To do 
 what she did, a broadside ship must mount double the 
 number of her guns, and this was so obvious a loss, that 
 it was clear the Royal Sovereign had, so far, an enormous 
 advantage. Much of the argument in favour of the turret 
 system rested on the number of guns carried in the Royal 
 Sovereign ; yet, when Captain Coles had his hands free in 
 the cases of the Scorpion and Wivern built for the Con- 
 federate Government, each was given two turrets and no 
 more. A later design for mounting 6oo-pounders came 
 down to one turret. Much of the practical experience was 
 derived from the American monitors ; and the Rolf Kraake, 
 which Captain Coles had designed for the Danes, whose 
 behaviour under fire of the Prussian batteries in March 
 1864 was much quoted on the side of the turret advocates, 
 was a single-turret ship. 
 
 But not at all impossibly, though naval men did 
 not easily recognise it, the chief objection to the turret 
 system lay in the difficulty of combining it with a full 
 sailing rig. 
 
 However, the Royal Sovereign was a very complete 
 development of the system, and a very powerful ship. 
 
 1 This argument was no doubt entirely wrong. It became common and easy 
 to work 12-ton and 18-ton guns in broadside ports. The Alexandra mounted 
 22-ton guns so, and at least as late as 1880 the French mounted 22-ton guns in 
 ordinary broadside ports with ease, and in a much simpler manner than we did. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— i 863-1 866 347 
 
 Captain Key got a perfect knowledge of her, as he con- 
 tinually advised about her armament and fittings, and, when 
 she was complete, was constantly at sea in her, making 
 tests and experiments. By the middle of 1865 the Royal 
 Sovereign was practically complete, and he formulated his 
 opinions on the turret system. 
 
 The Royal Sovereign was thoroughly efficient, and 
 though everything in her fittings had to be thought out 
 afresh, because of her armament, yet all worked well. The 
 advantages of the turret system were: — (1) Great command 
 of horizontal training, which would be especially useful if 
 engines or steering gear were disabled in action ; * and it 
 might enable a ship in a swell to be placed so as to secure 
 a steady platform. (2) The power of training while loading, 
 to turn away the port for safety ; to keep the sea out of 
 the port, or to keep the gun bearing. (3) There was more 
 complete security for the gun's crew. (4) The removal of 
 a large portion of the weight in armour from the side to 
 amidships. Captain Key thought the first of these advan- 
 tages the most important. 
 
 The disadvantages he held to be as follows : — ( 1 ) There 
 were fewer guns, and the offensive and defensive power 
 would be reduced if the turret ship were attacked by more 
 than one ship or fort at the same time. (2) If one gun or 
 one turret were disabled, a larger proportion of the armament 
 would be thrown out. (3) The turret machinery was liable 
 to be damaged or disabled. (4) Heavy guns could not be 
 worked with the same rapidity in a turret as on the broad- 
 side, as the men have not so much space to work in, and 
 do not stand on a level with the gun-carriage. 
 
 Here Captain Key was speaking by the card, for by 
 this date most of the mounting difficulties had been got 
 over, and the 1 2 -ton gun had been successfully introduced 
 into the armament of the Minotaur. He showed that, with 
 a crew of thirty men to a turret in the Royal Sovereign, the 
 interval between the rounds was 1 min. 54 sees, in the 
 two-gun, and 1 min. 23 sees, in the one-gun turret. In 
 
 1 The argument would now probably hold that a ship so disabled would be 
 either rammed or torpedoed if she did not haul her colours down. 
 
348 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the Minotaur, with a gun's crew of sixteen men, the mean 
 interval between the rounds was I min. 7 sees. only. The 
 shortest interval between any two rounds in the Royal 
 Sovereign had been 1 min. 1 7 sees., whereas it had come 
 down to 59 sees, in the Minotaur. The target in both 
 cases was a small one, and 1000 yards distant. 
 
 It was claimed on the side of the turret system that 
 greater elevation, and therefore greater range, could be 
 given to guns in turrets than to guns in broadside ports, but 
 it had been found that the 1 2-ton guns mounted on board 
 the Minotaur experimentally gave as great elevation as 
 those mounted on board the Royal Sovereign} 
 
 The necessity for clearing the upper-deck for action 
 would always be a disadvantage in a sea-going turret ship. 
 
 The nearness of the deck to the sea in the Royal 
 Sovereign was an inconvenience, and made the accommoda- 
 tion on board her, as a ship to live in at sea, bad. 
 
 The captains of the turrets, being the only men 
 exposed to the enemy's fire, would be liable to become 
 unsteady. 
 
 There was no practical reason why a heavy gun should 
 not be worked on broadside as well as in turret. 2 But the 
 advantage in the turret, of commanding such an extent of 
 horizontal training, was of far greater importance than any 
 one of the advantages inherent in the broadside ; the 
 question for consideration was whether it counterbalanced 
 the disadvantages. 
 
 For harbour defence, short voyages, or attacking a 
 fortified position, the turret system would prove of great 
 value; but Captain Key did not consider that we could 
 retain that superiority at sea, which is necessary to our 
 existence as a first-rate Power, if we armed our fleet for 
 ocean service in all parts of the world entirely on the turret 
 
 1 This point was really an accidental one, and did not affect the main 
 argument. Special arrangements were made in the Royal Sovereign for giving 
 great elevation, but then with disabilities which did not exist in broadside 
 mounting. 
 
 2 This was the main argument pro or con. Captain Key's mind had under- 
 gone a rapid change on the subject, as we shall presently see, by the course of 
 experiments carried out. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— i 863-1 866 349 
 
 system. This inferiority, under the varied circumstances 
 in which a ship of war must necessarily be placed, would 
 prove to be very decided. In any case, he recommended 
 that turrets should always be designed to carry two guns 
 instead of one, as the increase of weight would be small 
 in proportion to the increase of power. 
 
 This limited opinion must scarcely have pleased any- 
 one when most men were hot partisans on the one side or 
 the other ; but time has more than justified it. The Royal 
 Sovereign type was never repeated, was not repeated by 
 Captain Coles himself when his hands were free ; and in the 
 end the turn-table system of mounting guns, only takes part 
 jointly with the broadside system in certain classes of ships. 
 
 When Captain Key made this report he was in a very 
 good position to form a sound judgment on the whole 
 question, for he had just completed the trials of the rival 
 broadside system of mounting 1 2 -ton guns in the Minotaur. 
 We have seen that early in 1864 he had reported that a 
 6^-ton gun was the heaviest that could be efficiently worked 
 on the broadside, and that in July 1865 he was, after experi- 
 ence with the 1 2 -ton gun both on broadside and turret 
 mountings, and knowing that a 2 2 -ton gun was under trial, 
 entirely reversing the former opinion, and not drawing the 
 line at any weight of gun as incapable of being worked on the 
 broadside. The fact, of course, was that when the mount- 
 ing of heavy guns in turrets came to be considered, an 
 open mind was necessary, for the old methods could not be 
 applied. When mounting guns on the broadside was to 
 be considered, very few men could shake themselves clear 
 of the old methods, and the desire to cling to them 
 hindered advance. The tradition of simplicity, and the 
 consequent dislike of machinery for working guns, were 
 strong in Captain Key's mind, and he only shook them off 
 under the conviction of experiments which were forced 
 upon him. No authority seemed quite to realise that if 
 these very heavy guns were to take their places on board 
 ship, simplicity must go, and machinery must come in. 
 The theory that simplicity must be preserved because of 
 danger from the enemy's shot to machinery, or complicated 
 
350 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 arrangements in the gun mountings, applied all round. 
 Possible enemies, if they were to meet us with guns similar 
 to those we were introducing, would be driven to the same 
 complexities of mounting that we were, and would be open 
 to the same damage by our shot that we were open 
 to by theirs. But this argument never appeared ; so the 
 struggle to maintain the old methods of working guns with 
 removable tackles, blocks, ropes, and handspikes, as against 
 irremovable racks, and pinions, cogged racers, and chains, 
 went on, but always losing, until, as now, they had wholly 
 disappeared. 
 
 Early in September 1863 Captain Key, while admitting 
 the experimental success of a garrison carriage with cast-iron 
 flanges, shows himself afraid of the latter on account of 
 possible splinters from the enemy's shot. A few days later he 
 was not prepared to offer suggestions for mounting heavy 
 guns, for want of data. Yet a few days and he concurred in 
 resuscitating " Marshall's carriages," of which the record in 
 the Excellent was just thirty years old, and at the same 
 time he seems to have made up his mind that slide 
 carriages were inevitable for the coming guns. At the 
 end of October he confirmed this view, and early in 
 November he got so far from rope as to recommend that 
 the strops of the gun-tackle blocks should henceforth be of 
 wire instead of hemp. At the same date he felt bound to 
 point out that, in adopting Marshall's carriages, we should 
 adopt the plan of fixing the guns in ports so that they 
 could not be transported. By the middle of January 1864 
 he had concluded that it was necessary to employ wrought 
 iron instead of wood for the material of the carriages; 
 and he again enforced the view in a week's time. 
 
 There were just now, Armstrong, the Royal Carriage 
 Factory at Woolwich, Lieutenant Roche of the navy, 
 Mr. Cunningham late of the navy, and Commander 
 R. A. E. Scott of the navy, all at work on new 
 ideas and plans for mounting and working heavy guns; 
 while in the Excellent they were modifying, by slow and 
 cautious experimental steps, the old arrangements with 
 which the staff was familiar. The question had become, 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863- 1866 351 
 
 and was to remain, the most difficult and troublesome with 
 which Captain Key had to deal. There was more 
 correspondence over it, and, as it turned out, more admin- 
 istrative friction, than over any other single question. 
 There was an infinite clash of principle and detail, out of 
 which real progress was very slowly evolved, and the dis- 
 jointed character of the organisation which had the matter 
 in hand only made itself more and more manifest as time 
 went on. The story of arranging for the use of the guns 
 on board ship, which gun designers so easily turned out as 
 soon as Armstrong had shown the way, is the story of 
 trouble and difficulty. 
 
 In January 1 864 Captain Key was startled to learn 
 that, without in any way communicating with him, or 
 possibly with any naval authority, the War Office had 
 authorised Armstrong to make experimental guns and 
 carriages for the naval service. Almost at the same 
 moment mistakes by the Gun Factory and the Dockyard 
 drew from him a remonstrance. He thought Roche's plan 
 for carriages in the Royal Sovereign promised well, and that 
 with modifications the slide and carriage made for experi- 
 ment with the 6|-ton smooth-bore gun might answer. He 
 conferred with the head of the Royal Carriage Factory as to 
 mounting the 12-ton gun, deciding on wrought iron. By 
 the 20th of February he had not yet got a service carriage 
 for the 6J-ton gun. On the 22nd he considered a plan by 
 Mr. Cunningham of a revolutionary character, namely, the 
 application of steam power direct to the working of heavy 
 guns. He condemned that, and likewise the application of 
 rigid bars to heavy guns, but he thought there was some- 
 thing in the idea of taking the falls of the gun-tackles to 
 revolving shaftings — a plan in everyday use in the dock- 
 yards. But whether or not, he recommended that Mr. 
 Cunningham should be put in official communication with 
 the Royal Carriage Factory, in order that the matter might 
 be thoroughly investigated. 
 
 It was on the 23rd of February 1864 that he first 
 expressed an opinion on the method of mounting proposed 
 by Commander Scott. The plan involved the use of 
 
352 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 wrought iron instead of wood throughout; the use of 
 permanent rollers, of powerful compressors, of racers and 
 rollers so arranged as to keep the slide secure without the 
 necessity for a " fighting bolt." Captain Key necessarily 
 approved of the wrought iron ; he did not like the rollers, 
 nor the system of racers, but the system of compressors was 
 worth a trial. The whole plan was a development of what 
 had been devised for working the heavy cast-iron guns of the 
 United States navy, but it was singular that Captain Key 
 did not recognise the possibilities of its still further develop- 
 ment in Captain Scott's hands. There was found to be 
 great difficulty in so securing " fighting bolts " to stand the 
 shock of the heavier charges, and Captain Key had only 
 the day before been writing about it. A substitute might 
 have been more welcomed than it was. 
 
 By the middle of March 1864 the mountings for the 
 6|--ton gun were as far off as ever, and Captain Key was 
 giving the Royal Carriage Department infinite details of 
 the requirements ; but something had been done by the 
 Admiralty in the way of securing the fighting bolts, which 
 promised well. In a few days Cunningham was bringing 
 forward a plan for compressors, which Captain Key thought 
 ought to be quickly made and tried. 
 
 Differences of opinion between the Controller's Depart- 
 ment at the Admiralty and Captain Key began to show 
 themselves by the end of March 1 864, the former being, as 
 Key thought, too ready to plunge into new arrangements 
 without sufficient trial or data. It was, he wrote, unde- 
 sirable to introduce additional mechanism for working guns 
 on board ship, until it was found in what respect an 
 extension of our present means was insufficient. Addi- 
 tional controlling power would be necessary for the new 
 guns proposed, in a sea-way, but nothing could be known 
 without experiment, and a 1 2 -ton gun as well as a 6-ton 
 gun should be tried on board some ship on the home 
 station at sea. 
 
 There seems to have been still a desire on the part of 
 the Royal Carriage Department to adhere to wood as the 
 material for the new carriage, for as late as the end of 
 
THE EXCELLENT— i86 3 -t866 353 
 
 April 1864 Captain Key was urging that department to 
 get out a plan for wrought- iron carriages for the 6 \ -ton 
 gun, and to send it to the Excellent for consideration when 
 matured. He presently forwarded descriptions and reports 
 of all the carriages which had been supplied at various 
 times for trial with the 9.2-inch smooth-bore of 6 tons and 
 the 7-inch rifled gun of 6£ tons, and detailed the improve- 
 ments which had been and could be made in them. Every 
 alteration adopted had been an improvement, and the 
 fighting bolt difficulty had been met by building it into the 
 ship's side. There was, with these latest advances, no 
 difficulty in working 6J-ton guns in a gunboat rolling from 
 1 o° to 20°. He asserted now, with confidence, that such guns 
 could be worked in a sea-way with proper appliances and 
 ordinary care. The chief constructor at the Admiralty was 
 meeting a difficulty by a new arrangement of pivot bolts. 
 When one port was fitted with it, it should be experi- 
 mented on before others were proceeded with; but on 
 June 4th Captain Key wrote, promising to presently bring 
 forward the whole question of pivoting revolving slides. 
 On June 16th he forwarded suggestions for improving the 
 running in and out of the 6J-ton guns. 
 
 But though there was this continued improvement, and 
 though Key was thus sanguine that the question of working 
 6|-ton guns on the broadsides of our ships would be met, 
 we were a long way from perfection. There was really 
 no efficient system of compressors to control the recoil of 
 the gun when fired. Cunningham, Scott, Armstrong, and 
 the Royal Carriage Department were all at work on the 
 fundamental difficulty, but by the end of June 1 864 nothing 
 was yet complete. Captain Key pointed out that what was 
 desired was a system of compression to control the recoil 
 of heavy guns, which should be self-acting, simple in 
 mechanism, strong and endurable in its various parts, its 
 action allowing the gun to come in sufficiently for loading, 
 but capable of adjustment according to weather and other 
 circumstances. If these objects were secured, weight of gun 
 need not be added to check recoil. 
 
 Captain Key was hitting the real point when he asked 
 
 23 
 
354 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 for self-acting compressors. It does not seem to have been 
 before mentioned. The most perfect system of drill could 
 not secure that a compressor would always be fully set up 
 before the gun was fired, and there was no end to the 
 danger when the precaution was omitted. Armstrong 
 immediately took up the idea, and, as is well known, all 
 systems of compression afterwards were made automatic, 
 that principle lying at the bottom of the success which has 
 attended the mounting of guns of almost unlimited size afloat. 
 
 At the end of November 1864, Captain Key thought 
 that he had had experience enough to review the whole 
 question of gun-mounting. The system of slide carriages 
 must be adhered to ; the material must be wrought iron, and 
 he gave full details to govern their nature and construction. 
 The axis of the guns should be 3 ft. 7 in. above the deck, 
 and carriages and ports should allow of I 5 elevation and 6° 
 depression. The best form of compressor was Sir William 
 Armstrong's self-acting clamp, but many changes — which he 
 named — were necessary in its application. He felt strongly 
 that we should continue to work all guns by tackles as far 
 as it was found practicable. 1 Machinery, he thought, was 
 likely to get out of order by heavy concussion or other 
 accident. It could not be repaired in action like the 
 replacing of a side tackle or a breeching, and no arrange- 
 ment of any wheels would enable us to work heavy guns 
 with that rapidity which naval officers would always con- 
 sider necessary for efficiency. 
 
 Cunningham and Scott were, at this time, both advanc- 
 ing in the substitution of rigid machinery for flexible rope in 
 working the heavy guns, and Captain Key, no doubt, had 
 them in his mind ; but as time and experience went on, he 
 was driven from his position. 
 
 Just at the end of the year 1 864, suitable wood and iron 
 carriages and slides for the 6|-ton guns, whether smooth- 
 bore or rifled, seem to have been provisionally adopted. 
 They were fitted with the new Royal Carriage Department 
 
 1 The French, as I have already mentioned, adhered to the use of tackles for 
 even 22-ton guns mounted on the broadside, at least to the year 1881, long 
 after we had given them up. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 355 
 
 compressors, which were an improvement ; though Key 
 still thought the Armstrong plan was superior. 
 
 It might have seemed that, so far as the 6^-ton gun was 
 concerned, the mountings were fairly settled by the begin- 
 ning of 1865. It was intended to be so, and guns and 
 mountings were supplied to the new ironclads Hector and 
 Achilles. But here the disjointed nature of the organisation 
 came in. The guns in these ships were no sooner put 
 under test than the arrangements were reported against, 
 and Captain Key, on investigating the matter, found that 
 different arrangements in several essential particulars — 
 arrangements which he had either never seen before, or had 
 reported against — had been introduced by the independent 
 authority of the War Office. He was forced to say how 
 undesirable it was that the War Office should adopt any 
 fitting as a service fitting until it had been thoroughly tried 
 afloat, and approved by the Admiralty. 
 
 To us, at this date, it is almost impossible to under- 
 stand how such things could happen. But the explanation 
 is the reflex action of tradition. The War Office was only 
 continuing to do what the Board of Ordnance had done for 
 centuries. But in early days the plan was congruous, and 
 it was now utterly incongruous. In this case it was the 
 more provoking and startling, as Captain Key had, only a 
 few days before, extracted a promise from the War Office 
 that it would in future take care that no changes in mount- 
 ing should find their way on board ship till they had passed 
 through the Excellent. 
 
 On the 3rd of February 1865, Captain Key pointed 
 out that the line Commander Scott was taking in follow- 
 ing American models of gun mountings did not sufficiently 
 recognise that no safe conclusions could be drawn there- 
 from, as the American guns were very heavy with very low 
 charges, when we were reducing weight in proportion to the 
 charges. This was especially the case in regard to the 
 compressors, which, indeed, he understood the Americans 
 were abandoning. 
 
 Later, in February, the War Office justified their inde- 
 pendent action in the mounting of the Hector's and Achilles 's 
 
356 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 guns, but Captain Key repeated that it was undesirable that 
 the War Office should adopt anything as a service naval 
 fitting until after it had been tried afloat, and approved by 
 the Admiralty. 
 
 Meantime, the Royal Carriage Department had intro- 
 duced into the navy its own compressor, without naval 
 approval. Key now had it for experiment, and reported 
 that, though it was superior in handiness and compactness, 
 it had not the power over the recoil which the old com- 
 pressor possessed. He recommended that all the com- 
 pressors supplied to H.M. ships thus without approval 
 should be withdrawn. He dwelt again upon the point of 
 automatic working, and said that, in close action, instances 
 would frequently occur of the gun being fired before the 
 compressor was set up, and the carriage might be disabled 
 in consequence. He anticipated very good results from 
 Sir William Armstrong's automatic compressor, which was 
 now under trial. 
 
 At the end of February, Rear- Admiral Symonds 1 
 appeared amongst the inventors of gun mountings, and on 
 his plans Captain Key declared that he was prepared to 
 modify his opinions against machinery for working heavy 
 guns ; and a fortnight later, on another inventor's plans, he 
 spoke of the importance of adopting some mechanical means 
 for training guns on the broadside. It was the open mind 
 being acted upon by the logic of facts. 
 
 In a report on American ordnance towards the end of 
 March 1865, Captain Key could not forbear to notice the 
 advantage the American navy possessed in having the entire 
 control of its own ordnance in the hands of one officer under 
 the Secretary for the navy. His remark had this much 
 point in it, that he was about to report, and did so next day, 
 that the War Office gun carriage, just completed, ostensibly 
 as the Excellent design, differed, and differed wrongly, in 
 many ways from it. 
 
 Meantime, the 6J-ton smooth-bore gun, admittedly 
 imperfectly mounted pending improvements, had been sup- 
 
 1 Son of Sir William Symonds, the improving Controller of the navy in 
 Captain Key's early days. Died admiral of the fleet and G.C.B. in 1894. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 357 
 
 plied to several ships in the Channel Fleet on trial. The 
 reports came in in the middle of June 1865, and, though 
 an efficient self-acting compressor had yet to be designed, 
 the results in the fleet had been more satisfactory than could 
 have been expected. We thus stood at this time with an 
 advance to the 6 \ -ton gun on board sea-going ships, while 
 the 12-ton gun was being mounted experimentally in the 
 Minotaur, and it might be found fit for service by the time 
 she was commissioned. 
 
 By the middle of July, Commander Scott's carriage, 
 greatly improved and developed, and now constructed of 
 wrought iron for the 100-pounder 6J-ton smooth-bore, had 
 been tried for comparative results. Captain Key reported 
 that the gun was more rapidly worked by nine men with 
 Scott's carriage than by twelve men with the service carriage, 
 but then Scott's men were better trained. Key said the 
 advantages of Scott's carriage were manifest, and parts of it 
 worked with ease, but more trial should be had before final 
 opinion could be pronounced. Three months later, it was 
 clear that more training was required for men to work 
 Scott's carriage efficiently than to work the service carriage. 
 
 By October, a plan devised by Mr. E. J. Reed, the 
 chief constructor at the Admiralty, for working the broad- 
 side guns of his new ship, the Bellerophon, was ready for 
 trial. The principal object of it was to keep the greater 
 part of the gun's crew below deck. Captain Key dis- 
 approved of the leading idea, as likely to affect the morale 
 of the men in action ; and he did not see that any advan- 
 tages were gained in working the 12 -ton gun, over those 
 then being developed in the Minotaur, where it was found 
 that the fourteen men allowed for working the 95-cwt. 
 68-pounder could now work the 12-ton gun. 
 
 The Armstrong self-acting compressor was now com- 
 plete, and Key thought very highly of it. It was similar in 
 principle to that used in the U.S. navy, and by Commander 
 Scott ; hanging plates running from end to end of the slide 
 being gripped and compressed by other plates attached to 
 the carriage. But in Armstrong's plan the power was 
 applied by the gun itself in recoil. The plan, Key thought. 
 
358 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 was capable of general application, and should be at once 
 applied to the carriage Sir William Armstrong was preparing 
 for the i 2 -ton gun. 
 
 By the 27th of November 1865 several experimental 
 mountings for the 1 2 -ton gun were ready for trial in the 
 Minotaur, which it was arranged Captain Key should take 
 to sea, and, if possible, find severe weather sufficiently rough to 
 put them to the test. It was only now, perhaps, that it began 
 to be recognised that the enormous size of the new ships was 
 diminishing the force of the fears about the effect of a sea- 
 way. The difficulty of finding a sea-way that would move 
 the Minotaur had to be thought of, and Captain Key wrote 
 to point out that he might have to make Portland her port 
 of departure in order to get it. It seems that it was not 
 till 5 th February 1866 that severe weather arrived, and 
 then the Minotaur, going to sea in a gale, could only be 
 got to roll io°. 
 
 It was not till the 14th of May 1866, and after experi- 
 ments in the Bellerophon as well as in the' 'Minotaur, that Cap- 
 tain Key was able to record his final opinion upon the various 
 mountings for the 1 2-ton gun which had been before him. 
 It was evident that the original conceptions as to difficulties 
 of mounting and working heavy guns on the broadside had 
 all passed away in the course of experiment, and improve- 
 ments dictated thereby. In March, Captain Key had 
 recorded his opinion that guns of greater weight than 1 2 
 tons could be so mounted and worked, and now, amongst 
 the several systems of mountings, it was no question of 
 success or failure. They had all succeeded ; some were 
 better in one respect, some in another ; and while no arrange- 
 ment was absolutely perfect, if all the good points could be 
 brought together in one design, the result promised every 
 satisfaction. Captain Key took his general stand on the 
 opinions expressed by him in November 1864, which urged 
 simplicity and no substitution of rigid machinery where 
 ropes and tackles were found efficient. The Armstrong 
 slide and carriage should be taken as the basis, Scott's 
 running in-and-out gear being added. Scott's proposals, as 
 a whole, were highly reported on, but as they stood they 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 359 
 
 were too complicated for general service. The work of the 
 Royal Carriage Department was least to be commended ; 
 but this was not to be wondered at, as all ironwork for gun 
 carriages was new to it. 
 
 The 1 2-ton gun, whether rifled or smooth-bore, was thus 
 finally launched under Captain Key's auspices, and he had 
 superintended and guided the increase in the weight of the 
 gun from the 4f -ton 68-pounder. His influence had always 
 been moderating. As he saw his way, he had entered fully 
 and cordially into the development ; but in no case had he 
 allowed himself to be carried by storm, as most men of his 
 day were, either in resistance to all movement, or in leaps 
 forward into bogs and marshes out of which return was 
 difficult. 
 
 All through these changes the really undefined position 
 of the captain of the Excellent had been producing increased 
 friction. There was, as we have seen, eternal collision with 
 the different departments under the War Office, which were 
 met by Captain Key with entire frankness and firmness, 
 but with imperturbable good-temper. Growing difficulties 
 with the Controller's Department at the Admiralty were 
 more trying and harder to manage, as, properly speaking, 
 all the responsibility for the armaments of our ships, as part 
 of the ships themselves, rested on the shoulders of the Con- 
 troller, and yet, as regards his department and that of the 
 Excellent, they were each fighting for their own hand before 
 the Board of Admiralty. 
 
 Every now and then, and, as time went on, more 
 frequently, Captain Key found that, unknown to him and 
 quite apart from his judgment, whole armaments of ships 
 were settled between the Controller's Department and the 
 War Office, and he was left to accidentally discover it by 
 reports reaching him from the officers of the ships com- 
 plaining of what had been done. In other cases, his 
 opinion was asked on changes which had been actually 
 made without his knowledge. Every report he felt it his 
 duty to make on these occasions were necessarily bones of 
 contention between the Excellent and the Controller's De- 
 partment ; and it was inevitable that antagonism should 
 
3 6o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 arise, and should grow. The remedy was obviously that 
 which was applied later, namely, creating at the Admiralty 
 an ordnance branch of the Controller's Department, and 
 placing at the head of it a high officer who would be the 
 subordinate of the Controller, but having the captain of the 
 Excellent as his subordinate in all matters relating to 
 material. But this was not to be yet, and a kind of 
 exasperated antagonism grew up in the Controller's De- 
 partment against the Excellent^ but most specially against 
 her chief. 
 
 There were a thousand points of possible collision as it 
 became more and more certain that gun carriages, instead 
 of being loose movable structures capable of being used in 
 any port, were henceforth to be fixed in the particular port 
 which was adapted to them, with special pivoting bolts and 
 deck racers — all part of the ship's structure. Where the 
 War Office work began and the Controller's ended in these 
 cases, no one knew, but the captain of the Excellent came 
 in as one interfering between a married pair, and was mis- 
 understood and condemned on both sides. The Controller's 
 Department read into Captain Key's letters complaints 
 against the dockyard officials which were not there at all, 
 and long explanations to this effect from the captain of the 
 Excellent were no more effective than such things usually 
 are. 
 
 Then, when in the simple course of his duty, and with 
 all the advantages of his expert position, Captain Key 
 criticised the Controller's proposals for the armament of 
 particular ships, it seemed as if he were stepping out of his 
 way to make difficulties. He had to defend himself by 
 declaring that his intention had ever been to afford the 
 Controller's Department all the assistance in his power, and 
 the Controller might be assured that he would never willingly 
 throw difficulties in the way of his fulfilling his arduous 
 duties. He could only do this by expressing his opinion 
 clearly and decidedly on points connected with his own 
 duty. No department could furnish the Excellent with 
 better information than she had herself. Her captain's 
 duties were entirely undefined, and he was only responsible 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 361 
 
 for the opinions he gave. He was constantly asked ques- 
 tions respecting armaments by the dockyard officials, and 
 when he did visit ships with this object he invariably found 
 mistakes, either in the position of guns, size of the ports, 
 amount of training, mode of pivoting, or in the fitting of 
 magazines, etc. He generally pointed these things out to 
 the dockyard officers, and was generally told that these 
 points were arranged by the War Department, so he was 
 inclined to give the matter up in despair. He would be 
 very happy to carry out any arrangements that might be 
 come to in regard to his communications with the Con- 
 troller's subordinates. He did not want his opinions 
 to be considered confidential. He offered them for his 
 superiors, to treat in what manner they thought most for 
 the good of the service ; and he was quite satisfied that 
 they should be put on one side if they were found to be 
 erroneous. 
 
 This defence of his position and conduct was offered by 
 Captain Key near the close of 1865, but it was far from 
 leading towards a better understanding. In fact a better 
 understanding was not possible, because of the oldness of 
 the bottles into which the new wine was being poured. 
 
 There was a rankling and a growing sore that for a 
 long time Captain Key had been rubbing without knowing 
 that it existed. Early in 1864, Commander R. A. E. 
 Scott, as already mentioned, had brought forward his plans 
 for mounting heavy guns. Captain Key and the officers of 
 the Excellent had at best supported them with limited 
 warmth, and had never committed themselves to proposing 
 their adoption in every detail. But from some early date 
 the Controller and his department had seen in the entire 
 adoption of Scott's plans a solution of all the difficulties by 
 which the gun-mounting question was surrounded. Thus 
 every limited commendation that came into office from the 
 Excellent seemed to be the expression of a hopeless 
 antagonism, and in the mind of the Controller placed the 
 captain of the Excellent and Commander Scott in personal 
 rivalry, in which the latter was to be supported at all 
 hazards. 
 
362 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 In the middle of July 1866 a letter from Devonport 
 unofficially informed Captain Key that, in the cases of the 
 new ironclads, Ocean, Zealous, and Achilles, alterations in 
 the mode of traversing and transporting carriages and slides, 
 proposed by Commander Scott, were ordered to be carried 
 out. These fittings differed entirely in principle and detail 
 from those established after such long and careful experi- 
 ment. Key presently learned that Commander Scott had 
 been appointed by the Admiralty to assist the Controller in 
 gunnery fittings. This was a climax, and Captain Key 
 spoke out. 
 
 It had been the custom, he said, since the establishment 
 of the Excellent for the instruction of officers and seamen, to 
 refer all questions connected with ordnance and armament 
 fittings for the opinion of her captain, in order that he might 
 afford the Admiralty the benefit of his experience and that of 
 the officers of the ship as to the effect any alterations might 
 have on the instruction of our men in the exercise of the 
 guns, and the efficiency or otherwise of the proposals as 
 regarded the offensive power of a ship's armament. The 
 mode of proceeding seemed to have been wisely adopted, 
 as a uniform system is a necessity for the efficiency of 
 our fleet, and the opinion of those whose attention is 
 closely directed to one point cannot fail to be of some 
 service. 
 
 Captain Key certainly deprecated the idea that the 
 opinion of the captain of the Excellent, or any other sub- 
 ordinate, should be considered in any way as final ; the 
 decision must, of course, in all cases rest with the Board of 
 Admiralty ; but, so long as an officer in this position retains 
 their Lordships' confidence, his opinion, Captain Key 
 assumed, would be sought for. If the system is aban- 
 doned, it was evident that the captain of the Excellent no 
 longer retained their Lordships' confidence. 
 
 Captain Key had, in his present position, been employed 
 for three years — in addition to his ordinary duties — in the 
 endeavour to improve the mode of working heavy guns on 
 the broadsides of our ships, and to introduce a system for 
 working guns of much greater weight than had been con- 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863- 1866 363 
 
 templated. His endeavours had been mainly assisted by 
 the able and experienced officers of the ship ; and though 
 at this time the armaments appear to be in an inextricable 
 state of confusion, owing to the expedients which we had 
 been obliged to adopt for immediate service, the experi- 
 ments and careful consideration of the past two years had 
 now placed us in a position to decide for the future, and to 
 adopt a system of guns, ammunition, shells, fuses, carriages, 
 and slides, combined with the instruction and exercise 
 necessary for the efficient use of these weapons, which, he 
 believed, would place us much in advance of any foreign 
 Power. 
 
 For the introduction of this system one department 
 must be responsible, or we should never extricate ourselves 
 from the confusion existing. Above all, there should be a 
 close communication between the Controller's and Gunnery 
 Departments, or the armament of the fleet cannot progress. 
 He scarcely needed to point out to their Lordships that the 
 arrangements made with regard to Captain Scott would 
 increase the difficulties of his position, and prevent the 
 introduction of one uniform system of armament. 
 
 While he deeply regretted the loss of their Lordships' 
 confidence, which such a course indicated, he could not but 
 express an opinion that, unless such an important element 
 in our national strength was retained under the direction of 
 one department, serious disasters must ensue. He therefore 
 most respectfully urged on their Lordships to appoint some 
 officer to fill his position in whom their confidence could be 
 placed ; and, while deploring the want of success of his 
 labours of the last three years, and of the officers who had 
 so unweariedly aided him, he begged to offer his services 
 for any post, or command, the duties of which their Lord- 
 ships might consider him capable of conducting. 
 
 Without doubt, this climax was the inevitable con- 
 sequence of the anomalous condition. At the Admiralty it 
 had not probably been perceived how impossible it would 
 be to maintain two gunnery referees holding opposite 
 opinions, in office ; and, of course, Captain Key was so 
 absolutely in the right, and was known by the whole ser- 
 
364 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 vice to be so, that there was nothing for it but to smooth 
 over the difficulty, and to consider some fresh arrangements 
 which might get rid of the anomalies. 
 
 In his letter of remonstrance and resignation, Captain 
 Key had specified ammunition, shells, and fuses as matters 
 with which he had had to deal in addition to those leading 
 developments of guns and their mountings which have been 
 shown to occupy so much of his thought. As a fact, the 
 subsidiary questions to be dealt with daily were almost 
 infinite in their number and variety ; and the difficulties in 
 dealing with them were quadrupled from the disjointed 
 character of all ordnance administration, and the number of 
 separate authorities who had to be convinced before any- 
 thing could be done. A mere glance through the classes of 
 subjects dealt with is sufficient to show the enormous 
 amount of thought and work involved, and the hopelessness 
 of keeping up in actual practice with the theoretical spirit 
 of progress that was abroad. 
 
 Apart from guns and their mountings, and the trials of 
 armour-plates, we have fuses, rockets, sights, friction tubes, 
 bolts for armour-plates, target ships, backing for armour- 
 plates, fire screens, obsolete gear, cartridges, shell boxes, 
 shot plugs, shrapnel shell, fixed floating batteries, small 
 arms, hollow shot, muzzle disparts, pistols, magazines, hand- 
 spikes, photographs, submarine guns, breech-loading rifles, 
 shell extractors, case and grape, boats' magazines, explosive 
 bullets, high-angle fire, sponges and worms, shot supply, 
 cutlasses, gun drill, steam launches, submarine attack, life- 
 saving, gunnery books, electricity, light-balls, lighting decks 
 in action, bugle signals, protecting rudders, manoeuvring 
 powers of ships, special gunboats, armoured decks. Such 
 a list as this gives some slight idea of the enormous 
 catalogue of subjects which came under his ken, and the 
 progress or condemnation of which fell under Captain Key's 
 influence. In all these minor subjects the treatment he 
 gave to them was governed by those rules which he had set 
 up as captain of the Steam Reserve at Devonport. He was 
 always for the medium course — he was always for simplifi- 
 cation ; for the weeding out of what was obsolete ; and for 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 365 
 
 the endeavour to make one thing do the duty of two where 
 it was possible. 
 
 But amongst this list were great questions where he 
 was the originator, and where that fact is altogether forgotten 
 by the service. In the matter of small arms, for instance, 
 he was, as early as May 1864, urgent for the adoption of 
 breech-loading rifles for the navy, without waiting for any 
 concurrence by the army. He reported most favourably 
 on the advantages of the Montstorm rifle, and suggested 
 how its defects might be remedied. In August the only 
 defect remaining in it was the large proportion of miss-fires. 
 In October the only defect was its want of accuracy, but 
 he declared it was accurate enough for the navy, and it 
 ought to be adopted on account of its general advantages. 
 In November he was ready to fall in with other views in 
 regard to the Burton rifle — evidently looking to get some 
 breech - loading rifle for the navy without delay. In 
 December Westley-Richard's rifle came into notice, and 
 he thought the real point was to compare it with Mont- 
 storm's. But the army question hindered. Nothing was 
 done; and in April 1865 he urged that something should 
 be done. Nevertheless, the matter dragged on. For the 
 navy it was not one of heavy expense, and the point was 
 to get a sufficiently effective weapon without delay. For 
 the army it was a fundamental question, and it was held 
 that the navy should wait. By May 1866 the competition 
 was between the Remington and the Snider; and the 
 economy offered by Snider's system, as existing navy rifles 
 could be adapted to it, gave it great weight. Nevertheless, 
 in Captain Key's opinion, as the delay had been ostensibly 
 to get the most efficient weapon, the Remington should not 
 be put aside on that account. But in July there was 
 a great conversion of Enfield rifles to the Snider plan 
 ordered, and yet that rifle had never been tried on board 
 ship, or in a seaman's hand. The final decision seems to 
 have been come to before Key left the Excellent) but he 
 scarcely had a voice in it. 
 
 The value of high-angle fire, which is now so well 
 understood, seems first to have been drawn attention to by 
 
3 66 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Captain Key. He had made careful experiments with 
 mortar practice, and had ascertained that 20 to 31 per 
 cent, of the shell fired would strike the Royal Sovereign at 
 1800 yards, and a much larger proportion at shorter 
 ranges. He desired, in August 1864, that the attention of 
 the Fortification Department should be drawn to the facts. 
 
 Captain Key was keenly alive to the possible develop- 
 ment of submarine attack. The subject had been brought 
 into great prominence by the American Civil War, and 
 many proposals for dealing with it were put before him. 
 A submarine rocket, which Captain Key called " a locomo- 
 tive torpedo," attracted much of his attention in November 
 1864, but an "elaborated spar torpedo" was not 
 thought worth trial in February 1865. A plan of a 
 submarine gun, submitted later in the month, he did not 
 think feasible, but he could not " condemn the notion of 
 submarine guns and torpedoes," though he did not think 
 it would be advantageous to " construct vessels which could 
 be applied to no purpose, and with which our men could 
 not be exercised till war commenced." 
 
 It is probably little known that Captain Key was the 
 originator of the Staunch class of gunboat, but he appears 
 to have been. 1 In January 1866 he pointed out the 
 necessity of making some arrangement for easily trying 
 heavy guns in a sea-way, and proposed that a gunboat 
 should be fitted for this purpose, to carry the gun in 
 the bow. But then he went on to draw attention to the 
 efficient protection that a flotilla of small vessels, smaller 
 than our gunboats, each armed with a 9-inch M.L.R. gun, 
 without armour-plates of any sort, would afford to Spithead 
 at a very small cost. They could spread themselves over the 
 shoals, and, while each of their shot would tell on an enemy, 
 they would be very difficult to hit at 2000 yards distance. 
 If sunk by a chance shot, the crew could escape in their 
 boat, and the vessel could be raised at any future time. 
 
 In this proposal Captain Key took the limited strate- 
 gical view which most men took at that time, and which 
 many men still hold to. It did not occur to him that 
 1 Unless Mr. Rendel may have influenced Key's mind. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— i 863-1 866 367 
 
 before such vessels could be called into action, there must 
 have been imperial collapse, and possibly, if not probably, 
 nothing to defend. But he must have communicated his 
 views to his friend Mr. George Rendel of the Elswick 
 Ordnance Company, for at the end of the ensuing March he 
 enclosed to the Admiralty the plans of such a vessel as 
 proposed by Mr. Rendel, and recommended their adoption. 
 The result, as is well known, was the Staunch class of 
 gunboat, and the provision of a considerable number of 
 them for coast defence. 
 
 It was certainly a surprise to me to find that Captain 
 Key was the originator of the system of armoured decks, 
 especially as largely adopted by the French, and in our 
 own cruisers of the Aurora class, but it does not seem to be 
 doubtful. He raised the question on 15th May 1865, and, 
 asking for experiments with i-inch horizontal armour, he 
 supposed that shot would be deflected by it if the ship were 
 not rolling heavily. The importance of such a protection, he 
 said, if it were found effective, would be that an armoured 
 belt of great thickness, extending from a little above the 
 water-line to four feet below it, would, combined with the 
 plated deck joining its upper edges, render the ship unsink- 
 able, and effectually protect all her vital parts. Corre- 
 spondence followed, and trials of deflecting plates were 
 made, which, proving successful, led to the adoption of the 
 plan in many varied forms. 
 
 It was one thing to be instrumental in carrying out the 
 change in armament from a larger number of lighter guns 
 to a smaller number of heavier guns ; it was another thing 
 to arrange in what positions these guns ought to be carried 
 on board the ship. We have seen Captain Key accepting 
 the argument in favour of the turret system, that the wide 
 arc of training gave to the turret ship a power of placing 
 herself in regard to an enemy's ship with broadside guns 
 only, so as to have the latter at a disadvantage. This 
 involved the tactical question directly, which the change in 
 the character of the ordnance only involved indirectly. 
 Was the abstract question of any value? Was it possible 
 for the turret ship to avail herself of this advantage, 
 
368 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 supposing it existed? It was hardly possible to avoid 
 asking the question. Captain Key may be said to have 
 turned it over in his mind, but he does not appear to have 
 thought out the fundamental tactical propositions any more 
 than others of his day. 1 It is both useful and interesting 
 to note what he said upon the subject. 
 
 The first time since 1850 that we meet his opinions on 
 this head is in September 1 863, when he says that it is " of 
 very great importance " for armour-clads " to fire in fore-and- 
 aft direction, and every direction, under cover " — a general 
 proposition which, of course, was understood to be balanced 
 by the question of the proportionate sacrifice that might 
 have to be made for it. The question does not appear to 
 have been raised at all in 1864, but in October 1865 he 
 urged the necessity — in a particular ship — of having 
 " some protection to the bow and stern, if attacked in these 
 positions by an armour-plated ship." In January 1866 he 
 recommends that broadside guns, which are to act as chase 
 guns — the plan to be adopted in the Hercules — should have 
 twenty or thirty additional rounds of ammunition. In 
 April his opinion was asked on a bow and stern armament 
 proposed by the Controller's Department; he could see 
 many objections, but could not suggest a remedy until the 
 entire plan and armament of the ship was before him. In 
 the same month he commended a plan adopted in the 
 Favourite of commanding bow and quarter fire from battery 
 ports. It is not, however, till the 27th of June 1866 that 
 we have a full expression of opinion in favour of powerfully 
 arming the bows and sterns of ships, and his reasons for 
 that view. Difficulties, he said, had been found in bringing a 
 gun from the Royal Alfred* to bear on the Bellerophon and 
 on the Royal Sovereign 3 during the late experiments, 4 which 
 showed the necessity of arming the extremities, especially in 
 armour-clads, with few heavy guns. In single action it was 
 very desirable not to allow an enemy to rake the ship with 
 impunity, as many circumstances might arise to prevent the 
 
 1 Or than he had done in 1850. See p. 216. 
 
 2 Presumably at anchor. » Presumably at the same time. 
 4 When the Royal Sovereign was fired on. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 369 
 
 broadside guns being brought to bear on her; but in a 
 general action it was a point of vital importance. It might 
 be assumed as certain that in a general action a ship would 
 be almost constantly engaged with two adversaries at once ; 
 she would therefore, while engaging one opponent on the 
 broadside, find another taking up a position on her quarter, 
 bow, or stern, or wherever a point of impunity could be 
 found. This point of impunity should not exist : a ship 
 could not be considered to be effectually armed unless she 
 could bring at least two guns to bear on every point of the 
 horizon, either by training them in the ports in which they 
 are carried, or by readily traversing them to other ports. 
 The Royal Alfred and Hector were quite incapable of coping 
 with a second ship in a general action which might have 
 selected any point for attack more than 30° before or abaft 
 the beam, as they had no bow or stern guns. Attention 
 was necessary to these points, to enable a ship armed on 
 the broadside system to compete with one carrying her 
 guns in turrets. The principal advantage of the latter 
 consisted in enabling each gun to be brought to bear on 
 nearly every point of the horizon. The advantage of the 
 former system should be that guns were at all times point- 
 big in every direction : if this were lost sight of, ships armed 
 on the broadside must gradually give place to turrets. 
 
 These were the arguments which carried the navy with 
 them. They, of course, strengthened the position of the 
 advocates of turrets ; but they also set Mr. (afterwards Sir 
 Edward) Reed to carry out the principle in the Iron Duke 
 class and the Sultan, and no doubt induced that absolutely 
 complete adoption of it in such ships as the French 
 Devastation, and in our purchased ships Belleisle and Orion. 
 It was a very small step from these arguments to minimise 
 the value of the broadside guns altogether, and to exalt the 
 value of " end-on " fire, as was done later in the Inflexible. 
 
 But though the arguments carried all this weight, and 
 are perhaps almost to this day thought sound, it must 
 not be forgotten that those on the other side were not 
 stated. In the first place, all experience was against them. 
 It was obvious that if they applied at all, they must apply 
 24 
 
37o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 with greater force to sailing than to steam vessels. It was 
 a question of mobility. If the one ship or the two ships 
 had powers of placing themselves as described, was the 
 ship attacked compelled to maintain for an instant her 
 disadvantageous position? Were not her powers as a 
 sailing ship to move out of such a position immeasurably 
 less than they were when she was a steamer? Yet the 
 wars of a couple of centuries had never raised the question 
 in regard to sailing ships, and the bows and sterns had 
 always remained unarmed. Two steam battles had been 
 fought, — the battle of Heligoland, and the duel between 
 the Alabama and the Kearsarge, — and in neither was the 
 question raised. A month after Captain Key wrote, the 
 battle of Lissa was fought, and still the question was not 
 raised. The battle of Yalu has since been fought, where, 
 if the question has been raised at all, it has condemned all 
 sacrifices for the sake of " end-on " fire. 
 
 But, then, was it logical to raise so important an issue 
 without experiment ? Was the obvious fact that an ordinary 
 broadside ship could not engage a ship ahead and astern of her 
 if she were deprived of motion, or was without springs on her 
 cables if at anchor, a good argument ? Was it not at least 
 necessary to show on paper that positions of ships, or fleets, 
 could be taken up as suggested, and could not be counter- 
 acted by movements on the other side? Doubtless, there 
 was breadth in such an argument, but it might be said that it 
 wanted depth; and if so, it was characteristic of Captain 
 Key's mind, as that of an administrator dealing with the 
 practical wants of the moment, rather than of the philosopher 
 dealing with causes and effects which were fundamental. 
 
 Captain Key, however, had no idea that his arguments 
 would become the base of an Inflexible, nor did he desire 
 to exalt in any way the power of bow and stern batteries 
 to the disparagement of the broadside. Not long before 
 he quitted the Excellent, in August 1896, he put on paper 
 a resume* of his ideas of warship design, which afterwards, 
 when he went to the Admiralty, was, or became, the essence 
 of the plan upon which the Collingwood was built, and there- 
 fore the basis of the great battleship fleet which followed her. 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1S63-1866 371 
 
 He was of opinion that too much importance had of 
 late years been attached to the following points : — 
 
 1. The protection of our men's lives in action from the 
 effect of the enemy's fire. 
 
 2. The attainment of great speed in ships forming a 
 fleet intended to take part in a general action. 
 
 3. The power of shells in setting a ship on fire to a 
 dangerous extent. 
 
 4. The use of a pilot-house or tower for the protection 
 of the captain and other officers. 
 
 Regarding the protection of men by armour-plating, he 
 said that it was evident that a small body of men could 
 better defend themselves against the attack of a large 
 number by seeking the protection either of a fortification 
 on land, or thick armour-plates at sea ; but it appears also 
 evident that their offensive powers are in both cases simi- 
 larly hampered. A weak maritime power should therefore 
 construct vessels of great defensive strength, while powerful 
 nations, wishing to command the sea, must look principally 
 to the offensive power of their fleets. 
 
 Ordnance that would be used in a future naval war 
 would readily penetrate the Bellerophorts side with shell at 
 a thousand yards, her battery being the best protected of 
 any ship afloat. 
 
 If shot and shell could penetrate armour-plating to the 
 battery deck, the effect would be greater than if the side 
 were unarmoured, and the damage would be more difficult 
 to repair. Sea-going ships could not be protected at all 
 points with armour of such thickness as would resist heavy 
 ordnance, and hardened projectiles, without a great sacrifice 
 of other qualities. 
 
 Naval history taught us that ships were rarely captured 
 in consequence of the number of men killed on either side, 
 but usually by masts falling, or rudder being disabled, the 
 ship thus becoming unmanageable — or being sunk, or 
 carried by boarding. 1 
 
 1 I think this is an error. A close examination of the causes of victory in 
 sea-fights shows them to follow proportions of killed and wounded more per- 
 sistently—except in steam battles— than any other event. 
 
372 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 In view of these considerations, Captain Key said he 
 would prefer to afford perfect protection to the vital parts 
 of the ship, such as the water-line, the rudder and steering 
 gear, the engines, screw, and magazines, and utilise all 
 other available weight and space by adding to the offensive 
 power of the armament on every point. 
 
 Regarding speed in a fleet, he said that the actual 
 speed of a fleet depended on the speed of any ship which 
 might have her tubes foul, or the machinery in any way 
 partially disabled or defective. The line-of-battle could 
 therefore never move at high speeds, that is, above 1 1 or 12 
 knots. This was true even when chasing or being chased. 
 In a general action, high speed was of little importance ; 
 rapid manoeuvring power being of far more value. Great 
 speed could only be ensured by sacrificing handiness, or 
 stowage, or power of armament ; each of which was of 
 more importance in a fleet than one or two extra knots of 
 speed. 
 
 He referred only to ships forming the line-of-battle. A 
 flying squadron attached to a fleet, and cruising for de- 
 stroying the enemy's commerce and protecting our own, 
 should have as much speed as could be attained. The 
 Warrior class formed a squadron of fast ships, but were not 
 suited for line-of-battle. The line-of-battle should consist 
 of ships of about 12-knot speed, of about 280 feet in 
 length, and armed in all points with as many heavy guns as 
 they could carry; all the ships being as similar to each 
 other as possible, both as regards speed and other qualities. 
 
 Touching the power of shells to set a ship on fire, he 
 said that he did not wish to underrate the effect of shells 
 bursting in a ship's side or between decks ; the moral effect 
 on the men, the inconvenience of the smoke, and the 
 destruction of life must be very serious. But it was 
 generally considered that they would inevitably set fire to 
 a wooden ship, which could not therefore, under any cir- 
 cumstances, stand against them. He considered that if 
 proper precautions were taken to extinguish the fire in 
 every part of the ship without the ship's company leaving 
 their quarters, as had lately been adopted throughout the 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 373 
 
 service, no fire caused by the instantaneous explosion of a 
 shell could gain ground to a dangerous extent. 
 
 He had witnessed the explosion of two hundred and 
 ninety-five shells in the America and Alfred} varying in 
 size from 150-pounders to 20-pounders; and although he 
 generally fired twenty shells without visiting the ship, only 
 in one instance was she set on fire to any extent. This 
 was caused by a shell bursting in the side where a previous 
 shell had splintered the planking. The draught through 
 the aperture produced flame, which was put out with a few 
 buckets of water, although it had been burning for nearly 
 half an hour. An efficient fire-brigade acting independently 
 of the quarters, would obviate all danger of a ship being set 
 on fire by the enemy's shell. 
 
 Some of the Lords of the Admiralty had had personal 
 experience on this point before Sevastopol in 1854, and 
 could probably confirm this opinion, which had been formed 
 after closely questioning many officers and men engaged 
 on that occasion. 
 
 As to the necessity for a pilot-house, 2 it had been 
 considered necessary to furnish armour-clad ships with a 
 protected pilot-house, which was supposed to afford shelter 
 to the captain and other officers during an action. He was 
 decidedly of opinion that such a provision was not only 
 needless, but harmful. It was not possible to handle a ship 
 efficiently, or to direct a fleet, from such a position ; while 
 the risk incurred by a captain was less than formerly. He 
 was now opposed to ships carrying ten guns on their 
 broadside instead of fifty, while a small shot will injure 
 quite as much as a large one, the rapidity of fire being also 
 lessened. He also escaped much of the danger from shells, 
 as there was nothing in the vicinity of the bridge to burst 
 concussion shells, which would be invariably used against 
 ships. He would certainly be exposed to rifle fire, and should 
 be afforded the protection of a rifle screen of f-inch iron in 
 various positions, from any of which he could handle the ship. 
 
 He submitted that the weight of the pilot-tower of the 
 
 1 Two of the Excellent 's target ships, 
 
 2 Now called a "conning-tower." 
 
374 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Bellerophon — nearly ioo tons — would be better occupied 
 by eight 7-inch M.L.R. guns, which with all their ammuni- 
 tion would weigh about the same; while it was doubtful 
 whether the tower would effectually resist the fire of heavy 
 ordnance. 
 
 He was aware that his opinions were at variance with 
 those of a large portion of experienced officers in the naval 
 service. He submitted them with deference, but they had 
 been carefully considered ; and, as far as decisive opinions 
 could be formed without the experience of actual warfare, 
 he firmly believed that his views would be found to have an 
 important bearing on future naval actions. 
 
 Of course we can see that this did not necessarily 
 follow, because there might not occur any naval actions to 
 be governed by them. But they might immediately govern 
 design ; and Captain Key went on to sketch the designs 
 which would suit his principles. He suggested the follow- 
 ing points for consideration in the construction of our 
 ships intended to form the fleet which was to command 
 the seas — for he imagined that it could not be disputed 
 that England existed as a first-rate Power solely by her 
 maritime supremacy, which was not to be maintained by a 
 defensive fleet: — 
 
 1. Ships to engage in line-of-battle should not be of 
 greater length than 300 feet, in order that they should be 
 capable of rapid manoeuvring. 
 
 2. They should not be encumbered with engines and 
 boilers beyond what is required to ensure \2\ knots speed 
 at the measured mile when fully equipped. 
 
 3. The water-line should be protected by a belt of eight 
 inches of iron, extending five feet below and two feet above 
 her load-line — a deck of i-inch iron-plating and six inches 
 of planking being placed on a level with, or a little below, 
 its upper edge. 
 
 4. The rudder should enter below the water-line; the 
 tiller, rudder, and steering gear, except the wheel, being 
 protected by the belt. 
 
 5. The armament on the gun-deck should consist of 
 heavy guns on slides — 12-ton guns in the midship ports, 
 
THE EXCELLENT— 1863-1866 375 
 
 and lighter guns towards the extremities ; each gun to 
 train through an arc of at least 7 2°. 
 
 6. On the upper-deck, two guns on a turn-table before 
 the foremast, two others similarly mounted abaft the mizzen- 
 mast. No armour-plates were to be on the turn-tables, but 
 rifle-proof protection afforded to the men. The rollers and 
 training gear to be protected as much as possible by the 
 upper-deck beams and deck. These tables might either 
 revolve inside a bulwark with ports, or the bulwark might be 
 attached to the turn-table. 
 
 7. No armoured pilot-house, but various positions on 
 each side covered by rifle-proof screens, affording a clear 
 view ahead and astern, with speaking-tubes to the wheel 
 and engine-room. 
 
 As regarded cruising frigates and smaller vessels for the 
 protection of commerce, great speed was indispensable. 
 Many of these vessels might be rendered much more 
 formidable by a water-line belt and iron deck ; but he would 
 in no case place armour-plating elsewhere than on the 
 water-line, which should not be of less thickness than six 
 inches. The gunboats for shallow or inland waters should 
 carry one heavy 'gun, firing ahead ; without armour-plating, 
 except against rifles, according to the plan that has been 
 already noticed. 
 
 Captain Key, even as early as this, did not see clearly 
 how the sails were to be retained. He did not even then 
 think them of propulsive advantage to the ship ; but he 
 pleaded that the training of seamen by means of " a full 
 rig" should not be forgotten. 
 
 The historical value of this summary of views on tactics, 
 armament, and design will be seen later on. Its biographi- 
 cal value lies in its adherence to those characteristics we 
 have been so long noticing, namely, the utterance of ideas 
 which are generally perfectly sound from the administrative 
 point of view, where doing the best under the conditions was 
 the object, but which do not pursue the subject to any 
 further point. He was well in advance of the opinion of 
 his day, but he stopped short at any examination of whither 
 it was being led or going. Perhaps the best example of 
 
376 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 this is found in the opinion expressed as to its being better 
 to leave the guns' crews unprotected, except from rifle fire, 
 than to try to shield them with armour that could be pene- 
 trated. This was an opinion that long held its own, and 
 is only yielding now by slow degrees. It was obviously 
 founded on the idea of ships carrying the traditional arma- 
 ment of a number of guns of medium calibre. It might 
 well be that, so long as such guns could penetrate the 
 armour carried and there were no other guns, it would be 
 better to have no armour covering the gun-deck. But the 
 point was, that if the gun-deck were denuded of armour, 
 the opponent would take out his medium guns and arm 
 himself with a multitude of small guns, whose shot or shell 
 would be far more destructive, because of the increased 
 number of hits on the unarmoured side, than the few hits 
 that penetrated the armoured side from the medium guns. 
 
 But in any case, whether this sketch influenced the 
 future, or whether it only forecast the working of the naval 
 mind in face of the facts, it is plain to be seen that it was, 
 in a general way, a sketch of the conditions of things thirty 
 years in front of the writer. 
 
 There is but one point more to be touched on before I 
 close this chapter. We have seen the hopelessness of the 
 organisation for dealing with all this flood and rush of 
 change. Captain Key was in perpetual difficulty and 
 conflict with it, and though so well conscious that the matter 
 could only be put right at the large end, he proposed, in 
 November 1865, to transfer the gun wharves at the ports 
 from the War Office to the Admiralty. There was, indeed, 
 every reason for it. The vast mass of the stores laid apart 
 there were naval stores ; such factories as existed at the 
 wharves were employed on naval work. It was mere tra- 
 dition which had left all this in hands other than those of 
 the navy. The thing was, in fact, too patent to be allowed 
 to go through for the time ; and when Captain Key was 
 asked, in February 1866, to furnish a more detailed scheme, 
 and could not do more than offer a general sketch as to the 
 personnel and material changes he thought would be neces- 
 sary, the plan slumbered for many years — till October 1 891. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BETWEEN THE EXCELLENT AND THE ADMIRALTY — 
 i 866-1 879 
 
 THIS chapter, though it embraces so long a period, and 
 covers so much change in Sir Cooper Key's sur- 
 roundings, must yet be touched lightly and briefly 
 in each part, because during the sixteen years he had less 
 influence on the navy, except perhaps in the matter of educa- 
 tion, than at any time since his early days. He went from 
 the Excellent to be Director of Naval Ordnance at the Ad- 
 miralty ; from there he passed, after a short service in com- 
 mand of the Reserve Fleet, to be Admiral Superintendent of 
 Portsmouth Dockyard ; from thence he was removed, under 
 a remarkable cloud, to be Superintendent of Malta Dockyard ; 
 he was then brought home to establish and start the Naval 
 College at Greenwich ; afterwards he commanded on the 
 North American and West India station and on his return 
 served for a short time in command of the Reserve Squadron 
 in the Channel, and finally passed into the Admiralty in 1 879. 
 All these appointments, except that of Director of Naval 
 Ordnance and President of the Naval College, were in the 
 routine, and did not generally call for more than routine 
 abilities or energy. After the Steam Reserve at Devonport 
 and the command of the Excellent \ the other offices were of 
 smaller account, and must rather in times of peace be 
 taken as rest after previous labours, than as any continu- 
 ance of the wearing struggle that has been summarised in 
 the preceding chapter. 
 
 The necessity for the creation of a Department of Naval 
 Ordnance had long been admitted. Some months before 
 
 Key left the Excellent the matter was debated in the public 
 
 377 
 
37 S MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 press, and it was generally assumed that he would be the 
 first holder of the new office. He himself, though uphold- 
 ing the necessity of placing an officer at the Admiralty as 
 Director of Naval Ordnance, deprecated his own appoint- 
 ment. In the first place, although we have seen him so 
 active in the control and improvement of the material of 
 the navy, he used always to let his friends know that his 
 heart was on the sea with his flag up. Over and over again 
 he had, as a captain, enlarged to me on the glories of the 
 active flag at sea, and how the highest object of any naval 
 officer's ambition should be to command a fleet against the 
 enemy. So there was a sense of disappointment in the 
 prospect of a third term of administration in matters of 
 material, though, of course, continuance of employment 
 was welcome, if not necessary, to a man with a family and 
 of small fortune. 
 
 But almost obviously he foresaw difficulties peculiar to 
 him personally. It was quite necessary that the Director 
 of Naval Ordnance should be a subordinate of the Con- 
 troller's Department. The whole of the difficulties with the 
 Admiralty, while he was in the Excellent, had arisen from 
 his anomalous position with regard to the Controller ; yet 
 it did not seem certain that his intended position at the 
 Admiralty would be as definite as could be wished. He 
 was to be " in immediate communication with the Director 
 of Ordnance at the War Office, the Director of Stores at the 
 War Office, the Controller of the Navy, and with the Board 
 of Admiralty, through the Secretary and the naval member 
 of the Board, on whom devolved the superintendence of 
 gunnery questions." 
 
 Clearly, very little could be decided as to guns for the 
 navy, except with the concurrence of the Controller. If 
 the opinions of the Director of Naval Ordnance should 
 differ from those of the Controller, there was really no one 
 to decide but the Naval Lord in charge of gunnery ques- 
 tions, or the Board itself. The office, indeed, was to be 
 changed. The captain of the Excellent would be relieved of 
 those difficulties which had beset Captain Key, but Captain 
 Key might chance to be more in the thick of them than ever. 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 379 
 
 Vice-Admiral Spencer Robinson, the Controller, was a 
 man of a temperament almost the opposite of that of 
 Captain Key. He had a quick temper, while Key's was 
 remarkably even. He was an advanced Liberal in politics, 
 and a very strong politician. Key, as I have said, seldom 
 showed political bias. Robinson was much inclined to 
 stick to his point at all hazards ; Key had a remarkably 
 open and yielding mind on all but the few points that he 
 considered vital. Robinson took strong likes and dislikes 
 to men ; Key was not a good hater. He must have fore- 
 seen that he was about to fill a post that would be in some 
 of its personal relations far from pleasant ; and in its official 
 relations delicate and difficult. But to absolutely refuse 
 the post, when the importance to the public service of his 
 filling it was pressed upon him, was not in his nature. He 
 was appointed " acting Director General " of Naval Ordnance 
 on the 3rd of September 1866, with the pay of a Rear- 
 Admiral, and with a paymaster in the navy to assist him 
 as secretary. He was informed that his duties would be 
 " to decide, in personal communication with the Director of 
 Ordnance (at the War Office), all matters of detail connected 
 with naval ordnance, with a view to bring about a speedy 
 decision." He was to " arrange with the Director of Ord- 
 nance when it might be desirable that experiments should 
 take place on board ship, as well as at Shoeburyness " ; and 
 he was to see " that the experiments were carried out in 
 such a manner as would give the necessary information to 
 the Select Committee. Those points which could not be 
 determined by him and the Director of Stores (at the War 
 Office) would be settled between their Lordships and the 
 Secretary of State for War, and notified officially in the 
 usual way to the War Department." He was to under- 
 stand that the appointment was only temporary. 
 
 As a matter of historical fact, Captain Key's business 
 at the Admiralty was more to see that what had been done 
 went on in the right direction, than to initiate new forms of 
 progress. That had all been done already in the Excellent', 
 and the advance from the 68-pounder smooth-bore cast- 
 iron gun on a wooden carriage, the pattern of which was a 
 
*8o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 o 
 
 couple of centuries old, to the 1 2-ton wrought-iron muzzle- 
 loading rifled gun, on a wrought-iron carriage, worked by 
 machinery, and from the muzzle - loading Enfield to the 
 breech-loading Snider rifle, had really settled the programme 
 for some time to come. It was no step at all after this to 
 arm the Hercules with 1 8 -ton guns ; it was merely a de- 
 velopment of what had gone before. She was not launched 
 until the 9th February 1 867, and she was not commissioned 
 till October 1868. More advanced steps, it was true, were 
 being made in the cases of the rivals, the Captain and the 
 Monarch, with 2 5 -ton guns in two turrets; but, as it has 
 been seen, Captain Key was generally against the principle 
 of both ships, his work and advice on their designs must 
 have been more or less perfunctory. He did not think 
 that guns of so great a size were necessary for the sort of 
 close action he anticipated in any future naval war, and he 
 did not approve of a great reduction in the number of guns 
 in the abstract. 
 
 Outside the Admiralty he has left no record of his 
 views on these developments of naval force, and it is much 
 too early to seek to show what went on within the office 
 where he was but a subordinate. In any case the current 
 was setting against him, and perhaps against the majority 
 of the navy at this time, for he must have been consulted 
 on the designs of the Devastation and Thunderer y which 
 were laid down in 1869, the year he left office — which were 
 developments of the unhappy Captain and Monarch ideas, 
 with sail power withdrawn, and the size of the four guns 
 increased to 35 tons. The forces that were producing 
 these ships were outside forces, and the development was 
 not as yet in the direction supported by Key in 1866. 
 
 But the admiral left behind him a copy of one official 
 document, under date September 1868, which ought to be 
 noticed. 
 
 The Ordnance Select Committee had been pressing on 
 the War Office the abstract advantages of a breech-loading 
 over a muzzle-loading system, desiring, apparently, that 
 steps should be taken towards commencing another gun 
 revolution in that direction. The War Office forwarded the 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 381 
 
 report to the Admiralty, and it was referred to the Director 
 of Naval Ordnance for consideration. 
 
 Rear-Admiral Key, under date 15th September 1868, 
 submitted the following memorandum to the Board ; and the 
 Board, in forwarding it to Sir John Pakington, the War 
 Minister, declared that they " fully concurred " in it : — 
 
 " This report of the Ordnance Select Committee on the advantages of breech- 
 loading ' in an abstract sense ' calls for little remark. That the power of load- 
 ing at the breech has some advantages is unquestioned ; but the practical questions 
 are : — (i) Is any one of the known systems of breech-loading, as applied to heavy 
 guns, so efficient as to be worthy of adoption? (2) Has any proved itself 
 sufficiently satisfactory to authorise the experiments that would be necessary to 
 ascertain its merits with guns of 10-inch calibre and upwards ? 
 
 " Looking at the very good results obtained from our own muzzle-loading 
 guns up to 12-tons weight, both as regards rapidity of fire and perfect safety, as 
 compared with the serious accidents which have happened at different times with 
 the French and Krupp's system of breech-loading, I do not hesitate to answer 
 the first question in the negative. 
 
 "With reference to the second, we are met at once by the enormous outlay 
 that would be involved in a satisfactory solution. The breech-loading system is 
 certainly not required for guns of 12-tons weight and under. We should there- 
 fore undertake the experiments with guns of 18 tons; and what system of 
 breech-loading and construction should be our starting-point ? I do not consider 
 that either the Government or the country would feel satisfied unless the experi- 
 ments were conducted on the same basis as those for breech-loading small guns, 
 viz. an invitation for universal competition. 
 
 " The cost of such a measure puts it out of the question. I do not, therefore, 
 consider that the substitution of a breech -loading system for that now adopted for 
 our naval ordnance should be seriously entertained." 
 
 I suspect that, to most readers of to-day, this memoran- 
 dum and its adoption by the Admiralty will amount to 
 evidence of a conspiracy of obstruction. I think we should 
 be hasty in so concluding. The Admiralty was only just 
 out of the wood, it may be said, in regard to its ordnance. 
 Its control of it had been fitful and incomplete. To reopen 
 the whole matter again must have seemed like rendering 
 the navy again powerless. Every responsible administrator 
 must have desired to suppress further change. 
 
 But the justification is even deeper. The one thing 
 which breech-loading was calculated to improve was energy. 
 But that was the quality the whole navy thought least of. 
 Except against armour-plates, increased energy could only 
 in theory improve the shooting. Yet it was generally 
 
382 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 believed that the accuracy of the gun was always swallowed 
 up by the unsteadiness of the platform. Key himself had 
 always asked for great shell power and close action. 
 Though the current set the other way, and carried energy 
 and long range against shell power and short range, it is 
 not easy to deny that a consistent plan of action enter- 
 tained by the navy, combined of superior speed and 
 superior shell fire at close range, as opposed to inferior 
 speed, inferior shell power, and increased energy at long 
 range, might have set the current flowing the other way. 
 It never seems to have been perceived that it never was 
 possible to uphold inferior energy unless it was accom- 
 panied by its complement, superior speed. 
 
 We must not pry, either, into the secrets of the prison- 
 house as regarded the relations between the departments of 
 the Controller and of the Director of Naval Ordnance. It 
 was common knowledge at the time that Captain Key had 
 an exceedingly difficult part to play, one which required all 
 the evenness of temper and public spirit that he possessed 
 — a state of things almost certain to occur on the bringing 
 together, with anomalous relations, of two remarkably able 
 men, overflowing with zeal and the earnest desire for the 
 public good, and each with decided, but differing views. 
 
 Captain Key became a rear-admiral in November 1866. 
 He drew his reward from the scientific world by being 
 made a Fellow of the Royal Society in the spring of 1868. 
 
 The change of Government which took place towards 
 the close of 1868, when the Right Hon. Hugh Childers 
 succeeded the Right Hon. H. T. Lowry Corry as First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, created an atmosphere at Whitehall 
 that was in every way distasteful to Admiral Key. The 
 Controller, now Sir Spencer Robinson, became a member 
 of the Board, and was understood to aid and abet to the 
 utmost of his power the tendency to place rigid economy 
 above all things else in naval administration, which was 
 immediately displayed by Mr. Childers, warmly supported 
 by the Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. W. E. Baxter, M.P. 
 Doubtless, the antagonism between the general sentiments 
 of the new First Lord and Admiral Key must have devel- 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 383 
 
 oped itself in a thousand particular antagonisms, where the 
 pressure to make economies came face to face with the pres- 
 sure to subordinate economy to efficiency. But only the usual 
 rumours reached the outside world at first. Admiral Key 
 was confirmed in his office early in 1869; but what hap- 
 pened later became the subject of debate in the House of 
 Commons. Admiral Sir John Hay spoke of it as follows : — 
 
 " When it was found necessary to create the office of 
 Director General of Naval Ordnance, Admiral Key was 
 selected for the post, and his appointment was received 
 with acclamation by the whole profession ; for, at a time 
 of great change in the art of naval gunnery, no man was 
 more capable of giving advice. When his right hon. friend 
 the member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) quitted office, he left 
 Admiral Key in that post, and supposed that his services 
 would have been very greatly to the advantage of the present 
 Board, for he was a gentleman of admirable temper and 
 engaging disposition. He was, however, dismissed from that 
 post, the only apparent reason being that the First Lord 
 was anxious to give a fresh trial to a system of ordnance, 
 and that Admiral Key thought that a fresh trial was un- 
 necessary, because he had reported that : ■ the service 
 system satisfies every requirement of the service, and it 
 would therefore be most impolitic to incur the enormous 
 expense of introducing any other, until some defect is 
 discovered in that now adopted, for which a permanent 
 remedy cannot be found.' Admiral Key, having given an 
 opinion which was counter to the wishes of certain indivi- 
 duals at the Admiralty, was removed to Portsmouth to be 
 Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard there." 
 
 Mr. Childers, in replying, declared that Sir John Hay 
 "had given a very mistaken account of what he called 
 Admiral Key's dismissal or discharge . . . because he had 
 run counter to the views of the Admiralty in regard to the 
 Whitworth guns, there being, in fact, no correspondence 
 then on the subject. There was not a word of truth in 
 that. He was simply selected after his cruise in command 
 of the coast-guard fleet at last Whitsuntide, under the eye 
 of several members of the Admiralty, for the superior office 
 
384 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 of Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, which had then 
 become vacant by the appointment of Vice- Admiral Wellesley 
 as Commander - in - Chief to the North American station. 
 Instead of being a discharge or dismissal, it was exactly the 
 reverse ; the appointment was given him, as it was believed 
 he would be anxious for it, as one of great honour and 
 advantage to him. At the time that appointment was made, 
 there was some difference of opinion among his advisers 
 as to whether it would be wiser to send Admiral Key in 
 command of the fleet, or to Portsmouth Dockyard ; and he 
 must take on himself the responsibility or blame, if it should 
 be so considered, of not giving him a foreign command." 
 
 Sir John Pakington said that " His hon. and gallant 
 friend (Sir John Hay) had used plain words. He stated 
 that Admiral Cooper Key was dismissed or sent away from 
 the office of Naval Director of Ordnance — to which he him- 
 self had the honour of appointing him — because he con- 
 sidered there would be a waste of public funds and extra- 
 vagance on the part of the Government in undertaking 
 fresh experiments with what was called the Whitworth 
 Ordnance, when we were already in possession of guns 
 performing the duty satisfactorily, and approved both by 
 the profession and the public. Such a statement as this at 
 once raised the question, Why was Admiral Cooper Key 
 deprived of the post of Naval Director of Ordnance, which 
 he held greatly to the advantage of the country ? The 
 right hon. gentleman opposite gave no satisfactory answer 
 to that question." 
 
 Without going in the least behind the scenes, the debate 
 left it perfectly clear that Captain Key had been removed 
 from the office of Director of Naval Ordnance to that of 
 Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard at a time when 
 a sea command might have been offered him, and without 
 favouring him with the usual courtesy accorded to officers 
 of his rank, as to whether such a change would be agree- 
 able to him. It remained perfectly evident that irrecon- 
 cilable divergencies of opinion had sprung up between the 
 First Lord of the Admiralty and Rear-Admiral Key. " Mr. 
 Childers did not admit," said the Times in a leading article, 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 385 
 
 " but his speech tended to deepen the impression, that the 
 true causes of Admiral Key's removal had been assigned by 
 Sir John Hay." 
 
 Some time in the spring of 1869 it was determined 
 to assemble the Channel, Mediterranean, and Reserve 
 Squadrons for a cruise, and Mr. Childers took the extra- 
 ordinary resolution of embarking the Board in one of the 
 ships, hoisting the Admiralty flag, and taking executive com- 
 mand of the combined fleets. The proceeding was perhaps 
 unprecedented ; and it certainly exhibited great confusion 
 of thought on the subject of executive and administrative 
 functions. The Admiralty as a Board is, no doubt, in the 
 end an executive as well as an administrative body, but 
 the exercise of its executive functions must, to be legal, 
 pass through a certain form. Practically, there must be 
 the signature of two Lords and a Secretary to a document 
 containing the order, before it becomes criminal to disobey 
 it. The idea of a Board of three persons being required to 
 agree before a signal can be hoisted under the Admiralty 
 flag, is at least incongruous. The admirals in command of 
 the Mediterranean Squadron, Sir Alexander Milne, and of 
 the Channel Squadron, Sir Thomas Symonds, strongly re- 
 sented the First Lord's proceeding; Admiral Key in com- 
 mand of the Reserve Squadron, with the Admiralty on board 
 the Agincourt as his hosts or his guests, and their flag flying 
 at her masthead, probably had his own opinions ; but he 
 has not left them on record. 
 
 Admiral Key joined the St. George at Portland on the 
 1 ith of May 1 869, and transferred his flag to the Agincourt 
 on the 1 3th. 1 The Admiralty flag was hoisted later, and 
 there was a cruise lasting about a fortnight. It is not 
 necessary to dwell on the nature of the cruise, but it is 
 
 1 The ships of the Reserve Squadron under Admiral Key's command were the 
 Agincourt (ironclad), Flag-Captain T. Miller ; Duncan (wooden line-of-battle ship), 
 Flag of Rear-Admiral Hornby, Captain C. Fellowes ; St. George (ditto), Captain 
 M. S. Nolloth ; Trafalgar (ditto), Captain C. K. Barnard ; Donegal (ditto), 
 Captain E. W. Tumour ; Hector (ironclad), Captain A. D. De Horsey ; Royal 
 George (wooden line-of-battle ship), Captain Robert Jenkins ; Valiant (ironclad), 
 Captain W. A. Haswell ; Mersey (wooden frigate), Captain J. Seccombe ; Cadmus 
 (wooden corvette), Captain R. Gibson ; and Scylla (ditto), Captain F. A. Herbert. 
 
 25 
 
3 86 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 certain that Mr. Childers was very much dissatisfied with 
 what he saw, and that he misapprehended the causes of 
 what he saw, that misapprehension entailing grave conse- 
 quences on the service. That point will be dwelt upon 
 presently, but it does not seem to be impossible that per- 
 sonal antagonism was developed by the close contact of 
 deck and cabin between Mr. Childers and Admiral Key, 
 which had its immediate consequences already alluded to, 
 with others to follow. 
 
 The following memorandum, written by Admiral Key 
 during the cruise, is useful as showing how ready he was 
 to be severe when he considered that the interests of the 
 service required it — 
 
 "In submitting, for the consideration of the L.C.A., the enclosed letter from 
 
 Captain of the , reporting the fetching away, while at sea, of the port 
 
 bower anchor of that ship, and to his further explanation thereon, I would call 
 attention to the great neglect shown in not having the anchor properly secured 
 at the distance of ioo miles from the land, and more especially to the interpreta- 
 tion put upon the Admiralty instructions by an officer of the standing and experi- 
 ence of Captain . I submit that it calls for a severe expression of their 
 
 Lordships' displeasure to the captain, first lieutenant, and staff commander." 
 
 Admiral Key wrote a long report, dated from the Ad- 
 miralty on 13th June 1869, on the cruise of the Reserve 
 Squadron, from which the following passages may be ex- 
 tracted as characteristic, or of historical value. 
 
 The ships assembled had been drawn from their posts 
 as flagships or coast-guard ships at the different ports, 
 where they had been in charge of skeleton crews. A large 
 portion of the lieutenants, all the coast-guard men, the 
 officers and seamen of the Royal Naval Reserve, who now 
 completed the crews, had been embarked in each ship only 
 a few days before the squadron left Portland with the 
 Admiralty flag flying on board the Agincourt. Admiral 
 Key dwelt upon the importance of converting the mixed 
 character of the Reserve Fleet, consisting of wooden ships 
 and ironclads, into one wholly of ironclads ; and he asserted, 
 practically, that the latest types of ships which were not at 
 sea should be kept ready as coast-guard and flagships at 
 home, as more immediately available, and in better order 
 than they could be in the Steam Reserves at the ports. It 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 387 
 
 is to be noted that this policy may be said to be now 
 pretty fully adopted. He then pressed the necessity of 
 assembling the Reserve Fleet regularly for an annual cruise 
 to last three or four weeks. This recommendation, it will 
 be noted, has been adopted for many years. 
 
 "This will add," he said, "to the few opportunities of exercising officers of 
 all ranks in fleet sailing, an exercise of such importance that it cannot be overrated. 
 It was evident, during our late cruise, that many of the officers in the squadron 
 had very little experience of this necessary duty, although improvement was 
 manifest every day. The captains, however, laboured under many disadvantages 
 besides want of experience in handling large ships. The officers of the watches 
 had but just joined their respective ships, and were themselves unacquainted with 
 the ships' companies. In addition to this, a new code of signals has lately been 
 established, which, though far simpler and more easy to be understood than the 
 former system, requires time and some experience to enable it to be carried out 
 with readiness and accuracy. 1 Looking, then, to the improvements that actually 
 took place during the short cruise, both as regards keeping station in order of 
 sailing, and in the performance of evolutions under steam, I am of opinion that 
 the difficulties experienced in these respects early in the cruise are due to the 
 few opportunities afforded for assembling our ships in squadrons." 
 
 There hangs, attached to these words, an historical 
 curiosity. Mr. Childers had prepared a very stringent 
 scheme of naval retirement and promotion, which, though 
 strongly upheld by many, has never yet worked satisfac- 
 torily, or done that which it was expected to do. In the 
 year 1873 I felt it my duty to publicly criticise this scheme, 
 and I specially assailed the claim that officers deteriorated 
 unless they were kept continually at sea, as historically 
 disallowed. I claimed it to be the other way, and that it 
 would be easy to overdo the keeping of naval officers con- 
 tinually at sea. 
 
 Mr. Childers in controverting my views, which were of 
 course drawn entirely from the facts of history and experi- 
 ence, while his were apparently empirical and without data 
 to support them, declared that, " except for study and an 
 occasional year's leave, every officer, in my judgment, should 
 always be actively employed, and half-pay should be re- 
 duced, in point of time, to a minimum." He concluded by 
 
 1 This was the code and system of tactics which I had the honour to design 
 for the Admiralty in 1865-66, and which had been finally issued to the service 
 under my superintendence in 1868. It has ever since maintained itself, though 
 in a developed form. 
 
388 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 saying, in allusion to the question ot which Admiral Key 
 treated: "Had you seen what I did in 1869-70, of the 
 consequences of the opposite system, when we decided to 
 keep our fleets more at sea, you would, I think, be disposed 
 to hesitate in propounding your present view." 
 
 I saw, of course, that Mr. Childers was mixing up two 
 different questions, attributing the difficulties of fleet- 
 manceuvring with a new system of tactics, by captains, 
 etc. who had not had much experience of fleet manoeu- 
 vring, and little or none of the new tactical system, to lack 
 of ordinary sea service, and much half-pay. I naturally made 
 an inquiry as to whether the officers in question had indeed 
 had little sea service, and whether they had indeed been 
 long on half-pay before taking command of their ships. I 
 sent the results to Mr. Childers. 
 
 As to the captains, there were twenty-three of them. 
 They averaged ten years' standing as captains ; twenty-six 
 and a third years' sea service ; five and a third years' sea 
 service as captains; and they had not been on half-pay 
 more, on an average, than one year and four months before 
 taking command of their ships. That is to say, that the 
 causes assigned by Mr. Childers were actually absent, so far 
 as the captains were concerned. 
 
 But the three admirals, Sir Alexander Milne, Sir Thomas 
 Symonds, and Cooper Key, were admittedly three of the 
 foremost sea-officers in the world. Sir Thomas Symonds 
 was known far and wide as the first naval tactician alive. 
 Sir Alexander Milne was in a harbour ship, or at the 
 Admiralty for ten or twelve years, before he hoisted his flag 
 to go to the West Indies. Sir Thomas Symonds was twelve 
 years on shore before he took command of the Channel 
 Fleet. Admiral Key, as we have seen, had been on shore 
 since he reached home from the Sans Pareil in 1859. 
 Yet, without question, this curious error has been allowed to 
 influence our methods of dealing with the officers of the 
 navy for the last quarter of a century or more. 1 
 
 1 The really curious point, however, is this : it is not want of sea service, but 
 want of the name being borne on a ship's books, which condemns officers to 
 retirement. Two officers may be doing precisely the same duties for a course of 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 389 
 
 Admiral Key went on to speak in very high terms of 
 the coast-guard men embarked. There were one thousand 
 six hundred and seventy- five of them, none over forty-five 
 years of age, and they were as a rule very efficient. The 
 difficulty was officers. Admiral Key submitted that gunners 
 and boatswains should be attached to the coast-guard, to 
 act as quarter-deck officers when the men were embarked. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the period of the year was incon- 
 venient for drawing on the Royal Naval Reserve, they had 
 readily volunteered, and Admiral Key was on the whole 
 well satisfied with the men, and with the practical knowledge 
 of navigation and seamanship shown by the officers. But he 
 showed that much remained to be done in the way of drills 
 and exercises before they could display their full capabilities. 
 
 Key became Rear-Admiral Superintendent of Ports- 
 mouth Dockyard in June 1 869. There is no naval office which 
 is less understood by the outside public than that of Admiral 
 Superintendent of a dockyard. While it is every now and 
 then claimed that a naval officer must fail, just because he 
 is neither an engineer nor a naval architect, it is just the 
 fact that he is neither which makes him generally fill the 
 post so well. There are many rival professions represented 
 amongst the " principal officers " of a dockyard, and, in 
 order to control the natural desire of each to enhance his 
 professional position, someone must be at the head who is 
 entirely impartial. 1 The Superintendent initiates little or 
 nothing, except what relates to the general order and 
 smooth working of the yard. Even the question of the 
 
 years in an office on shore ; but if one has had his name on a ship's books, he 
 will be allowed to remain on the active list ; if the other has not had his name so 
 borne, he must be retired. 
 
 1 Curiously enough, I had myself a complete experience of the truth of the 
 argument set out. It happened that I was for some months acting as superin- 
 tendent of a large dockyard, and, perhaps for the very reason that I was only 
 "acting," there was a tendency to disruption amongst the contending profes- 
 sional interests of the principal officers. 1 now forget what the cause was, but I 
 recollect seeing an explosion coming, and deciding how I should act when it 
 came. It did come, in an apparently very strong form ; but my entirely 
 impartial position enabled me to deal with and reconcile the conflicting views, so 
 that, when it was all over, more than one of the officers concerned expressed his 
 opinion to me that had I been a professional officer I could never have set matters 
 right. As it was, the contest never went beyond the Dockyard Board- room. 
 
39 o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 fitting of ships, which might be thought to necessarily 
 engage the attention of the Superintendent, is almost wholly 
 taken out of his hands by the captain of the Steam Reserve. 
 
 So that the Superintendent's office is almost purely ad- 
 ministrative. He decides between rival questions, and 
 especially between the naval officers in ships and the 
 dockyard officials who are superintending work upon them, 
 etc. ; but he is so much of a distributor of orders from the 
 Admiralty to the officers of the yard, and a collector of 
 reports from the officers of the yard to the Admiralty, that 
 there must be something quite out of the common way to 
 raise questions as between the Superintendent and the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
 But, whatever the cause, questions very soon began to 
 arise between the Admiralty and the Superintendent at 
 Portsmouth, which seemed in the end to become personal 
 ones between Mr. Childers and Admiral Key. The whole 
 navy, knowing Key's remarkable urbanity and conciliatory 
 temper, was astonished when rumours of these differences 
 began to be noised abroad. They were understood to have 
 to do with the receipt of stores and questions of contracts, 
 with which the economical proclivities of the First Lord 
 and the Parliamentary Secretary were known to be even 
 violently mixed up. The navy had not then, and has not 
 had to this day, any doubt about the side on which the 
 fault lay. And, looking back over the calm of twenty-eight 
 years, it is impossible not to feel that this quarrelling with 
 Cooper Key has left one of the worst blots on Mr. Childers's 
 naval administration. 
 
 Talking over it with the late admiral, I grew more and 
 more astonished as the story unfolded itself; and more 
 and more full of regret that a statesman at the head of 
 the Admiralty should not have better known what was 
 due to the high position he held. 
 
 In the end, Mr. Childers sent for Admiral Key to the 
 Admiralty and offered him another appointment, as if he 
 desired to improve his position. Admiral Key pointed 
 out that there was no position he desired then open 
 to him, and that he wished to remain where he was. 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 391 
 
 Twice — possibly three times — was this process repeated, 
 but in the end Mr. Childers sent for him and said bluntly, 
 " Admiral Key, I am going to remove you to Malta Dock- 
 yard." 
 
 Of course such a transaction became known far and 
 wide. Party spirit ran high in those days, and there was 
 a debate in the House of Commons on the 10th June 
 1870, Admiral Key's appointment to Malta dating 29th 
 May, in which a good deal of plain speaking was used. 
 This debate has been already alluded to, as Sir John Hay's 
 charge against Mr. Childers was that he had first ousted 
 Admiral Key from the post of Director of Naval Ordnance, 
 and then from that of Admiral Superintendent at Ports- 
 mouth, both against his will, and much to his personal 
 inconvenience. Mr. Childers scarcely denied the facts, 
 chiefly defending himself in matters of detail with regard 
 to stores, which were not of the gravamen of the indict- 
 ment. 
 
 However, Admiral Key went to Malta, in due course, 
 with the greatest cheerfulness, and carried out the duties 
 of an easier and less onerous post with his usual eagerness 
 and genial activity. 
 
 Only one event seems to have disturbed the even 
 tenor of the admiral's way at Malta. Early in March 
 1872 news was brought by Lieutenant Dundas of the 
 Lord Clyde (Captain John Bythesea), who had arrived by 
 a passing merchant steamer, that the ironclad was badly 
 on shore on the island of Pantellaria, some 130 miles 
 west of Malta. Key was off immediately, like a shot, 
 in the Enchantress, having ordered the Lord Warden and 
 Research to follow with lighters and appliances. He 
 reached Pantellaria at six o'clock on the morning of the 
 1 6th of March ; found the Lord Clyde landing and throw- 
 ing overboard her stores in order to lighten herself. Key 
 concerted measures with Captain Bythesea, and at eleven 
 o'clock the Lord Warden and Research with the lighter 
 having arrived, the former ship was anchored in a suitable 
 position and cables were carried out to the Lord Clyde, 
 while the work of lightening her was vigorously pursued. 
 
392 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 It was soon possible to begin to pull upon the wreck, and 
 she was moved twenty yards that evening. The same work 
 went on on the 1 7th, and, some swell setting in, a great 
 effort to pull her off was made in the afternoon. The 
 effort was happily successful, and she was safe at four 
 o'clock. Key, with his flag flying in the Lord Warden, 
 towed the Lord Clyde to her moorings in Malta harbour, 
 rudderless, but safe, at noon on the 19th of March 1872. 1 
 
 There was a pleasant interlude to Key's service at Malta, 
 for, paying a visit to Palermo, the town's-people caught 
 his name, and, some of the older inhabitants recognising 
 him, he was suddenly surprised — and he could not but 
 have been gratified — to find himself made the object of a 
 remarkable and enthusiastic demonstration and welcome. 
 
 Previous to 1870 the higher education of naval officers 
 had been much before the navy and the public. In that year 
 the buildings of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich were 
 practically lost to any prospective use, in consequence 
 of the substitution of out-pensions to the aged and worn- 
 out seamen and marines for the former plan of admis- 
 sion to the Hospital. The idea of utilising the buildings 
 for the purposes of improved naval education coalesced 
 with the desire for that improvement; and on the 28th 
 of January a committee to inquire into and report upon 
 the whole question was assembled under the presidency 
 of Rear-Admiral Charles F. A. Shadwell, C.B. The report 
 of this committee reviewed the educational systems pursued 
 in some of the principal foreign navies, and sketched the 
 former system adopted in the Royal Navy as well as that 
 existing at the date of the report. 
 
 The reference in the appointment of the committee 
 was fairly wide. It detailed the arrangements then pre- 
 vailing at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 
 regard to (1) captains, commanders, and lieutenants on 
 half-pay ; (2) lieutenants qualifying for gunnery officers ; 
 (3) engineers; (4) naval instructors; (5) marine artillery 
 
 1 The admiral was specially thanked by the Admiralty for this service, and 
 his old friend Vice-Admiral Yelverton, who was Commander-in-Chief, added his 
 own congratulations in a hearty manner. 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 393 
 
 officers ; (6) sub-lieutenants to qualify for the rank of 
 lieutenant. 
 
 The questions put were : — ( 1 ) Were there sufficient 
 facilities for study given to these officers ? (2) How should 
 the results of study be tested ; and what rewards should 
 follow success? (3) Was the college at Portsmouth suffi- 
 cient as to place, and for what purposes should the 
 buildings of a college be used? The committee was to 
 consider the vacant buildings of Greenwich Hospital in 
 connection with these points? (4) Was it desirable to 
 give officers facilities to study at Cambridge ? 
 
 In one way the committee seemed to go beyond the 
 reference, and in another way to fall short of it. It 
 reviewed the systems of earlier education in foreign navies 
 and in the British service, confining itself, however, almost 
 exclusively to the single class of executive officers. It 
 then made a series of proposals with regard to the educa- 
 tion of midshipmen and naval cadets on board ship. 
 
 It then submitted that the college at Portsmouth had 
 not succeeded as well as it might have done, on account 
 of defects in the buildings; because half-pay officers fre- 
 quently joined the college at too advanced an age ; because 
 of the inadequacy of the educational staff; because of the 
 absence of a proper system of examination for officers on 
 half-pay ; because of the want of sufficient inducements 
 being held out to officers to study ; because of the frequent 
 overcrowding of the college by temporary inmates, sub- 
 lieutenants waiting to pass their examinations. 
 
 The proposal was to exclude the sub-lieutenants from 
 residence at the college, and to make it a place of study, 
 which should be wholly voluntary for officers who had 
 passed their examinations as sub-lieutenants. Otherwise 
 the system should go on nearly as before, except that test 
 examinations should be applied before permission to study 
 at the college was granted. More prominence was to be 
 given to foreign languages ; appliances and models should 
 be supplied in greater and more efficient quantities ; the 
 educational staff should be increased ; a Board of Educa- 
 tion should be formed out of the staff of the college. Ex- 
 
394 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 aminations should be compulsory, certain advantages follow- 
 ing success, and certain disadvantages following failure. 
 
 Upon the great question of all, the committee was 
 unable to agree. The naval members strongly objected 
 to transferring the college to Greenwich, while the civil 
 members, including the Director of Naval Education, the 
 Rev. Dr. Woolley, were unanimously of the opinion that 
 Greenwich Hospital should be adopted as the naval 
 college. 
 
 Rear-Admiral Key was before this committee, and his 
 evidence fills thirteen columns. 
 
 He said he had studied at the college in every rank 
 — mate, lieutenant, commander, and captain — whenever he 
 was on half-pay, and that he had been superintendent of 
 the college for three years. He was for extending 
 education generally, and for increasing rewards for higher 
 attainments; but he said: — "One principle that I have 
 advocated ever since I have been in the service, and which 
 I feel more strongly now than I ever have, is, that it is 
 inadvisable, and would be of no use, to attempt to educate 
 highly the whole body of officers." He thought higher 
 education should only be for those who aspired to it 
 voluntarily ; but all arrangements made should be for the 
 good of the service, not for the benefit of the individual. 
 " It would be unwise to allow officers who fancy they can 
 pick up a certain amount of information to partake of the 
 advantages of a scientific institution, unless they can show 
 that they are capable of obtaining sufficient information 
 to be of use to the service." He did not believe in " pick- 
 ing up " a subject ; and would much rather see an officer 
 take up one subject and master it, than take up two or 
 three superficially. For young officers, the most important 
 matter was the inducements that could be offered to them 
 to pursue the higher education. 
 
 On the question of the inducements it might be 
 possible to offer, Key laid much stress on his proposal of 
 1862 for the abolition of the special class of navigating 
 officers. He was assured that his view was a true one ; 
 and that if higher pay and the usual promotions followed 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 395 
 
 the career of naval officers who, up to and including the 
 rank of commander, undertook navigating duties, the 
 system would prove an impulse to men to qualify in the 
 higher education desired. He was not in the least afraid 
 of the navigation or pilotage of our ships deteriorating 
 under such a system. He thought that generally the 
 higher the education of a good man was, the better he 
 would do his duty and the more valuable he would be to 
 the navy. The French officers were more scientific, as the 
 English officers were more practical ; but it did not follow 
 that English officers with higher scientific acquirements 
 would be less practical than before. 
 
 The scope of the questions put to Admiral Key was 
 somewhat narrow, and they bore perhaps as much on the 
 earlier as on the higher and later education, which was alone 
 properly before the committee. At that time the arrange- 
 ment was that cadets spent two years in the Britannia, and 
 then as midshipmen, one year in a sea-going training ship, 
 before taking their places in a regular man-of-war. 
 Admiral Key was of opinion that under these conditions, 
 or at anyrate if the time in training ships was somewhat 
 increased, there would be no need to supply naval 
 instructors afloat, except in flagships for the purpose of 
 holding examinations into the progress made by the young 
 officers in following up what had been taught. 
 
 Owing, perhaps, to the narrowness of scope alluded to, 
 Rear- Admiral Key was satisfied with the idea of a small 
 college — that at Portsmouth being quite suitable if altered 
 and improved by additions — devoted almost wholly to 
 offering facilities to the few who, by acquiring a higher 
 scientific knowledge, might advantage the navy. He was 
 entirely against utilising the buildings of Greenwich Hospital. 
 " Irrespective of there being a building then vacant at 
 Greenwich that might be turned to use, he could see no 
 advantage that would result from removing the college to 
 Greenwich." 
 
 It is to be noted, however, that if the view of the 
 future was so far veiled from his mind as to locality and 
 greatness of presence destined for a forthcoming naval 
 
39 6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 university, Key's ideas of the coming naval officers, when 
 the separate navigating class should cease to be, have 
 passed into successful practice in almost every particular. 
 
 The thing was to go on, however, as to Greenwich, in 
 spite of that drag which naval opinion offered in this case, 
 as in so many others. A committee was assembled in March 
 1872 for the sole purpose of arranging how Greenwich 
 Hospital might be turned into the great naval university it 
 has since become. The chairman of the committee was 
 Admiral Tarleton, a Lord of the Admiralty, Dr. Woolley, 
 the Director of Naval Education, and Colonel Clarke, the 
 Director of Works at the Admiralty. 1 They were to 
 consider and arrange the details for the establishment of 
 Greenwich for the education of (1) the engineers of 
 the fleet; (2) naval architects; (3) acting sub-lieutenants 
 prior to their final examination for lieutenants in navigation 
 and steam ; (4) candidates for commissions in the Royal 
 Marine Artillery; (5) sub-lieutenants after passing; and 
 (6) half-pay officers. 
 
 It is worthy of note how much the balance of opinion, 
 which determined this reference, had swayed away from 
 that which determined the report of Admiral Shadwell's 
 committee. What was last has become first, and what was 
 first has become last ; while the whole level is higher and 
 more extended. The committee went fully into the whole 
 matter, and practically settled all the details of curriculae, 
 and staffs of professors and lecturers for the different 
 classes of students. The rearrangement of the buildings 
 was left over, but that involved, of course, an enormous 
 quantity of subsequent and difficult work. The first report 
 of the committee was dated 29th June 1872 ; and perhaps 
 the only part of it that requires special note here, was the 
 much larger place proposed to be given to naval history and 
 tactics than it was subsequently found expedient to adopt. 
 A lecturer was to be appointed, who was to deliver thirty 
 lectures at £10 per lecture. It was never found feasible to 
 arrange for more than six or eight lectures, and the fee was 
 reduced to one-half. Who is to say that an English 
 
 1 Now Lieutenant-General Sir Andrew Clarke, G.C.M.G., etc. 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 397 
 
 Mahan might not have been the outcome of the larger 
 scheme, as the still larger scheme of the United States 
 afterwards produced the great American authority. 
 
 Holding the views above summarised, it must have been 
 rather a surprise to Admiral Key to receive at Malta, while 
 this committee was sitting, a letter from Mr. Goschen, who 
 had succeeded Mr. Childers as First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 offering him " a new and most important post about to be 
 established, the Presidency of the New Naval Educational 
 Establishment at Greenwich." It was not decided whether 
 it was to be called a " college " or a " university," but the 
 objects and sphere of the proposal were already clearly de- 
 fined, and " their importance," said Mr. Goschen, " to the 
 welfare of the navy could not be exaggerated." The 
 appointment was to be tenable for three years at a salary 
 of £2000 a year with a house in the building. Mr. Goschen 
 was anxious that the post should be identified with the 
 active portion of the service, so as to command its confidence, 
 and to prevent any sentiment of the theoretical branch being 
 separated from the active and the practical, growing up. It 
 was not to disqualify for future active employment. 
 
 The First Lord asked for an answer by telegraph, as, 
 though some months must elapse before the scheme could 
 be finally started, it would be desirable that, in the event of 
 Admiral Key's accepting the post, he should come home 
 soon in order to assist in the elaboration of many of the 
 details, and of the educational arrangements. 
 
 On the 19th of April 1872 the admiral replied as 
 follows — 
 
 " Permit me to offer you my thanks for the high compliment you have paid 
 me in selecting me for so important a position as that of President of the Naval 
 College at Greenwich. It is not a position that I should have sought for, or that 
 I consider myself fitted for ; but I have been so desirous for many years to see 
 the education of naval officers placed on a better footing than hitherto, that I am 
 quite willing to take whatever share you think me fit for, in creating a new 
 system — for it must be a creation — and the service will have good reason to be 
 grateful to you for establishing it. Do not think me ungracious if I say that I 
 accept your offer reluctantly. My inclinations lead me to prefer the command of 
 a fleet, and you will perhaps have become aware that our highest ambition is to 
 be selected for the command of a fleet in time of war. We therefore hesitate to 
 place ourselves in such positions as would, perhaps, lead to our being passed 
 
39 8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 over for such a command when an emergency arose. I feel also that the honours 
 of our profession (which I confess I covet), and such rewards as good service 
 pensions, which I must of necessity desire, are mainly due to those who serve 
 afloat. Without therefore expecting that you will hamper yourself with a promise, 
 I trust that you will not consider that I am deserting my post, if, when a 
 system is established, and in good working order, I seek employment afloat. I 
 shall lose no time in taking up the work at Greenwich when my successor here is 
 appointed. 
 
 All naval officers will understand Admiral Key's posi- 
 tion. The rewards of the navy seldom or never come to 
 the performers of special and out-of-the-way services to 
 it. Tradition is against it, and there are no precedents, 
 as in the army. If there are not war services, then those 
 that count highest are long service in successive posts of 
 ordinary command at sea ; as the command of ships to 
 captains, and the command of the Channel Fleet or of 
 foreign naval stations to flag officers. Admiral Key had 
 passed from the rather special post of captain of the Steam 
 Reserve at Devonport to the very special post of captain of 
 the Excellent, and to the new and still more special post of 
 Director of Naval Ordnance. For every one of these posts 
 he had been selected because there was no one else in the 
 service so well qualified to fill them, and because there was 
 an absolute need of him. But they did not count as well 
 as the most ordinary and easy command of ships at sea. 
 When Key attained his flag, he naturally hoped to get at 
 once out of those posts that involved so much wear and 
 tear, anxiety, and worry, but yet did not count, for the easy 
 and pleasant command, as a rear-admiral, of a foreign station, 
 which did count. But it was the other way. Just because 
 these special services were out of the common way, it was 
 more difficult to get back into the common way. Instead 
 of getting the command of a foreign station, which would 
 have been a reward, Key had to put up with Portsmouth 
 Dockyard, which ranked below all sea-going commands ; 
 then he had been passed on to Malta Dockyard in a way 
 that showed more plainly than anything else, how little all 
 his special services had come to, in the Admiralty view. 
 And how he was asked to go back to the work, the worries, 
 and the anxieties of a post so very special, that it was 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 399 
 
 almost certain to stand against him if it came to be a 
 question between his services and those of any other officer 
 of his standing who had had a succession of sea commands. 
 As far as it was possible for Key to be angry and dis- 
 appointed, when the public service and his own interests 
 came into opposition, he was angry and disappointed now. 
 Some note was indeed taken at the Admiralty of the 
 admiral's invidious position. It was intended that he should 
 hoist his flag as President of the College, and orders to that 
 effect were even issued. But the reversal of traditional usage 
 was too great, and the presidency of the college became, and 
 has remained, a civil appointment. 
 
 The appointment being settled, Key was permitted, as 
 his health was bad, to give up the charge of Malta Dock- 
 yard before his successor arrived, and he quitted Malta en 
 route for England, in the Italian mail steamer Palermo, on 
 the evening of the 6th of August 1 872. The extraordinary 
 popularity which attended Key wherever he went, and which 
 had drawn a really considerable assemblage to speed the 
 parting guest on his quitting Portsmouth Dockyard, turned 
 out the whole island of Malta to bid him good-bye. Pre- 
 viously, there had been quite a stream of valedictory 
 addresses, and now all who had had anything to do with him 
 crowded to see the last of him. Yelverton wrote officially 
 to say that, " glad as he was to learn that, under the circum- 
 stances of temporary indisposition, their Lordships had been 
 pleased to allow him to leave his post at Malta, he could 
 not conceal how much he regretted the loss of his most 
 valuable services and support, as his second in command, 
 and Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard. His un- 
 tiring exertions in promoting the interests and efficiency of 
 the service at all times, more especially in cases of difficulty 
 and delay, deserved his warmest thanks. May the temporary 
 absence from service afloat," concluded the admiral, " afford 
 you an opportunity of displaying your eminent abilities in 
 the organisation of an important national institution, which 
 I feel certain, under your administration, will be crowned 
 with success." 
 
 Admiral Tarleton's committee had continued to sit after 
 
4 oo MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the production of its first report, and on Key's arrival in 
 England he was made a member of it, and naturally be- 
 came its most active member. The conversion of the 
 buildings to their new uses appears to have been largely 
 in Key's hands while he worked with Colonel Clarke, R.E., 
 and the Department of Works at the Admiralty. Besides 
 the attention to infinite details which this involved, there 
 were infinite details to be settled in finally settling the curri- 
 culae, selecting and arranging the professional staff, the 
 rules of discipline, and fitting it all into the peculiarities of 
 a building, which, magnificent and worthy of the highest 
 uses, was not in the slightest degree designed for those to 
 which it was now to be turned. 
 
 Several establishments, and several plans of education, 
 were now to be brought together and worked as one system. 
 The committee had in its first report settled the principles, 
 and just before the close of the year 1872 it issued a second 
 report which bore Key's signature, which may be said to 
 have given the final touches to the scheme. It is, possibly, 
 a little significant, and perhaps bears testimony to Key's 
 influence, that the order in which studentship at the college 
 appeared, was, in this report, once more reversed. It began 
 with captains and commanders with the stress upon their 
 higher education which had been shown in Key's evidence 
 before Shadwell's committee. Then it went on to lieutenants, 
 navigating officers, acting lieutenants, and sub-lieutenants, 
 Royal Marine Artillery officers, engineers, dockyard appren- 
 tices, private students, officers of the mercantile marine. 
 The main subject of the report was the results that were to 
 follow success or failure in the examinations. 
 
 But apart from committees, and even apart from the 
 Board of Admiralty, many details fell for settlement directly 
 to Admiral Key as President-elect, and Mr. Goschen, the 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, as governor. For instance, it 
 was a question whether engineer students were to learn 
 French ; and it was decided that only advanced students 
 were to take that language up. Then came considerations 
 about emoluments and pensions that might raise awkward 
 questions, and must be delicately dealt with. In Key's 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 401 
 
 view, captains and commanders entering on a course of 
 study at the college entered on a serious task, which ought 
 to be completely prosecuted; how should it affect their 
 chances of employment at sea ? The hands of the Admir- 
 alty must not be tied. The public had long enjoyed 
 access as sightseers to Greenwich Hospital ; what was to 
 be done about their claims ? Concessions might be made 
 during July, August, and September, when the bulk of the 
 residents would be away; but was the admiral sure of his 
 ground, in case the interests of the college should be inter- 
 fered with? 
 
 Such details crowded in for examination and final 
 settlement, which seem in the end to have borne the 
 impress, more or less, of Admiral Key's views. 
 
 It would be foreign to the purpose of this biography to 
 discuss the character and principles of the new university, 
 beyond quoting Key's views sufficiently to enable anyone 
 to perceive how far they became incorporated in the great 
 work, and what fruit they have borne. It is certain that, 
 however his original views were contracted in presence of 
 the possibilities of the little building at Portsmouth, they 
 rose with the occasion in sight of the magnificent edifice 
 of William in. and his successors on the throne. But he 
 could not carry all that he desired. The lectureship of 
 naval history was not filled up, and nothing was done about 
 naval tactics, in spite of his pressure, nor could he succeed 
 at first in securing lecturers on international law. The naval 
 history idea was not put in force at all until the end of the 
 year 1875, and then it dwindled down to calling on Mr. J. 
 K. Laughton, 1 one of the naval officers' instructors in 
 mathematics and navigation, to deliver a short course of 
 lectures in the next session. 
 
 Key was forward in urging provision for the physical 
 recreation of the students in the way of racquet-courts, fives- 
 courts, and gymnasia. It was not possible, he thought, 
 that close students could be kept in health and vigour 
 unless bodily exercise, with an interest in it, were to be 
 
 1 The present Professor Laughton, author of many standard works on naval 
 history, and originator of the Navy Records Society. 
 26 
 
4 o2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 immediately at hand. Economy, on the other side, was 
 for curtailing those matters which might be thought ex- 
 traneous ; but Key seems generally to have had his way. 
 
 The whole business had, however, been attacked with 
 such goodwill that the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, 
 as it was ultimately called, was opened on 1st February 
 1873. A minute published by the Admiralty announced 
 that the college was open to the following ranks, viz. : — 
 Captains, commanders, lieutenants, navigating officers, in- 
 structors, acting lieutenants, and acting sub-lieutenants ; 
 officers Royal Marine Artillery ; officers Royal Marine 
 Light Infantry ; officers of the engineer branch, viz. chief 
 engineers, engineers, first-class assistant engineers, and 
 acting second-class assistant engineers. A limited number 
 of dockyard apprentices would be annually selected, by 
 competitive examination, for admission to the college. A 
 course of instruction would also be open to a limited 
 number of private students of naval architecture or marine 
 engineering, and officers of the mercantile marine. 
 
 It was stated that the desire was to give to the 
 executive officers of the navy generally every possible 
 advantage in respect of scientific education ; but no 
 arrangements would be made at all prejudicing the all- 
 important practical training in the active duties of their 
 profession. The object of securing the highest possible 
 scientific instruction was, in the opinion of the Lords of the 
 Admiralty, most effectually to be obtained by bringing 
 together in one establishment all the necessary means for 
 the higher education of naval officers, and of others con- 
 nected with the navy. 
 
 The courses of study embraced pure and applied mathe- 
 matics, applied mechanics, nautical astronomy, surveying, 
 hydrography (with marine geography, meteorology, and 
 chart-drawing), physics, chemistry, metallurgy, marine 
 engineering, marine architecture, fortification, military 
 drawing and naval artillery, international and maritime 
 law, law of evidence and naval courts-martial, naval history 
 and tactics, including naval signals and steam evolutions, 
 modern languages, drawing, hygiene (naval and climatic). 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 403 
 
 This was a goodly list, in which perhaps the only 
 marked shortcomings arose in the matters of naval history 
 and tactics. But some idea may be formed of the great 
 and sudden expansion of the educational idea with which 
 Key was now identified by comparing the staff of the new 
 university in 1873 with that of the old Portsmouth College 
 in 1872. The staff of the latter had consisted of the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty as ex-officio governor, the captain of 
 the Excellent as ex-officio superintendent, a professor, an 
 instructor in fortification and mechanical drawing, an 
 assistant in the observatory, and a clerk. 
 
 The staff at Greenwich consisted of the First Lord of the 
 Admiralty as ex-officio governor, a vice-admiral as president, 
 a captain in the navy as captain, a director of studies, five 
 professors, one assistant professor, seventeen instructors, 
 three demonstrators, a storekeeper and cashier, two clerks, 
 a writer, and a clerk of the works. 
 
 It was not, in 1872, thought worth while to take any 
 note of the officers studying at the Naval College at Ports- 
 mouth ; but the list given in the Navy List for December 
 1873 stood thus: — Six captains, seven commanders; 
 fifty-one lieutenants, four navigating lieutenants, twenty 
 acting sub-lieutenants, four acting navigating sub-lieu- 
 tenants ; five engineers, two assistant engineers first-class, 
 five second-class, and thirty -six acting second-class 
 assistant engineers ; one lieutenant Royal Marine Artillery, 
 two lieutenants Royal Marine Light Infantry for pro- 
 bationary lieutenants Royal Marine Artillery, and eleven 
 probationary lieutenants Royal Marine Artillery. So that, 
 in all respects, the new university was, as Key said it must 
 be, " a creation." 
 
 The following, from the pen of the late Dr. T. Archer 
 Hirst, F.R.S., who was the first Director of Studies at the 
 Naval College at Greenwich, gives a sketch of Key's work 
 in establishing and maintaining that institution : — 
 
 " Early in 1873 tne Royal Naval College was estab- 
 lished at Greenwich under the auspices of Mr. Goschen, then 
 First Lord of the Admiralty. With it was incorporated, 
 not only the previously existing Royal Naval College at 
 
4 o 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Portsmouth, but likewise the Royal School of Naval 
 Architecture and Marine Engineering at South Kensington. 
 
 " Admiral Key, who was entrusted with its organisa- 
 tion, became its president, and certainly no happier selection 
 could, at that time, have been made. His geniality of dis- 
 position had won for him the friendship of all his comrades. 
 His thorough sympathy with the qualities — social, physical, 
 and intellectual — which pre-eminently characterised our 
 naval officers ; his own distinguished career in the service ; 
 and, above all, his well-known bias towards the most 
 advanced scientific treatment of all naval questions, natur- 
 ally signalised him as the most appropriate head of the 
 newly-founded institution. 
 
 " Sir Cooper Key's main endeavour, it may be said, 
 throughout his tenure of office at Greenwich, was to supple- 
 ment the practical training already accessible to young 
 naval officers, by theoretical instruction of equal thorough- 
 ness, given under the direct superintendence of the most 
 accredited of our civil, as well as naval, authorities. 
 
 " The fact that the several courses of study which he 
 organised to this end have, with but few modifications, held 
 their ground to the present time (1889), and have distinctly 
 raised the scientific status of the whole service, is the very 
 best testimony that could be furnished to the soundness of 
 Sir Cooper Key's insight, and to the success of his per- 
 severing efforts to realise his views. 
 
 " This success, and the high esteem he won by his 
 well-directed action at Greenwich, were gracefully and 
 appropriately recognised on his leaving the college in 
 1876 to take command of the fleet in America. Naval 
 officers, both at home and abroad, as well as the Green- 
 wich educational staff, with whom he had always worked 
 harmoniously, seized that occasion for presenting to the 
 college an excellent portrait, by Haynes, of its first 
 president. 
 
 " This portrait will do more than recall the bright 
 features of the able officer whose unexpected death all now 
 deplore. It will unquestionably mark an epoch of the 
 highest scientific import in the history of naval education." 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 405 
 
 The climate on the banks of the Thames never agreed 
 with the admiral, and he never had perfect health while 
 there. His original dislike to undertaking the sort of work 
 the post imposed on him, did not leave him on a closer 
 acquaintance with it. The work worried him, and the 
 confinement to office told upon him. His conscientious 
 discharge of duty postponed his hours of exercise outside 
 the walls of the college till after six o'clock in the evening 
 on most days. Then he took long walks with members of 
 his family, and these walks in the winter were carried on in 
 darkness. Otherwise his exercise took the form of games 
 of racquets and lawn tennis within the college precincts. 
 On the Saturday half-holidays he commonly treated himself 
 to being a spectator of the college cricket or racquet 
 matches. Always lithe and active, he used to boast that 
 at Greenwich he could beat any of his children in running 
 upstairs. 
 
 On the 30th of December 1874 Sir Cooper Key lost 
 his wife. Lady Key had been in delicate health when, 
 having caught a severe cold, pleurisy and congestion of the 
 lungs supervened, with a fatal termination. 
 
 At last one of the good things of the service was to 
 fall to Sir Cooper's lot. He was offered, and eagerly 
 accepted, the command of the North American and West 
 India station. His appointment bore date 22nd December 
 
 1 875, and he hoisted his flag in the Fisgard on 1st February 
 
 1876. On the 17th he sailed by packet for Barbados. 
 There he hoisted his flag on board H.M.S. Eclipse, and 
 proceeded in her to meet his predecessor, Admiral Sir 
 George Wellesley, at St. Thomas. He touched at Antigua 
 on the 10th of March, and found the Bellerophon at 
 St. Thomas on the 17th, flying Sir George Wellesley's 
 flag. The command of the North American and West 
 India station was there and then handed over to him, 
 and his flag took the place of that of his predecessor on 
 board the Bellerophon. 
 
 Of Sir Cooper Key's public life as Commander-in-Chief 
 there is positively nothing to record. From being so long 
 a busy originator and reformer he lapsed for three years 
 
4 o6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 into an executive of the most routine character. From 
 month to month, or from week to week, there is nothing to 
 describe in the Commander-in-Chief's letters but the move- 
 ments of the ships under his command, diversified by an 
 occasional note relative to the chronic difficulties in Cuba 
 and in other foreign territories ; to the equally chronic diffi- 
 culties in regard to the fisheries on the coast of Newfound- 
 land ; and, for a wonder, as to disaffection which showed 
 itself in the island of Barbados owing to the peculiar views 
 of its then governor. But in no case was there more than a 
 ripple over the otherwise still waters of his command. Its 
 story is simply how his flagship, the Bellerophon, generally 
 accompanied by two or three smaller vessels, swept, accord- 
 ing to season, to Bermuda in the spring; to Halifax and 
 other northern ports in the summer ; back again to Bermuda 
 in the autumn ; and then from island to island and from 
 port to port in the West Indies during the winter. 
 
 But in the course of these peregrinations Sir Cooper 
 Key met the lady who became his second wife. The 
 Governor of Bermuda was Major-General J. H. Lefroy, C.B., 
 who had been a member of the Royal Commission of 
 1859-60, and therefore a colleague of Sir Cooper's, and, 
 subsequently, a great friend. Paying a visit to the general 
 was his niece, Miss Evelyn Bartolucci, daughter of Signor 
 Vincenzo Bartolucci of Rome, who was the only son of 
 General Bartolucci and grandson of the eminent advocate, 
 First President of the Court of Appeal under Pius VII. 
 This lady was married to Sir Cooper at Halifax in the 
 month of October 1877. 
 
 The uneventful command and period of rest came to a 
 close, according to custom, in May 1878. 1 The successor 
 was Vice-Admiral Sir E. A. Inglefield, Kt., C.B., F.R.S., 
 who had known Key when he was his father's flag-lieutenant 
 in the River Plate. The change of flag took place at Hali- 
 fax, and on the 24th Sir Cooper Key sailed for England 
 by packet. 
 
 1 Perhaps it was chiefly remarkable for the fact that Sir Cooper had four flag- 
 captains— Hugh Campbell, Frank Thomson, J. A. Fisher (now Vice-Admiral 
 Sir John), and (acting) W. F. S. Mann. 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 407 
 
 The admiral was but a few days at home, when he was 
 ordered to hoist his flag in the Hercules and take command 
 of the Reserve Squadron for a course of manoeuvres, carrying 
 out, therefore, in his own person, the recommendations he 
 had made after the conclusion of the cruise of the Reserve 
 Squadron in 1869. The squadron began to assemble at 
 Portland on the 13th of June 1878, the Hercules, with 
 Key's flag flying, arriving there from Spithead, in company 
 with the Warrior, Valiant, Penelope, Resistance, and Hector, 
 iron armour-clads ; the Lord Warden, wooden armour-clad ; 
 the Boadicea, iron unarmoured frigate cased with wood ; and 
 the Lively, paddle despatch vessel. On the 15th of June, 
 the admiral was joined by the Cyclops, Hydra, Gorgon, and 
 Hecate, iron armoured double-turret ships for coast defence ; 
 the Prince Albert, iron armoured quadruple turret ship, 
 the earliest built on Captain Cole's plan ; the Glatton, iron 
 armoured single-turret coast defence ship ; the Blazer and 
 the Bustard, two of Key's and Rendel's single-gun coast 
 defence gunboats — all from Plymouth. On the 16th, the 
 Toy, iron river gunboat, built for service in China, arrived 
 from Portsmouth. On the 1 8th of June, the Tweed, another 
 river gunboat, arrived, and, as the Thunderer was previously 
 at Portland, the complete squadron now consisted of 6 broad- 
 side masted armour-clads ; 1 sea-going mastless armoured 
 turret ship ; 6 coast defence armoured turret ships ; 1 
 unarmoured masted frigate; 2 river and 2 coast defence 
 gunboats ; and 1 despatch vessel, — in all, a sufficiently incon- 
 gruous group of 1 9 sail. Possibly, the anomalous state into 
 which invention had at this time landed us, was not without 
 emphasis in another direction. The ships were assembled 
 for a sea cruise ; but it was very doubtful whether, though 
 the ships were to be really at sea, the officers could be 
 technically allowed to have gone out of harbour. Sir 
 Cooper Key had to urge that, properly speaking, going to 
 sea was serving at sea ; otherwise " sea service." But it is 
 quite possible that the service might have been ruled to 
 be only " harbour service." Another kind of invention had 
 accompanied the materially anomalous conditions, with 
 some that were personally quite as anomalous. 
 
4 o8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Key took his first turn with the turret ships on the I 8th 
 of June, hoisting his flag in the Thunderer, and taking with 
 her the Prince Albert, Gorgon, Hecate, Hydra, and Tay to 
 sea for an exercise at target practice. On the 20th, the 
 same squadron, with the Glatton added, was out firing 
 battering charges, and practising tactical evolutions. On 
 the 27th, the turret squadron was again at sea practising 
 tactics. The admiral had gained so much confidence in the 
 turret mastless ships that he wished to extend their cruises. 
 But as the Admiralty thought that none of them, except the 
 Thunderer, were really seaworthy, the proposal was not 
 adopted, and early in July the squadrons separated, Key 
 taking the masted ironclads to Berehaven as his head- 
 quarters, whence they proceeded on more lengthened sea 
 cruises. 1 Rear- Admiral Boys, who had been second in 
 command of the squadron, was left behind at Portland with 
 the turret ships and gunboats. Exercises under sail were 
 still considered the proper and important object of the 
 manoeuvres, so that the admiral, only as a sort of second 
 thought, mentions that the squadron " had also been 
 manoeuvred under steam whenever the weather permitted." 
 
 The squadron was back again at Portland on the 3rd 
 August, and the cruise, so far as exercise or experiment 
 was concerned, was over ; the Hercules was back at Spit- 
 head on the 1 4th, and the flag came down. It was a good 
 deal remarked upon at the time that this was the flag 
 of a full admiral — he had attained that rank in March 1878 
 — and that it was rare to see it hoisted by the officer in 
 command of a sea-going fleet. 
 
 1 It is to be noted, and I think it is congruous with the whole play of Key's 
 mind round the question of strategy, that at this late date he had not one word 
 to say against the policy of building "harbour defence ships," although he 
 thought those under his command might be improved upon. "I consider," he 
 wrote at the end of the cruise, " that the Gorgon and Hydra class of turret ships 
 are thoroughly well adapted for the service for which they were designed, viz. 
 for home service and harbour defence." All he would concede was, that he would 
 "not consider the money they cost well spent unless they had been fitted for 
 more than this, as in my opinion they are. I consider that they may safely be 
 sent to the Mediterranean or the Baltic, where, in war time, they would form 
 a very valuable auxiliary to our sea-going fleet, for the attack of fortified places 
 and for many other services during war." 
 
EXCELLENT: ADMIRALTY— 1866-79 409 
 
 Sir Cooper Key wrote in strong terms of the good con- 
 duct of the officers and crews, and especially spoke of the 
 efficiency of the coast-guard men as a reserve. Before leaving 
 the Hercules, he addressed the officers and ship's company 
 in laudatory terms. On his leaving the ship, that impulsive 
 cleavage of disciplinary rules, which only follows extreme 
 regard for a commander, took place. The ship's company 
 broke out into vigorous and uncontrolled cheering of the 
 chief who, after forty-three years of work in it, was now 
 quitting, finally, the active service of the navy. 
 
 The approval of the highest authority was not wanting 
 to support the enthusiasm of the lowest. The Queen caused 
 to be communicated to him " an expression of the gratifica- 
 tion which Her Majesty had this day (the 1 3th of August) 
 experienced in inspecting the ships and vessels assembled 
 under his orders at Spithead." 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the early assembly of the 
 " Particular Squadron," as it was termed, had a political 
 object, which only faded away as the strain in our relations 
 with Russia became easier. But it was not overlooked that 
 if the strained relations should develop, even the coast 
 defence ironclads might be fit for Baltic service, and that, 
 Sir Cooper Key's flag would remain up. What a difference 
 there might have been in the close of the active career ! 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AT THE ADMIRALTY AS AN ADMINISTRATOR 
 
 I879-I886 
 
 SIR COOPER KEY, on the dispersal of the " Particular 
 Squadron," was well aware that in all probability he 
 would become First Sea Lord of the Admiralty 
 when the post, then held by Sir George Wellesley, fell 
 vacant in 1879 under the age rules; as there was no other 
 officer who could be so fitly chosen to take his place. Sir 
 Cooper was gazetted First and Principal Naval Aide- de- 
 Camp to the Queen on the 15th of June 1879. On 
 becoming aware of the honour about to be conferred on 
 him, he generously informed the First Lord that the service 
 would be better pleased if the honour should fall on Sir 
 Geoffrey Hornby rather than on himself. It would, how- 
 ever, have been quite contrary to precedent to have passed 
 Sir Cooper Key over ; and, apart from seniority, his services 
 gave him claims superior to those of the other admiral. 
 
 In the estimation of the navy, the post of First Sea Lord 
 of the Admiralty, while it is the most onerous, is also amongst 
 the most thankless that can be filled by a naval officer of 
 rank. The First Sea Lord, whether his responsibilities be 
 defined by Order in Council, or left to be inferred by the 
 terms of the patent, and by custom, is likely to be held as 
 the author or prime mover of measures in which his opinion 
 has been overruled, and against which he has perhaps 
 thrown all his force. Outside Whitehall it is constantly 
 forgotten that, whatever may be artificially set out in docu- 
 ments, the Board of Admiralty is a Board, and that its 
 members are bound by those general considerations which 
 govern the members of any other Board. It is true that 
 
 410 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 411 
 
 the members hold their offices by favour of the political First 
 Lord, and that therefore his decision always has been, and 
 always must be, final. But yet members so appointed may, 
 in any critical case, perceive a divided duty. No doubt, 
 before accepting a seat on the Board, it is an officer's 
 business to ascertain what its general line of policy is likely 
 to be ; but circumstances may involve a change of policy, 
 or measures may be proposed which seem to a member to 
 conflict with the general line of policy accepted ; or the 
 member may earnestly desire the adoption of some measure 
 to which other members demur, or which the political First 
 Lord declines to allow. In every such case, the member 
 must balance between the general and the particular duty 
 before him. The sole power in his hands is resignation ; 
 and he must gravely consider whether there will be loss or 
 gain to the service and the public by his exercise of it. It 
 is quite clear that no single member of the Board can 
 expect to see every measure that he desires carried, or every 
 proposal that he dislikes discarded. This cannot be so, 
 even with the First Lord, who, if he proposes to force the 
 hands of the Board in any way, runs the risk of breaking it 
 up, and, therefore, of being left powerless until he has 
 selected a new one. 
 
 So that a system of compromise, and of give-and-take, 
 is inevitable at the Board of Admiralty, as it is with any 
 other Board carrying on business. But, on the other hand, 
 the navy and the public often fail to take account of these 
 things. The navy especially often judges for the Board 
 without cognisance of all the facts that are before it. It is 
 apt to attribute to the political First Lord a power of 
 coercion which, in fact, he can scarcely exercise ; and when 
 things are not going quite as the naval public opinion 
 thinks proper, it decides that the naval members of the 
 Board are submitting to coercion, which their duty calls upon 
 them to resist by resignation. A sort of belief, in fact, 
 arises in the navy, and spreads from it to the general public, 
 that in naval business the navy shall govern, no matter 
 what the view of the Cabinet of the day may be. 
 
 Apparently, the Orders in Council of 1870 and sub- 
 
4 i2 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 sequently, which seemed to restrict the Junior Lords of the 
 Admiralty to duties assigned to them by the First Lord, and 
 to take away from them that responsibility for general policy 
 which seemed to be thrown on them by the patent, may 
 have also taken away from them the right of resignation on 
 account of difference of opinion. If they were responsible 
 only to the authority which had appointed them, their position 
 was not so very different from that of officers in command 
 of ships or fleets — of which the essence is that the duty 
 shall be carried out irrespective of the opinion of the agent. 
 
 But if the right to resign, and the responsibility for 
 exercising that right, were weakened by the Orders in Council 
 as regarded the Junior Lords of the Admiralty, the fact 
 greatly enhanced the difficulty of the First Sea Lord's 
 position. If he was made the only member of the Board 
 who could tender independent advice to the First Lord, it 
 followed that he alone was responsible for the naval policy 
 pursued by the Board. If that policy was held to be 
 defective or wrong by the best naval opinion, the First Sea 
 Lord, as representing it, was held to be bound to resign if 
 he could not get it changed. 
 
 So strongly did this idea possess the minds of the 
 leaders of the navy, that when the late Sir Geoffrey Hornby 
 was a member of the Board in 1876, he made an attempt 
 to establish a " ring " amongst possible First Sea Lords, in 
 order to prepare to coerce the Government into adopting 
 measures of assumed reform. He held that there were only 
 three men — himself, Rear-Admiral Beauchamp Seymour, 
 and Sir Cooper Key — who could be held fit for selection as 
 First Sea Lords, and that, if these three came to an agree- 
 ment not to accept the post but under a pledge that those 
 reforms would be granted, the Government would be 
 coerced into granting them. No immediate answer from 
 Sir Cooper Key is extant, but when in 1879 it seemed that 
 any change would bring him the offer of the First Sea 
 Lord's seat at the Board the matter was revived. 
 
 We have seen that there is good reason to believe that 
 as captain of the Excellent, as Director of Naval Ordnance, 
 and as Admiral Superintendent at Portsmouth, Sir Cooper 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 413 
 
 Key had shown an absolutely unyielding spirit, and had 
 thrown his personal convenience to the winds, rather than 
 swerve from what he considered his duty. When then, 
 finding that Sir Geoffrey Hornby and Sir Beauchamp 
 Seymour had agreed to the compact, he declined to follow 
 them, there is no reason to doubt that his action was 
 guided by his view of his duty. On the other hand, we 
 have seen how, all through his career, he had been, though 
 a reformer, a very cautious one. He was not at all apt to 
 be swept off his legs by those excited currents of opinion 
 which suddenly create great changes. It was necessary for 
 him to thoroughly understand and decide upon the propor- 
 tions of evil or good likely to follow any change before he 
 acquiesced in it. He did not like great steps in advance 
 which might possibly be wrong ones ; and in declining to 
 fall in with Sir Geoffrey Hornby's and Sir Beauchamp 
 Seymour's views, he was only doing that which might have 
 been predicated of him. For it was a particular reform 
 which Sir Geoffrey Hornby advocated. He had felt, when 
 at the Admiralty, the inconvenience of the amount of 
 " current business " in details which was thrown upon the 
 Lords, and occupied time which should have been devoted 
 to larger questions. His complaint was that, under the 
 then existing organisation, the service was not, and could 
 not be, properly worked. There was no time to enable 
 fitting arrangements to be made for war, and the out- 
 break of one would " go far to ruin our naval reputation 
 and, of course, that of the poor devil who might be at the 
 top of the tree." What was wanted was subordinate naval 
 assistance. There was no one between the Naval Lord and 
 the civil clerk, who, however able and however loyal he 
 might be, could not possibly help with a technical opinion, 
 or even make a technical precis of the points to be 
 considered. Admiral Hornby's proposal was to convert 
 one or two of the " branches " at the Admiralty into purely 
 naval departments, worked by naval officers. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key was probably not prepared to dispute 
 the wisdom of such a change ; but he wrote that " he felt 
 it a great drawback to his power of being useful that he 
 
4 i4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 had not already served on the Board. In the first place, 
 it put it out of his power to make stipulations on the offer " 
 (of the post) " being made, as he could do so only from 
 personal experience." He had not, in fact, what he con- 
 sidered knowledge sufficient to judge of the proposed mea- 
 sure from all points of view, and, following the precedent set 
 up by his character, he declined to pledge himself to it. 
 
 But, of course, this episode, being known to most of the 
 leaders of the navy of the day, had a tendency to create 
 prejudice against him in their minds. He was to some 
 extent held to have " gone against the service " in accepting 
 the post. On the other hand, he had long felt that there 
 was not, as it were, sufficient naval force at the Admiralty. 
 He had been, while captain of the Excellent, made aware 
 that he was actually the head of the naval artillery, while 
 there was at Whitehall a nominal head, without sufficient 
 backing to exercise the headship. He had had experience 
 both of the difficulties and of the advantages arising from 
 the establishment of a separate artillery department in naval 
 hands. Admitting, in a general way, the necessity of 
 strengthening the purely naval element at the Admiralty, 
 he went to the Board impressed with the desirability of 
 establishing a " Naval Intelligence Department " at White- 
 hall. 1 
 
 Beside the general disabilities under which any First 
 Sea Lord labours, and those which surrounded Sir Cooper 
 Key, because of the episode described, every First Sea Lord 
 is likely to lose his naval friends in the course of his term 
 of office on account of his exercise of patronage. Under 
 the direct control of the First Sea Lord are great numbers 
 of desirable appointments. In all promotions, nominally 
 made by the Board, but really decided by the First Lord, 
 the First Sea Lord must have a powerful voice. But 
 though this patronage is large, it is sometimes only five barley 
 loaves and two small fishes to the hungry multitude ; and 
 the happy one selected for a post leaves a crowd of discon- 
 tented aspirants behind him. If the known associates of 
 
 1 At a later date he changed his mind, and did not support Lord Northbrook 
 in establishing the department. But see next chapter. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 415 
 
 the First Sea Lord in the active service enjoy selection, it 
 is held to be the exercise of an undue favouritism ; if the 
 associates are left out in the cold, the First Sea Lord's high 
 position has spoilt him — he has turned his back upon his 
 friends. 
 
 Whilst it is only natural that an administrator should 
 have a bias in favour of such men as his personal experi- 
 ence has led him to like and to believe in, the fact is that, 
 at the Admiralty, promotions and appointments follow long 
 debate, formal and informal. Though personal friendship 
 with any Lord or Lords may assist an officer's advancement, 
 there are usually so many claimants to satisfy, that any 
 Lord must show something beside personal friendship in 
 order to carry his man through. A First Sea Lord, how- 
 ever, who enters the Admiralty without leaving many per- 
 sonal friends behind him in the active service, is better off 
 than was Sir Cooper Key, whose popularity was so wide- 
 spread, and his personal friendships so warm. It is not to 
 be denied that, speaking generally, he was less popular 
 with the navy on leaving the Admiralty than he had been 
 on entering it ; and yet he did not escape the taunt that 
 " the bunch of keys " got all the good things. 
 
 When the subject of a biography passes into the Board 
 of Admiralty, his public life becomes practically that of the 
 Board, unless he has left behind him diaries or letters suffi- 
 cient to show how his own acts are differentiated from those 
 of the Board. It is at least inconvenient, until after a 
 generation or two shall have passed away, that departmental 
 discussions exhibiting divergent or concurrent opinions 
 should be made public. But, on the other hand, documents 
 expressing opinions officially may quite properly be used 
 in connection with the history of the time, in order to show 
 what influence the subject of the biography was able to 
 exert over current affairs. Sir Cooper Key was not a 
 writer or a diary-keeper, so that his biographer is not much 
 troubled with the delicate task of publishing, or withholding 
 from publication, matter not originally intended for the 
 public eye. But, even where direct expressions of opinion 
 are not available, the influence of the First Sea Lord upon 
 
4 i6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 the decisions of the Admiralty may be justly inferred from 
 what has been recorded of his antecedents. 
 
 The new patent, including Sir Cooper Key as First Sea 
 Lord of the Admiralty, was issued on the I 2th of August 
 1879, and the Board then stood as follows: — Right Hon. 
 W. H. Smith, Admiral Sir A. Cooper Key, Rear- Admiral 
 Hood, Rear-Admiral the Earl of Clanwilliam, Sir Massey 
 Lopes, Bart., M.P., with the Hon. A. Fulke Egerton, M.P., 
 as Secretary, and Rear-Admiral Robert Hall as Naval 
 Secretary. In former days it had been the custom to select 
 the naval members of the Board from men whose political 
 views agreed with those of the Government, and it had been 
 common to require that the senior members should hold 
 seats in the House of Commons. That practice was now 
 passing away, and the Naval Lords were not required to 
 hold particular political opinions. Sir Cooper Key rarely 
 expressed any political feelings. Perhaps his sympathies 
 were more upon the Liberal than upon the Conservative 
 side, but he had never done or said anything to mark him 
 as a politician ; so that, as it happened, joining a Conserva- 
 tive administration, he held his office when the change of 
 Government took place in 1880. 
 
 There was scarcely any public stir about the navy in 
 the latter part of 1879. Naval questions occupied little of 
 the attention of the House of Commons, which was more 
 taken up with the abolition of flogging in the army than 
 with any other service question. These discussions pointed, 
 of course, to similar changes in naval discipline ; but that 
 matter was not directly before either the House or the 
 public. So little were the public attracted by naval ques- 
 tions, that there was not in the last half of the year a single 
 leading article in the Times on general naval policy, and 
 hardly a letter criticising naval progress. The Army Bill, 
 the Zulu War, the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari at Cabul, 
 and the subsequent operations there, perhaps drew discus- 
 sion away from the naval position ; so that even the naval 
 war between Chili and Peru, and the capture of the Huascar, 
 though reported on, drew little or no attention as bearing 
 on British naval policy. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 417 
 
 But in reality the period was one of the most momentous 
 for the navy. It was a turning-point in its material pro- 
 gress. The necessity for decisions of a binding and far- 
 reaching character was forcing itself forward ; and if there 
 had been anyone fully cognisant of all the circumstances, 
 and yet free from responsibility in dealing with them, he 
 would have foreseen the subsequent rise of public feeling 
 against the Admiralty, and he would also have seen how 
 really impossible it was for the Admiralty to have avoided 
 it. The period was the eve of a complete revolution in the 
 armament of our ships, and an entirely new departure in 
 design. But, up to the date of Sir Cooper Key's joining the 
 Board, no specific movement, with the exception of laying 
 down the Polyphemus at Chatham and the completion of 
 the Iris and Mercury cruisers, had been taken by Mr. 
 Smith's Board in the matter of new design. Several out- 
 side circumstances were, however, inevitably forcing the 
 question to the front. Though little notice was taken of it, 
 the French warship building policy was seriously threaten- 
 ing our naval position. The invention of compound 
 armour was producing important results in resistance to the 
 penetration of shot. In July a plate composed of 9 inches 
 of iron and 5 inches of steel was found capable of resisting 
 three chilled shot of 250 pounds each fired from the 12-ton 
 gun at 30 feet distance, with 1406 feet muzzle velocity. The 
 100-ton gun was undergoing proofs at Woolwich. The 
 80-ton guns for the Inflexible were in process of completion. 
 These were, of course, the highest developments of muzzle- 
 loading guns, built and rifled on what was called the 
 " Woolwich system." The German gun-makers, Krupp & 
 Co., were rapidly developing a rival system of breech-load- 
 ing ordnance, and the long barrels that this system per- 
 mitted, fell in with and encouraged the development of 
 those slow-burning powders which had already been found 
 advisable for use with muzzle-loading ordnance, but which 
 the short barrels of those guns did not give full advantage 
 to. In August the Admiralty sent a committee of naval 
 officers to Meppen to witness and report upon the trials of the 
 new Krupp guns, and there was naturally a good deal of 
 27 
 
4 i8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 excitement and stir over the really remarkable results of 
 these experiments. The great firm of Sir Wm. Armstrong 
 & Co. was scarcely, if at all, behind in the development of 
 long-barrelled breech-loaders, and much controversy existed 
 between those who defended the Woolwich short-barrelled 
 muzzle-loaders, the supporters of the new steel Armstrong 
 breech-loaders, and the advocates of the Krupp iron breech- 
 loaders. Progress, however, was clearly more in the way of 
 increased energy of projectiles, and therefore of better 
 shooting at long ranges, and more power of penetrating 
 armour, while there was little or no increase of the shell 
 power. If Sir Cooper Key had not changed his opinions 
 since the days of the Excellent, they must have been in 
 some collision with the general trend of invention and 
 opinion. The long barrels of the breech-loading guns 
 presented great inconveniences to their use on board ship ; 
 and with his ideas of close action, he must have felt it not 
 altogether necessary to improve the shooting and the 
 penetration at long range. 
 
 In another way a change was already effected in arma- 
 ments. The pressure of the torpedo-boat had been so far 
 felt, that one hundred of the Nordenfelt anti-torpedo-boat 
 machine guns had been purchased and were being mounted 
 on board ship. 
 
 On the 24th of July 1879 the second series of gun- 
 vessels, built by Armstrong for the Chinese Government, 
 and named the Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, and Theta, arrived at 
 Spithead on their way to the East. They carried armour- 
 piercing guns, and the cost of mounting them in that way 
 was very much less per gun than the cost of mounting the 
 same guns in ironclads. On the 28th of July the Times 
 published an article on the Polyphemus and the Chinese 
 gunboats, pointing to the remarkable threat they held out 
 against the ironclad, and declaring that were it not for the 
 sea-keeping qualities of the latter, the smaller vessels 
 would altogether supersede the large ones as warships. 
 
 The Times, in describing the vessels on the 25 th, had 
 spoken of them as developments of the original Staunch. 
 We have seen how, in 1 866, the idea of the Staunch had 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 419 
 
 emanated from Sir Cooper Key's mind, and how, just 
 thirteen years before he joined the Admiralty, he had 
 recommended the Rendel embodiment of his ideal for 
 adoption. 
 
 Immediately before Sir Cooper Key, then, on his join- 
 ing the Admiralty, was the conduct of three tremendous 
 revolutions. The abolition of corporal punishment; the 
 re-armament of the fleet ; and the re-vivification of design 
 which had played itself out on the old lines, and was 
 henceforth to meet new conditions. 
 
 But an old Board attached to a moribund Parliament 
 was scarcely the soil for the germination of new ideas. 
 Sir Cooper Key could only have been feeling his way over 
 the new estimates. They were moved by Mr. Smith on 
 the 8th of March 1880; they embraced the modest sum of 
 £1 0,492,93 5, and presented no features of novelty. A 
 vote on account was quickly taken, because on that very 
 day Mr. Disraeli had announced the dissolution of Parlia- 
 ment. There were reductions in the votes for stores, 
 machinery, contract shipbuilding, and labour. Sir E. J. 
 Reed complimented the Government on the whole, but 
 taunted it with not having carried out the policy as to a 
 real instead of a paper fleet, as promised by Mr. Ward 
 Hunt. He also complained — and the complaint is signi- 
 ficant and important to this memoir — that the Board of 
 Admiralty had not produced a single ironclad of its own 
 design. 
 
 Mr. Shaw Lefevre declared that the construction of 
 only 7000 tons of ironclads annually was insufficient to 
 keep the navy on a satisfactory footing. Mr. Smith replied 
 to the criticisms by observing that the Board had devoted 
 itself to the question of repairs, which had been allowed to 
 fall into arrear. 
 
 The dissolution, and the elections following, did not 
 bring naval questions to the front. Mr. Gladstone, indeed, 
 had taken occasion, in a counter-manifesto to that of Mr. 
 Disraeli, to denounce the imperial spirit which was to some 
 extent showing itself and had been derisively christened 
 "jingoism." Mr. Cross, in response, contended that the 
 
4 20 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 broad issue was whether England was, or was not, to 
 maintain her position. 
 
 But though there were these indications of possible 
 changes in public opinion on the great defence question, 
 the divergencies of theory and practice upheld on the Liberal 
 side, together with the moderate and tentative views held 
 on the Conservative side, left public interest in the navy 
 languid. There was no leading article on the navy in the 
 Times till the 30th of March, and that was drawn by a 
 letter from Mr. Shaw Lefevre, which was but a party com- 
 parison of naval policies. The London water question, and 
 local option, held the stage, both in Parliament and in the 
 country. But on the 9th of April the Times again wrote 
 on the navy, comparing Mr. Ward Hunt's declaration with 
 the actual fact that the Board of Admiralty had built no 
 ironclads of its own in the dockyards in six years, and had 
 not completed some already begun. 
 
 The sad disappearance of the Atalanta, seamen's train- 
 ing ship, was the great naval episode of the time, and, 
 whatever might have been said, it threw a lurid light on 
 the vexed and perplexing question of how the contest 
 between steam power and sail power in men-of-war was to 
 end. 
 
 In truth, this question was at the very base of naval 
 policy, for it governed design ; and the doubt as to design 
 was — however strangely oblivious the navy and the public 
 were of it — governing the whole naval situation. Sir 
 Cooper Key was in 1866 really taking a very advanced 
 view when he only rated sail power as a necessity for train- 
 ing and exercising the seamen. The vast bulk of the 
 service in 1879 looked on the retention of sail power as 
 necessary to the efficiency of the ships ; and some who 
 had strongly upheld the opposite views did not improve 
 their reputations. 
 
 At the end of 1879 there were twenty-four ironclads in 
 commission, and their designs were very heterogeneous. 
 The Warrior, Resistance, and Hector represented the earlier 
 type of British ironclads, condemned because of special 
 weaknesses of structure and defective system of armouring. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 421 
 
 The Lord Warden was one of the survivors of the old con- 
 verted wooden line-of-battle ships. The Achilles \ Agincourt, 
 Minotaur, and Northumberland were then considered ships 
 of too great length and displacement to become permanent 
 types, though the navy, had it been polled, would have 
 declared for the Achilles as the nearest possible approach 
 to the perfect ironclad. The Hercules and Bellerophon 
 represented the Achilles with her supposed faults corrected. 
 The Audacious ; Invincible \ Iron Duke, and Triumph repre- 
 sented the second-class foreign-going ironclads, of which 
 the Hercules represented the first or home-service class. 
 
 But, after all was said and done, not one of these fourteen 
 ships was strikingly novel in type, or attempted to break 
 absolutely with the general naval tradition. They were all 
 full-rigged broadside screw frigates cased with armour, but 
 otherwise not greatly differing in type and idea from their 
 wooden predecessors. 
 
 The Monarch (1868) was the earliest to take a new 
 departure, yet she was only a Hercules, with her guns 
 mounted in two turrets so as to fire on either broadside. 
 The Penelope (1867) was a special type for a special ser- 
 vice; but the Rupert (1872), a mastless turret ship, called 
 " an ironclad ram," with only one turret forward, challenged 
 all former types to justify their existence, for she denoted 
 a new kind of battle, and a new system of tactics, of 
 which the navy knew nothing by experience. 
 
 The Thunderer (1872) discarded masts, but was other- 
 wise a broadside ship capable of firing at least half of her 
 guns in any desired direction. She did not challenge, like 
 the Rupert, the position of existing ironclads, except in the 
 matter of sail power, for she was quite ready to take her 
 place with them in any form of battle for which they were 
 prepared. Yet the type was not admitted, chiefly — it can 
 scarcely now be doubted — because it lacked sail power; 
 and the Alexandra (1875), a curious form of masted broad- 
 side-bow ship, challenged the mastless Dreadnought of the 
 same date to maintain her place as an improved Thunderer. 
 The Rupert spirit in an exaggerated form was in the Alex- 
 andra : for while the Thunderer and Rupert got their bow 
 
422 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 fire without sacrifice of the broadside fire; while the 
 Hercules got some bow fire which she could retain as 
 broadside fire if desired; while the Audacious class subtracted 
 a little from the broadside fire in order to gain bow and 
 stern fire; the Alexandra deliberately put bow-fire on a 
 pinnacle, and made a heavy sacrifice of broadside fire to 
 get it. She could only take her place at a disadvantage 
 in any form of battle which was suited to the armaments of 
 the ironclads that had gone before her. 
 
 The novelty of the idea she embodied was followed up 
 and expanded in the Shannon (1875) and the Northampton 
 (1876), where the armour, which was given to all ships 
 before them as chiefly a protection to the crews of the 
 broadside guns, was, in these, altogether taken away to 
 protect the crews of the bow, or of the bow and stern 
 guns. 
 
 The Belleisle, which was a purchased ship, was the nega- 
 tion of any approved form of battle. She was equally 
 weak and equally strong in every direction, and was the 
 expression of despair over the idea of any recognised 
 method of fighting at sea. 1 
 
 The newest ship in commission was the Temeraire 
 (1876). She was a masted compromise between the 
 Alexandra and the Thunderer, or rather the combination of 
 the two ideas. The sacrifice of broadside fire was made, 
 no doubt, but it was not so heavy as that which the Alex- 
 andra had accepted. 
 
 Any Board of Admiralty coming into office in 1880, 
 and reviewing the character of the ironclads it found in com- 
 mission, could only be assured of two things, namely, that 
 there was not the least sign of any type which would stand ; 
 and that the tendency was for the fleet to become more 
 heterogeneous than ever. The Inflexible, which had been 
 launched in the same year with the Temeraire, was almost 
 as far as possible from reconciling the incongruities, for 
 there was no sort of criticism to which she did not offer 
 herself. 
 
 The five ships that were building at the close of the 
 
 1 Yet, literally, she fulfilled Sir Cooper Key's idea of 1866. See p. 369. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 423 
 
 year 1879 did not help things in the least. The Ajax, 
 Colossus, and Majestic (afterwards Edinburgh), were small 
 Inflexibles, while the Conqueror was a larger Rupert. And 
 then there was the Polyphemus " torpedo-ram," which was 
 a plunge into an arena with a new naval heaven and a 
 new naval earth, as far as warfare was concerned. 
 
 There was little more sense of steadiness in type amongst 
 the cruisers. The boldest departure before 1879 had been 
 in the cases of the Iris and Mercury, laid down in 1876. 
 In these ships sail power had been reduced to a minimum, in 
 order that there should be a very high proportion of horse- 
 power and coal supply. But it was so little foreseen that 
 they were then approaching the type of the future cruiser, 
 that they stood in the Navy List under the somewhat con- 
 temptuous title of " Despatch Vessels." When Sir Cooper 
 Key first joined the Admiralty, the Mercury was under- 
 going steam trials which showed even better results than 
 those obtained in the Iris. Early in September she 
 had a six hours' run at an average speed of 1 S.6 knots — 
 higher than had ever before been obtained over so long 
 a period in a man-of-war. But it was impossible then to 
 say that this pair of ships was going to beat the handy 
 full-sail-powered vessels of the " C " class out of the field. 
 The Cajiada, the Constance, and the Cordelia, ships of this 
 class, were not yet launched ; and they, with their 1 3-knot 
 speed, and their 470 tons of coal, were regarded by almost 
 the whole naval world as infinitely more precious as types, 
 than these novelties in the form of " Despatch Vessels." It 
 we drop below the class of cruiser at that time, to that of 
 the gun-vessel and gunboat, we find the latest type in the 
 Algerine, masted of course, with ioj-knots speed, and said 
 to be capable of steaming 1 100 miles. 
 
 I dwell upon the condition of design because I believe 
 it was that which really governed the whole situation, and 
 because, later on, it was the shipbuilding programme and 
 policy of the Board of Admiralty, of which Sir Cooper Key 
 was the naval leader, that was chiefly challenged. The 
 interest to the biography is that Sir Cooper Key was 
 necessarily at the head of the revolutions that were then 
 
4 2 4 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 effected, and that we are in a position to compare some of 
 his thoughts on these matters at an earlier date, and to trace 
 them into substance in these later years. 
 
 Between 1866 when he left the Excellent, and 1879 
 when he went to the Admiralty, he had had certain sea 
 experiences. He had been afloat in the BelleropJwn, one of 
 the most effective attempts to combine the sailing ship and 
 the steamer in an ironclad. He had commanded a squadron 
 largely composed of unmasted turret ships. While in this 
 command, in July 1878, he wrote in these terms: — 
 
 " I was much surprised on taking command of the 
 fleet to find it so formidable as regards ships, officers, and 
 men. The turret ships, once in the Baltic or Mediterranean, 
 would be a splendid addition to our strength. I first took 
 the Reserve ships to Portland, where the turret ships joined 
 me. I exercised the squadron there in harbour drills, etc., 
 and went out four times with the turret ships alone, nine 
 of them. They steered very wildly at first, but latterly 
 they handled them well. All the turret and gun gear 
 worked well ; battering charges did no damage. We had 
 slight trouble with the steam-steering gear of two of them, 
 but they can throw it out of gear quickly, and we tound a 
 cause and remedy for the trouble. The Admiralty would 
 not let me take the turret ships, or even Thunderer, for a 
 cruise with the Reserve ships. I wanted to take them short 
 stages, and manoeuvre the eighteen ships together ; but they 
 have sent me here" (to Ban try) Bay "with eight ironclads; and 
 making this our headquarters, I shall go out for short cruises." 
 Now, if we turn back to 1 866 for Sir Cooper Key's 
 frank ideas as to what the ironclad and the cruiser of the 
 future ought to be ; if we consider what, to his open mind, 
 the best attempt to combine the sailing ship and the 
 steamer in an ironclad actually came to; if we imagine 
 how his thoughts must have been affected by those concrete 
 entities the Chinese gunboats, the Iris and Mercury, the grow- 
 ing numbers of the torpedo-boats, and the Nordenfelt 
 machine guns, we can almost sketch out what the forth- 
 coming policy of design would be, so far as he had power 
 to influence it. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 425 
 
 His ideal ironclad in 1866 was to be of moderate 
 length, not more than 300 feet ; she was not to be encum- 
 bered with engines and boilers beyond what was required 
 for i2i-knot speed ; her water-line should be protected by 
 a belt of 8 inches of iron; a deck of i-inch iron, with 
 wooden planking, should connect the upper edges of this 
 belt. The rudder should enter below the water-line ; the 
 steering gear, except the wheel, being protected by the belt. 
 The armament on the gun-deck was to consist of heavy 
 guns on slides, 1 2 -ton guns in the midship ports, and 
 lighter guns towards the extremities. On the upper-deck 
 she was to carry two guns on a turn-table before the fore- 
 mast ; two others, similarly mounted, abaft the mizzenmast. 
 Only rifle protection was to be afforded to the men working 
 the guns, but the rollers and training gear of the turn-tables 
 were to be protected as much as possible by the upper-deck 
 beams and deck. He hoped that the advantages of retain- 
 ing the full rig of ships for the training of seamen would 
 not be forgotten, but even as early as 1866 he did not go 
 so far as to insist that the ironclad should be rigged. In 
 the earliest days of the ironclads he had seen how the tide 
 was setting against the attempt to make them sailing ships. 
 The Thunderer had not been conceived when Captain Key 
 wrote in 1866, but when he went to the Admiralty he had 
 been several times at sea with his flag in that ship, and 
 knew very well what she was. He knew also what the 
 endeavour to maintain a modern fleet under sail came to. 
 
 In 1878 there had been laid down by the French, at 
 Toulon, a ship called the Caiman. She was 278 feet long, 
 and had a speed of 14 J knots. She carried a single 42-cm. 
 breech-loading rifled gun at the bow, and another at the stern, 
 each mounted en barbette, and she further carried on each 
 broadside, between the barbettes, two 10-cm. guns, beside 
 machine guns. She was heavily armoured by a water-line 
 belt 19^ inches thick amidships, and tapering in thickness 
 towards bow and stern. The middle part of the ship, 
 between the barbettes, was further protected by a steel 
 deck 2.8 inches thick. Evidently, there was in this ship 
 some approach to that general ideal which had been in Sir 
 
426 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Cooper Key's mind in 1866 — not, however, more than 
 
 this. 
 
 She gave a sort of hint to the constructors at the 
 Admiralty, and, before Sir Cooper Key joined the Board, 
 a new design, based indeed on the Caimans hint, but yet 
 differing widely from her, and, by as much as she differed, 
 approaching more nearly to Sir Cooper Key's ideal, was in 
 process of completion there. 
 
 The ship was the Collingwood '; and allowing for the 
 changes of time, and the influences on Sir Cooper Key's 
 mind already alluded to, the description of the ship sketches 
 nearly that of his ideal ironclad in 1866. 
 
 She was of moderate length, as length was then con- 
 sidered — 325 feet. She was not perhaps of such moderate 
 speed, but still her speed of I 5.7 knots was moderate in com- 
 parison with the 1 8.0 knots of the Iris and Mercury. Her 
 water-line was protected by a belt which, though it ex- 
 ceeded 8 inches in thickness, was proportionately moderate 
 at 18 inches in view of the advances made. This belt was 
 closed in at the top by an armoured deck which, though it 
 exceeded 1 inch, was, at 2 J inches, proportionate to the 
 changes that time had developed. The rudder entered below 
 water, and, though the belt did not extend abaft so as to 
 protect the steering gear, other armoured means of protec- 
 tion were employed. With regard to the armament, there 
 was for the first time in the navy the particular disposition 
 of the guns which Key had named in 1 866. Two guns at 
 bow, and two guns at stern, on turn-tables, and a strong 
 broadside armament as well, between them. It is true that 
 in the end the adoption of the French breech-loading system 
 brought out the Collingwood with 4 3 -ton breech-loading guns 
 at bow and stern, with no heavier than 6-inch guns on the 
 broadside ; but perhaps the initial design with muzzle-load- 
 ing guns was much closer to Key's ideal than the final 
 one came to be. The broadside guns were protected 
 according to Key's ideal, that is, not protected at all. The 
 bow and stern guns were protected by barbette and other 
 armour, but Key had required that some protection should 
 be given to the turn-tables and the machinery for working 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 427 
 
 them. Hydraulics had greatly increased the quantity and 
 importance of this machinery, and as by its means the 
 crews of the guns were very much diminished, we can 
 imagine the admiral concurring in the change as a natural 
 development of his principle. So we can understand him 
 as now definitely concurring in the abandonment of sail 
 power for the first-class ironclads, and then we have the 
 Collingivood as the nearest approach possible at the new 
 date, to the ideal ironclad sketched out at the old one. 
 Two points differed : the under-water armoured deck before 
 and abaft the belt was novel, and was none of Key's. He 
 had always protested against the system of conning-towers, 
 but inertia and the designer had been too much for him. 
 The Collingwooa" s conning-tower had to be submitted to. 
 
 But this ship, the Collingwood, was not laid down till 
 the 1 2th July 1880, and was not launched till the 22nd of 
 November 1882. Until she was tried at sea — which did 
 not happen till May 1884 — where was the proof that she 
 was any more destined to lead the way and become a type 
 proper to be repeated and expanded, than the Thunderer, 
 the Alexandra, or the Temeraire had been ? 
 
 With regard to cruisers, the designs for the Leander 
 class were probably complete when Key joined the Board. 
 Three of them were laid down in 1880. They were in 
 essence improved Irises. About the same size, shape, and 
 force, but dropping one-eighteenth of the speed of the Iris, 
 in order to extend, by taking every advantage of improve- 
 ments in the marine steam-engine, the radius of action, 
 their coal capacity was increased from 780 to 1000 tons, 
 and their nominal steaming capacity from 4400 to 1 1 ,000 
 miles at 10 knots. A further advance was made in the 
 matter of armour. The Iris had no protection from armour. 
 The Leander class had a protective steel deck of i| inch 
 thick over the magazines and machinery. Sail power, to 
 the minimum amount allowed in the Iris, was present in the 
 new design. The system of armouring was new to Sir 
 Cooper Key, yet it was really a modification of the low 
 water-line belt with armoured deck attached, which he had 
 advocated in 1866. The ships were dignified by the title 
 
428 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 of " cruisers," yet it could not be said that the bulk of the 
 navy, even at the date of their launch 1 882-1883, was 
 clear that they were killing sail power. 
 
 The Conservative party being beaten at the polls, Mr. 
 Gladstone formed a new Government, Lord Northbrook 
 becoming First Lord of the Admiralty. His Board was 
 formed on the 13th of May 1880, and consisted of the 
 following members : — The Earl of Northbrook, Admiral Sir 
 Cooper Key, Vice-Admiral Lord John Hay, Rear-Admiral 
 A. H. Hoskins, and Mr. T. Brassey, M.P. Sir Houston 
 Stewart was Controller, but not a member of the Board, 
 and Rear-Admiral F. A. Herbert was Director of Naval 
 Ordnance. 
 
 It is not easy, writing in 1 897 when the navy estimates 
 have exceeded those of the army, and have stood at nearly 
 twenty-two millions of money, and when the only tendency 
 the country has shown is to urge further and larger expendi- 
 ture, to recall what the state of feeling was when the new 
 Board was formed. But it is significant to remember that 
 when Sir Geoffrey Hornby went about to establish the com- 
 pact between the three leading admirals, it was not an 
 increase of naval force that he was aiming at, but a certain 
 reorganisation of the administrative machine. The Board 
 now came into office with a navy not superior to that of 
 France alone, either in ironclads or in cruisers ; and with no 
 general feeling either in Parliament or in the country that 
 this was not as it ought to be. 
 
 The fact had been, that as long as considerable numbers 
 of the war admirals remained alive, the country was kept 
 by them in a state of instinctive consciousness of the 
 peculiar vulnerability of these islands, and the necessity of 
 maintaining impenetrable naval armour. But after these 
 had passed away, there was no way of preserving that con- 
 sciousness but by the writings and speeches of naval officers 
 who had closely studied history and were capable of apply- 
 ing its lessons. But there were no such writers or speakers 
 for many years, and, after the Reform Bill had set up a 
 passion for economy and retrenchment, it was almost a 
 matter of course that the navy should be made the principal 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 429 
 
 subject of it. A check to expenditure was more easily 
 applied to the navy than to any other department. Even 
 after the establishment of the continuous service system, by 
 which the State was bound to retain the services of men for 
 not less than ten years, great reductions in expenditure 
 could be at once effected by paying off ships, discharging 
 workmen, and ceasing to purchase stores. 
 
 Only ten years before Lord Northbrook's Board came 
 into office, Mr. Childers, with the full approval of the mass 
 of public opinion, set reduction of expenditure opposite to 
 the maintenance of naval force, and decided against the 
 latter. But this method of dealing with the navy had for 
 many years blinded even the navy itself to its true position. 
 The navy distrusted the navy, and, as we have seen, Sir 
 Cooper Key himself had looked to military forces as at least 
 a possible alternative to its defensive power. Hence, when 
 he came into office, the knowledge that the armoured navy 
 of France was equal to that of England, and that her policy 
 appeared to be to increase it, created no such alarm in any 
 minds as could later be created by discovering that the 
 battleships of England were not very much superior to 
 those of France and Russia combined. 
 
 Take together these sentiments, and the fact that no 
 type of what are now called "battleships" — the descendants 
 of the old sailing " line-of-battle ships " — had been or could 
 be decided on, and there is before us ample reason why 
 Lord Northbrook should have been three years in office 
 before announcing a distinct increase in the output of iron- 
 clads. 1 I have no reason to doubt that Sir Cooper Key 
 was, up to a certain date, entirely in accord with this waiting 
 policy, and though it was bitterly complained of later, it 
 was practically inevitable, and had been going on for several 
 years without special challenge. 
 
 The accompanying lists of the ironclads laid down in 
 England and France between 1876 and 1 880 is inexplicable, 
 except on the grounds stated. 
 
 The heterogeneous character of the purchased ships had 
 
 1 Mr. W. H. Smith in the House, in August 1 880, stated that this was the 
 difficulty which had beset him when in office. 
 
430 
 
 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 been more than ever a wet blanket to design, and, though 
 the Collingwood was about to lead the way as a type offer- 
 ing signs of permanency, her success was a matter of almost 
 entire speculation. 
 
 England. 
 
 France. 
 1876. 
 
 England. France. 
 1878. 
 
 Ajax. 
 Agamemnon. 
 
 Turenne. 
 Devastation. 
 Bayard. 
 Foudroyant. 
 
 #***?} Bought by £"** 
 Superb l Vot £ of Duguesdin. 
 
 B ' lkisle 1 Credit. ?*"** _. 
 QrnPH J Indomptable. 
 
 Caiman. 
 
 
 1877. 
 
 1879. 
 
 
 Amiral Dupe r re. 
 
 Tonnant. 
 
 Furitux. 
 
 Cotiqturor. Formidable. 
 Edinburgh. Vauban. 
 Colossus. Amiral Baudin 
 
 18S0. 
 Collingwood. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the gun question had followed up the sail 
 question in blocking design and giving it pause. The 
 French had settled their gun because they had had the 
 good fortune to begin upon a good system of breech-loading ; 
 while we, having begun with a bad system, were forced 
 back into muzzle-loading, and would have retained that 
 system had it not been discovered that the highest velocity, 
 and therefore the better shooting and greatest penetration 
 of armour, could only be obtained by long barrels and slow- 
 burning powder. 1 
 
 Lord Northbrook's Board came into office with the 
 possible change back into a sound system of breech-loading 
 staring it in the face. Though there was not a single gun 
 on the proposed new system — which was in all essentials 
 borrowed from the French — in the navy when the Board 
 took office, it was beginning to be seen that muzzle-loading 
 would be given up. Some hindrance to the production of 
 a settled design for battleships was clearly thus offered, but 
 the retardation could not have approached that which was 
 due to the question of retaining sail power, and of how 
 ironclads should be prepared to fight. 
 
 1 See Chapter XVI. p. 380. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 431 
 
 Before the first year of office had run out, the Board 
 had come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to 
 considerably increase the rate of building armour-plated 
 ships which had prevailed. But still the type proper 
 to proceed upon in the case of new ships was a matter 
 of doubt and perplexity. The French type, where there 
 were isolated armoured barbette towers generally containing 
 single heavy guns placed at the ends and sides of the ships 
 upon the upper-deck, with broadside batteries of lighter 
 guns, entirely unprotected by armour, upon the deck below, 
 did not commend itself to the English naval mind, yet, in 
 the sort of despair which possessed us, the new Board 
 turned somewhat towards the French system. The War- 
 spite and Impe'rieuse were laid down in 1881, and were 
 again a new departure in British design, more nearly 
 approaching the French than either the Thunderer, Alex- 
 andra ', Conqueror, or Temeraire. It was intended to adhere 
 to sail power in these new types, and it was only after they 
 were approaching completion that the utter incongruity of 
 the proposal was realised, and sail power was given up in 
 the last of the armoured ships to which it was attempted 
 to apply it. There was this to be said for adhering to the 
 idea of sail power for the two ships : they were intended 
 chiefly for service abroad, following up in this respect the 
 idea of ships of the Triumph and Iron Duke design. 
 Though it had been clearly proved that sail power in such 
 ships was the reverse of economical, the notion of saving coal 
 by the use of sails had been so impressed on the naval 
 mind for a long course of years, that it was as yet abso- 
 lutely impossible for it to shake the delusion off — absolutely 
 impossible to conceive of a navy entirely discarding sail 
 power. 
 
 However uncertain the future of armour-plated design 
 might be, the activity of France had to be met. Though 
 public opinion on the subject was inert, and the Admiralty 
 itself could hardly be expected to start a propaganda of 
 alarm, even substantial equality between France and 
 England in this respect was a menace to political peace. 
 France laid down the Hoche in 1881, which, even when the 
 
432 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ImpMeuse and Warspite and also the purchased ships were 
 counted, still left us four ships behind in the constructive 
 race started in 1876. On the other hand, the considerable 
 advance which France had been making in her rate of ship- 
 building, had, until 1881, been sustained by loans. These 
 ceased in 1 881, and there was the appearance of a drop 
 in the pace kept up. The Board of Admiralty, however, 
 must have felt that a certain risk had been incurred 
 which should not be incurred again. Instead of resting 
 satisfied with the disparity of force they found when 
 they came into orifice, they thought the opportunity had 
 come to get rid of it without unduly exciting the public 
 mind. In considering the design of the Collingwood, 
 it must have been admitted that, except in the matter of 
 sail power, she had all that was being demanded by the 
 possibly unsettled naval opinion of the day — unless, indeed, 
 it might criticise the particular system of armouring adopted. 
 Though the time had not yet arrived when the impossibility 
 of applying sail power to ^the Imperieuse and Warspite was 
 fully admitted, the extreme difficulties in the way could not 
 have escaped notice. There was no design before the 
 Board which was more likely to perpetuate itself than that 
 of the unlaunched Collingwood. Suppose a bold policy 
 were adopted ? Suppose it were assumed that the time had 
 come when diversities of type were to cease, would it be 
 made less likely by the frank abandonment of sail power ? 
 
 We have seen how little removed the design of the 
 Collingwood was from Key's ideal of 1 866. Further con- 
 sideration of that type did seem to show that, given the 
 abandonment of sail power, it met the conditions of the 
 day. The bold hypothesis was adopted. Though the first 
 of the type was still on the stocks, four more ships of the 
 same type — larger, more powerful, and understood to be 
 improved in many ways — were laid down in 1882. The 
 whole five ships were named after distinguished admirals, 
 and were thereafter spoken of as the " Admiral " class. 
 
 At the time, little note was taken of this very great 
 step in advance. Even at this day (1897) it is scarcely 
 remembered that this is the step which made possible, and 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 433 
 
 led up to, our present great battle fleet, and that never 
 before had so many as five first-class ironclads of a definite 
 type been on the stocks together. The only decision 
 approaching this in moment by any former Board — and 
 for this another distinguished Sea Lord of the Admiralty, 
 the Right Hon. Sir John Hay, was responsible — was the 
 laying down of the four ships of the Iron Duke class and 
 the two of the Triumph class in 1867. But no real com- 
 parison can be drawn between the two decisions. The 
 Iron Duke and Triumph groups were only intended as 
 second-class ships, and the only absolute novelties in them 
 were the adoption of the twin screw in combination with 
 full rig, and the upper-deck battery with its bow and stern 
 fire. In the Admiral class there was the definite parting 
 with sail power, the rejection of the tactical ideas brought 
 to a climax in the Inflexible, and, above all, the definite 
 adoption of the long-barrelled breech-loading rifled gun. 
 Without question, we must say that we owe the Admiral 
 class, and all that has followed, in great part to the enter- 
 prising and yet well-balanced mind that then governed the 
 naval part of the Council at Whitehall. 
 
 It was the same in regard to the policy for cruisers. 
 The temptation to pursue traditional policy — great sail 
 power, short length for handiness, moderate speed, and 
 moderate radius of action under steam, and moderate 
 displacement — may perhaps have been yielded to in 1881 
 by laying down the ships of the Calliope type, where there 
 was a displacement of 2770 tons, a length of 235 ft., a 
 breadth of 44 ft. 6 in., a speed of 13.75 knots, and a 
 radius of action under steam of 3840 miles at 10 knots. 
 But Captain Key, in 1866, had asserted that "great speed 
 was indispensable " for cruisers. They might be " rendered 
 much more formidable by a water-line belt and iron deck ; 
 but he would in no instance place armour-plating elsewhere 
 than on the water-line." True, there was the sail power to 
 be considered, but that was the thought of fifteen years ago. 
 The results he had sought were approached in the Iris, and 
 almost reached in the Leander class, where the sail power 
 had dropped to insignificance. The bold but consistent 
 28 
 
434 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 step was taken in 1 883-1 884, when the Mersey and three 
 other like ships were laid down. In these ships sail power 
 was definitely abandoned; they were to have "only two 
 pole masts for signalling." They were Leanders carried to 
 their natural conclusions in view of Captain Key's ideas in 
 1866. There was a slight reduction in displacement, and 
 a considerable reduction in coal supply; but per contra 
 there was the bow and stern armament of one 7-inch 
 breech-loading gun to each ; there was at least a knot more 
 speed ; and there was the armoured deck over the whole 
 horizontal area of the ship, which in the Leander was 
 only partially covered. 
 
 In this case, again, it is not sufficiently borne in mind 
 that Sir Cooper Key might have influenced a backward 
 step, and, were we without evidence the other way, it might 
 still be averred that his opinion had impeded the advent of 
 the Mersey class as the type of cruiser which has since been 
 only developed. As it is, we are assured that Sir Cooper 
 Key's influence must have been wholly on the side of the 
 forward step, and that with his usual balanced judgment 
 he had parted with prejudice in consonance with the facts 
 before him. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that a further bold innovation 
 was faced in the design of the Scout in 1884. This ship 
 was the first of the torpedo vessels. " She was designed," 
 said Mr. Campbell-Bannerman in March 1884, "for the 
 employment of the Whitehead torpedo, and, in fact, she 
 represents the cheapest vessel that can be produced for this 
 service with the speed I have named (16 knots), and with 
 sea-going qualities." This novel type was greatly followed 
 up ; and whether it has been supplanted by still more novel 
 designs may yet be held uncertain. Her features were very 
 pronounced. She carried the maximum number of torpedo- 
 tubes that had ever been put into any ship — seven. Her 
 gun armament of four 5 -inch breech-loading guns, together 
 with an abundant supply of machine guns, was by no 
 means insignificant for her size, while, for her size, the speed 
 of 16 knots was higher than anything that had yet been 
 done in ships of her displacement. She was, of course, 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 435 
 
 without armoured protection of any kind ; it had never 
 been applied to vessels so small where even moderate speed 
 was looked for. 
 
 The Scout was the recognition of the torpedo in a sea- 
 going and sea-keeping ship as her primary and not her 
 secondary armament. This recognition was combined with 
 another which had been for several years circulating round 
 the torpedo-boat, namely, that a battle fleet was no longer 
 self-defensive against torpedo attack. Some kind of ram 
 or torpedo vessel was, it was considered, a necessary pro- 
 tector for the valuable and powerful battleship. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key, as it happens, has left behind him a 
 paper on these two questions, which represents perhaps 
 the most advanced opinion he ever expressed on naval 
 problems. It was so much in advance that it probably 
 met with little or no response from his colleagues; and 
 though two vessels of the class were announced to form part 
 of the Northbrook programme at the end of 1884, the 
 designs were never published. It was dated early in his 
 career at the Admiralty, the 13th of September 1880, and 
 its importance appears to me so great that I quote it 
 in full :— 
 
 " I am strongly impressed with the necessity of pro- 
 viding another description of torpedo vessel differing from, 
 and in addition to, those already built or building. 
 
 " We require sea-going torpedo vessels to be attached 
 to every squadron, which would be capable of accompanying 
 the squadron to any distance in any weather — vessels that, 
 having sufficient speed to overtake an ironclad, would not 
 fear to receive her fire when approaching or passing her, 
 to launch a torpedo if her water-line and vitals were pro- 
 tected by a steel deck. 
 
 " I am aware that the Polyphemus is a vessel of this 
 description ; but the vessels I contemplate would be less 
 costly than she is, and be more serviceable as cruisers and 
 as habitations, though the gun armament should be subordi- 
 nated to the torpedo. 
 
 " It is necessary that the torpedoes be discharged below 
 water, as otherwise she would be incapable of running the 
 
436 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 gauntlet of an enemy's fire without great risk of her torpedo 
 armament being disabled. 
 
 " The vessel I propose should have 1 6 knots speed ; l 
 should carry coal sufficient to accompany a fleet; have 
 four or five submerged tubes for torpedoes, a very light 
 armament of guns and machine guns, a steel deck below 
 the water-line covering the engines and boilers and torpedo- 
 room. Two conning-towers well protected against machine- 
 gun fire, and she would require but limited accommodation 
 for her crew. I am of opinion that, in the existing condition 
 of torpedo warfare, no squadron can be considered efficient 
 without one or two such vessels being attached." 
 
 This anticipation of a class of vessel in 1880, which 
 may be said to have put in an appearance for the first time 
 in 1 896, is a remarkable instance of forecasting. At the 
 same time, the peculiar character of Sir Cooper Key's mind 
 is disclosed in the memorandum. He stopped short in the 
 achievement of the immediate object, and did not consider 
 what the result would be when the achievement was com- 
 plete. The ironclads were not able to defend themselves 
 in the conditions of modern war. Something was to be 
 provided to defend them ; but no consideration was given 
 to the entirely novel situation of the line-of-battle ship, 
 which was liable to be beaten by something which was not 
 a line-of-battle ship. 
 
 The Scout, we may fairly assume, was the practical 
 outcome of the theoretical memorandum of 1880; but this 
 question of defending the ironclad against something that 
 was not an ironclad was never lost sight of by the Board, 
 and before it went out of office a design for a vessel " to 
 accompany fleets to protect them against attack by torpedo- 
 boats " was ordered to be prepared. She was not to draw 
 more than eight feet of water, so that she should not be 
 subject herself to attack by the Whitehead torpedo. 
 
 Something is to be said, however, on the other side, 
 which would again point to that characteristic of caution in 
 
 1 The Collingwood was then the only ironclad designed for 16-knot speed, 
 and no French ironclad was designed for more than 15-knot speed. The fastest 
 was the Devastation, of 15.17 knots. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 437 
 
 advance, which may have shown itself in the earlier days 
 at the Admiralty more than it did in the later ones. 
 
 In March 1882 he wrote a memorandum on " The best 
 Type of small Unarmoured Vessels for the Navy," the sub- 
 stance of which it is interesting to set out, in view of what 
 has since been done. 
 
 It had been objected, he said, to our policy in this 
 respect, that our small vessels had not speed or coal- 
 endurance enough to be of full service in war ; and he pro- 
 posed to examine the question. It would be allowed that 
 though our smaller cruisers fell short of the speed of 
 merchant steamers, and of some lightly - armed foreign 
 cruisers, yet, in respect of speed, coal-endurance, armament, 
 and accommodation for men, the vessels now building were 
 an improvement on their predecessors. 1 He argued that the 
 change of speed must be to 14 or 1 5 knots, if it were to be 
 effective as desired. Such a speed could only be got by 
 increasing the length and decreasing the breadth ; storage 
 of coal must be decreased, and masts and sails reduced ; 
 cost would be increased 50 to 60 per cent. Numbers must 
 in consequence be reduced. 
 
 The result in the training of our officers and men would 
 be disastrous. If the 60 or 70 sloops and small vessels, 
 etc., now kept at sea, were replaced by full-powered mastless 
 steamers, the check to the training in seamanship, tactics 
 under sail and steam, pilotage, gunnery, and the ordinary 
 duties of a ship of war, would be very great. 
 
 " In other respects," he said, " we must also bear in mind 
 that, in time of war, vessels of existing types, capable of 
 steaming 11 or 12 knots, and carrying a comparatively 
 heavy armament, will be available for the performance of 
 many important duties in rivers and in-shore waters where 
 high speed is not necessary, but where an efficient armament 
 would be. We must not let officers and men forget that 
 ships of war are built and equipped for the purpose of fight- 
 
 1 Alluding, doubtless, chiefly to four ships of the Racer class of 950 tons, 850 
 horse-power, and 11.0 knots speed. Perhaps also to three ships of the Caroline 
 class of 1420 tons, 950 horse-power, and 13.0 knots. Possibly to three ships of 
 the Albacore class of 560 tons, 600 horse-power, and 11.0 knots. 
 
438 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ing, and that they are bound to meet all comers of similar 
 size without endeavouring to escape." 
 
 He thought that for the class of swift, lightly-armed, 
 heavily-coaled vessels which was desired, it would be better 
 to fall back on the mercantile marine in war, and to per- 
 severe in the policy then existing. Nevertheless, he pro- 
 posed to meet the demand to some extent, and suggested 
 a design for a composite twin-screw vessel of about 1 1 oo 
 tons. 
 
 Not impossibly, the Basilisk class of sloop of 1 1 40 tons, 
 2000 horse-power, and 14.7 knots, was the outcome of this 
 paper, as they carry similar armaments to that of the 
 Racer. 
 
 I suppose that the apparent discrepancy between the 
 advanced conceptions already noticed, and this grudging 
 admission of change, may be explained partly by the effect 
 of experience on Sir Cooper Key's mind, — this paper being 
 so much prior to the later one quoted, — and, in part, from 
 some conception of the special duties falling on ships of 
 what are called the " sloop " class. It had for long been 
 the practice, and it still exists, to give these vessels a much 
 heavier armament in proportion to their size than other 
 ships. Engine power was deliberately sacrificed to gun 
 power; and locomotion, in consequence, was held to rest 
 properly on sails. Quite a recent type, the Atgerine, laid 
 down in 1894, holds to the old idea, and ranks in a general 
 survey as thirty-eighth in displacement, twenty-second in 
 proportionate locomotive power, but second in proportionate 
 gun power. Sir Cooper Key may have only been protecting 
 a special class of ship, and not attacking speed as an element 
 necessary to small ships as well as to large. 
 
 In this view of naval progress in the matter of design, 
 it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the Board, 
 headed by Lord Northbrook, and technically advised and 
 influenced by Sir Cooper Key, which was commonly thought 
 at the time, and is still looked back on, as being somewhat 
 supine, did, as a matter of fact, take more decided steps 
 than perhaps any Board that had preceded it. And in the 
 steps then taken every Board has since been treading. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 439 
 
 I have already noticed how the Board was met by the 
 gun difficulty the moment it went into office. Things, in 
 fact, were, at the beginning of 1880, just on the turn, and 
 the final decision must have really rested in the hands of the 
 Admiralty. The decision — of course with the concurrence 
 of the War Office authorities — was final in respect of 
 breech-loading guns, and, as is well known, has never been 
 reversed since. 
 
 In furtherance of the decision, the Ordnance Committee 
 of military and naval officers was established in March 
 1 88 1, and, before the Board left office, designs for 1 6.2 5 -inch, 
 1 3. 5 -inch, 9.2-inch, and 8-inch breech-loading guns were 
 worked out, besides improved 6-inch, 5 -inch, and 4-inch 
 guns. There was not, as has been said, a single breech- 
 loading gun of the new type in the service when the Board 
 came into office, and yet there were 594 such guns available 
 when it left office. All the new designs of ships were altered 
 to suit the new guns, and a vigorous system of replacing 
 muzzle-loading by breech-loading guns was set in motion. 
 
 During the tenure of office of the Board, 22 new ships, 
 with an aggregate displacement of more than 43,000 tons, 
 were completely armed with 1 64 breech - loading guns ; 
 fifteen old ships, carrying 1 24 muzzle-loading guns, were 
 re-armed with breech-loaders ; while 2 1 ships were in course 
 of being armed or re-armed with 2 1 1 of the new guns. 
 
 Before the Board came into office, machine guns were 
 almost unknown. There were a few Gatling guns and the 
 100 Nordenfelts, but nothing more. The machine gun 
 was now made a definite part of the ship's armament : 1 366 
 were in use or available when the Board went out of office, 
 and 500 more were due before the end of the financial 
 year. 
 
 With regard to torpedoes, the Board found about 500 
 ot a non-obsolete pattern ; they added 250 to the stock, 
 gave orders for 150 more, and arranged for an additional 
 source of supply in case of pressure. 
 
 It was not until the autumn of 1884 that the feeling in 
 regard to our naval position, which has possessed the country 
 ever since, began to arise. Sir Cooper Key had for three 
 
440 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 successive years pressed strongly for the addition of another 
 million to the £ I 0,480,000 of 1 8 8 2- 1 8 8 3, the £ 1 0,7 5 0,000 
 of 1 883-1 884, and the £10,812,000 of 1 884-1 885, to be 
 spent entirely on shipbuilding. But the country and the 
 navy were apathetic about the matter, and the Cabinet over- 
 ruled in each case. 
 
 It is not possible that Sir Cooper Key's real attitude 
 towards the navy, as represented in the Board to which he 
 belonged, can be understood unless the current of public 
 opinion is in some degree set out and measured. I have 
 already spoken of that divided duty which lies before the 
 First Sea Lord ; how the particular and the general duties 
 may clash, and the extreme step of resignation dictated by 
 the one may be absolutely forbidden by the other. Sea 
 Lords before Sir Cooper Key had taken the extreme step, 
 and sometimes — notably in the laying down of the six ships 
 of the Triumph and Iron Duke types — with complete effect. 1 
 But in such cases the Lords must have felt that they had a 
 strong public, or at least naval, opinion to back them. And 
 moreover, their position, to be effective, must have been con- 
 sistent. They could not have pursued a steady course of 
 policy for several years, and have suddenly broken loose from 
 it and taken a violent plunge in a particular direction. 
 Reviewed from the historical standpoint, as we are now able 
 to review it, the whole policy of Lord Northbrook's Board 
 was rapid advance in every proper direction. The complaint 
 made against it in 1884 was, that it did not suddenly 
 respond to the sudden application of a spur, which the 
 country and the navy had only fitted to its heel then, and 
 for the first time. The Admiralty horse had been, up to 
 that time, crossing the country at a fair hand-gallop, and 
 the rider held a loose rein, with unspurred heel and no 
 whip ; it was blamed because it did not adopt, suddenly, 
 steeple-chasing pace. 
 
 No doubt, the navy was not without its witnesses 
 demanding greater things through the four years during 
 
 1 " Early in March (1867) we (that is, Admiral G. H. Seymour and Sir John 
 Hay) refused to sign the estimates, and tendered our resignation. "—Lines from 
 My Log-Books, by Sir John Hay, p. 262. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 441 
 
 which the work of Sir Cooper Key and the Admiralty had 
 made it possible to demand and carry out a " programme." 
 These witnesses were Admiral Sir John Hay and Lord 
 Henry Lennox, both of whom were in the House of 
 Commons, and both of whom had been in the Admiralty. 
 But the country and the navy allowed them to beat the 
 air, and were never in the least affected by what they said. 
 
 In tracing the current of public opinion, we shall find 
 it nowhere so perfectly reflected as in the columns of the 
 Times ; and nowhere is that reflection so concentrated and 
 defined as in its leading articles. Their number and their 
 nature in relation to any particular subject is a complete 
 gauge of the strength and direction of the public opinion 
 bearing on it. 
 
 In February 1879, then, we find the Times congratulat- 
 ing the country on the drop of one and a half millions that 
 the Navy Estimates showed. In March it repeats these con- 
 gratulations, and, though it claimed that economics must 
 not leave the navy weaker, it commended the shipbuilding 
 programme as " suitable and moderate." Then the navy is 
 put aside until July. In July, as already mentioned, atten- 
 tion is called to the striking possibilities which the creation 
 of the Polyphemus and the Greek - lettered Chinese gun- 
 vessels indicated. Obviously, such reflections, coming in 
 at a time when no type of ironclad existed which might be 
 made permanent, could only retard the progress of design. 
 Early in 1880 we have reflections on the fighting powers of 
 merchant ships and their support of the navy ; repairs and 
 new shipbuilding could not, it was said, be carried on to- 
 gether unless estimates were " portentously increased." It 
 was tempting, on the eve of a general election, to assail naval 
 policy, but it was not justified. 
 
 Then the navy was dropped till June, and we were told 
 that there was no room for discussing the moderate estimates 
 of the late Government, and that Lord Northbrook's Board 
 found no change necessary. As a fact, at the time, Sir 
 Cooper Key was finding every change necessary, and was 
 in the full swing of it. Colourless articles on the bombard- 
 ment of Batanga by Commodore Richards, and on the naval 
 
442 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 demonstration at Dulcigno, summed up the notice taken of 
 the navy for the year. 
 
 Mr. Trevelyan, in moving the Navy Estimates for 1 88 1- 
 1882, based the Admiralty policy on the conception that 
 " a good ship armed and afloat was better than an ideal 
 ship on the stocks." It was a faint indication of the puzzle 
 which was at the bottom of shipbuilding policy ; and when 
 he went on to say that the Board might have notions of 
 their own as to the ironclad of the future, but found plenty 
 of work in completing their predecessors' designs, he put 
 the matter more clearly. Before any great increase in war- 
 ship building could be set up, a momentous decision had to 
 be taken, yet there was no better basis for such a decision 
 than there had been any time within the last ten years. 
 
 The Times in its article complained that we had been 
 for years reconstructing the navy, and were reconstructing 
 still. But it seemed to attach blame to the fact that there 
 was controversy over type, and did not recognise it as 
 inevitable. Yet at the same time it spoke of the Poly- 
 phemus as " perhaps destined to work a revolution in naval 
 warfare." 
 
 The intention of building the Imp^rieuse and Warspite 
 was announced, and the feature adverted to was the 
 furnishing them with breech-loading guns said to have 
 become more powerful than the muzzle-loading guns of the 
 Thunderer and Devastation. The expressed determination 
 of the Admiralty to re-arm the navy with breech-loading 
 guns was claimed as a marked advance, but the appoint- 
 ment of the Naval and Military Ordnance Committee, which 
 was the machinery for carrying out the tremendous change, 
 was spoken of in somewhat slighting terms. The pith of 
 the article, however, may be said to be a balancing between 
 the policies of new construction and the repair of old 
 construction, which had in a sense come to be the naval 
 party watchwords of the Liberals and the Conservatives. 
 
 In April 1882 two notable changes were made at the 
 Admiralty, which showed how much the question of 
 mate'riel was governing the situation, and how ready the 
 Board really was to face it. The Controller was made a 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 443 
 
 Lord of the Admiralty as well, and an Order in Council 
 was obtained creating an additional Civil Lord, " who should 
 possess special mechanical and engineering knowledge as 
 well as administrative experience," to " assist the Controller 
 in the business relating to the materiel" of the navy. 
 Mr. George Rendel, from the firm of Sir William Armstrong 
 & Co., Sir Cooper Key's friend, the worker out of Sir 
 Cooper Key's idea of the Staunch class of gunboat, and 
 the originator of the Greek-lettered Chinese gun-vessels, was 
 appointed to the new post. We must take it, that if Sir 
 Cooper Key did not initiate the proposal, he heartily 
 concurred in it ; and it is almost obvious that, in making 
 such a change at such a time, the Board was a long 
 way ahead of public opinion on the condition of the 
 navy. 
 
 After this there was a lull in naval discussion until 
 August. Sir John Hay, in the House of Commons, had 
 directly raised the point of our naval weakness. The 
 Times, truly mirroring public opinion, made light of it. It 
 deprecated a larger expenditure on shipbuilding, and ob- 
 jected to a too close counting of ships and guns. Jervis 
 and Nelson, it observed, never did such things, and, in the 
 doubt that must hang over naval battles, numbers might 
 not count for much. 
 
 Early in January 1882 Lord Henry Lennox and Sir 
 William Armstrong had made speeches on the naval 
 position, which the Times characterised as " somewhat 
 .disquieting " ; and expressed dissatisfaction that there was 
 " nothing more reassuring " than a speech in reply by Mr. 
 Brassey. But by April this slight tremor of doubt had 
 passed away. Lord Henry Lennox was told that he might 
 as well complain of want of attention to his statements in 
 regard to the weakness of the navy, as the shepherd who 
 was always crying wolf might complain of the deaf ears on 
 which his cry fell. It was said that he was calling " for 
 more ironclads, as Sir John Hay had called before him, and 
 as our naval experts had always been in the habit of doing." 
 " The art of the alarmist," it went on, " consisted in putting 
 forward fancy figures and then arguing as if they were 
 
444 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 correct." It would have been impossible to employ such 
 language had there been the slightest hope that a move 
 at the Admiralty would have been responded to in the 
 country. It is clear that the Board was pursuing the only 
 policy open to it. 
 
 In September 1882 there was an article pointing out 
 how the rapid advance of naval science hindered progress in 
 completing ships on the stocks, as it was necessary to alter 
 their design in order to bring them up to date. The 
 Calliope was instanced as having been given one knot 
 more speed while in process of construction. The oppor- 
 tunity was not lost of again ridiculing the case of the 
 alarmist, and of once more claiming that in the ships of the 
 Mercantile Marine an efficient auxiliary to the navy would 
 be found. 
 
 In March 1883 Lord Henry Lennox once more drew 
 attention to the state of the navy in the House of 
 Commons, and, in commenting on the debate, the Times con- 
 tinued to make light of the naval question. The debate was 
 of a character with which we were familiar. The onslaught 
 was irresistible till the defence was developed. It was not 
 necessary to suppose that the most powerful fleet or ships 
 would be certain to secure victory, — witness the battle of 
 Trafalgar. The comparisons between our force and that 
 of France were faulty. It might not be inexpedient for 
 the House of Commons to debate these questions, but they 
 became more and more difficult for anyone but experts 
 to deal with. " Nothing could be more satisfactory than 
 the declaration of Mr. Campbell - Bannerman, that the 
 Government accepted, as the basis of naval policy, the 
 principle that our naval supremacy must be upheld." The 
 policy which had placed Mr. Rendel in office was warmly 
 approved by Mr. Smith in the House, and there was 
 reasonable confidence that the navy was being, and would 
 be, kept up. 
 
 As there was no other leading article on the general 
 state of the navy throughout the whole year, it is pretty 
 evident that there was not, even to the end of 1883, any 
 really strong feeling as to the naval position in the mind of 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 445 
 
 the country, or any reason why a Cabinet traditionally 
 bound to consider economy as of primary importance, should 
 allow the Admiralty to force its hand in the matter of 
 expenditure. 
 
 The Navy Estimates, therefore, for 1884— 1885 scarcely 
 exceeded those of former years. It is perhaps historically 
 worth while to summarise the financial and shipbuilding 
 policy of Lord Northbrook's Board up to the opening 
 of the financial year 1 884-1 885, which marks the time 
 when the country began to awake. The ordinary esti- 
 mate for 1 881-1882 was £10,725,919; for 1 882-1 883, 
 £10,483,901; for 1883-1884, £10,752,300; and for 
 1884-1885, £10,811,770. 
 
 The ships laid down stood as follows: for 1 881-1882, 
 two armour-clads aggregating 14,780 tons, and ten 
 unarmoured ships aggregating 13,330 tons — a total of 
 twelve ships with a displacement of 28,110 tons. The 
 total expenditure on shipbuilding and ordnance for that 
 year was £3,777,241. 
 
 For 1 882-1 883 the ships laid down stood as follows: 
 four armour-clads aggregating 32,400 tons, and one un- 
 armoured ship of 950 tons — a total of five ships with 
 a displacement of 33,350 tons. The expenditure on ship- 
 building and ordnance was £4,213,644. 
 
 For 1 883-1 884 the ships laid down comprised one 
 armour-clad of 10,000 tons and six unarmoured ships, 
 aggregating 8770 tons in all — a total of only seven ships 
 of 18,770 tons. The total expenditure on shipbuilding 
 and ordnance for the year was £4,407,287. 
 
 For the year 1 884-1 885 the original proposals for the 
 year were to lay down one armour-clad of 6200 tons and 
 seven unarmoured ships of 16,310 tons — a total of eight 
 ships aggregating 22,5 10 tons. The estimated expenditure 
 on shipbuilding was to be £4,792,817. 
 
 These figures show us that for the five years — counting 
 to the summer of 1884 — during which Sir Cooper Key 
 had represented the navy at the Admiralty, there had been 
 practically no increase in the expenditures, and therefore to 
 a hasty judgment, such as a suddenly-alarmed public forms, 
 
44 6 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 there had been no progress at all. We have seen that in 
 reality the whole navy had been transformed ; and that, for 
 the armour-clad and the cruiser, types had been furnished 
 which were, for the first time since the introduction of 
 armour, capable of governing construction for a long 
 course of years. 
 
 But mutterings by those who had not the whole case 
 before them, as we have now had it, arose, multiplied, and 
 gathered force as the year 1884 rolled on. Towards the 
 summer something like clamour against the Admiralty 
 took form. In the month of July Lord Sidmouth drew 
 attention to the state of the navy in the House of Lords, 
 and Lord Northbrook, in replying to it, made use of an 
 expression which was perfectly explicit, plain, and correct, 
 but which, separated from its context, was made to bear a 
 construction entirely foreign to its meaning, and which is 
 to this day preserved as a reproach to that Board of 
 Admiralty, but especially to the First Lord and to the 
 First Sea Lord. 
 
 Lord Northbrook said: "The question for the public 
 to consider was, what ships were actually being built in 
 France and in England. The fact was, that in 1883 we 
 had laid down eight ships to the French four ; and up to 
 the present time we had laid down one ship, and the 
 French none. Therefore, so far from overstating the case 
 with regard to the proceedings of the Admiralty, he had 
 rather understated them. When the noble Marquis said 
 that it would be desirable that the Admiralty should have 
 an unlimited amount of money to spend on the present 
 type of ships of war, he felt bound to say that he was not of 
 that opinion. The great difficulty the Admiralty would have 
 to contend with, if they were granted three or four millions 
 to-morrow for the purpose referred to, would be to decide how 
 they should spend the money. Anyone who had paid atten- 
 tion to the progress made in the construction of guns must 
 be aware that the guns put on board the newest type of 
 ships would be able to destroy any armour which could be 
 put on a vessel. We were now obliged to leave portions 
 of our vessels undefended, and to protect only certain vital 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 447 
 
 parts. In every new ship the armour had to be thicker, 
 and, unless the vessels were built of a larger size, a great 
 portion of them must be penetrable. Therefore the 
 difficulty at the present time was whether it was desirable 
 to increase the number of those enormous ships of war; 
 and that was a difficulty felt not only by our Admiralty, 
 but, as he knew, by those who had to conduct the affairs 
 of other countries. Then there was another consideration 
 which made it doubtful whether it would be wise to spend 
 a great sum of money now upon such ships. Some of the 
 best naval officers in this country thought that, in the event 
 of another naval war, the torpedo would be the most 
 powerful weapon of offence, and would be able to dispose 
 of the most formidable ships in the service of this or any 
 other country. Therefore it would be very imprudent 
 greatly to increase the number of these enormous machines." 
 
 Sir Cooper Key left behind him, amongst his papers, 
 a long memorandum, unsigned and undated, which is a 
 powerful exposition of the views mentioned by Lord 
 Northbrook, which it is not possible to read without sharing 
 in the hesitation that was felt. It seemed to show that, 
 unless nets should prove a more efficient defence than in 
 cases they had done, the position of ordinary warships 
 attacked by torpedo-boats was almost hopeless. The 
 experience of the Federals was — even before the Whitehead 
 torpedo came into play — that no discipline would stand 
 the continued strain of expecting night attacks. 
 
 The experiments tried from time to time both by 
 British and foreign navies demonstrated that torpedo-boat 
 attacks at night, on fleets at anchor or at slow speed, ought 
 generally to be successful. A foreign opinion of weight on 
 experimental attacks by torpedo-boats on warships in day- 
 light, assumed that they could only be repulsed by gun- 
 fire when no more than one boat attacked one ship. The 
 same authority was of opinion that night attacks, properly 
 conducted, should always be successful. In another foreign 
 experiment in daylight, three torpedo-boats were found 
 sufficient to destroy one ship which had had full warning. 
 
 Experiments with the electric search-light showed that 
 
44 8 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 great care was necessary in its employment, or it might be 
 a distinct danger. 
 
 It was doubtful whether too much had not been made 
 in favour of machine-gun fire, of their power of stopping 
 the approach of torpedo-boats. Proof was offered that 
 most of the hits scored experimentally were scored far 
 within torpedo range, and that, if the firing had ceased 
 as soon as the approaching boat got within torpedo range, 
 hardly any hits would have been scored. Foreign experi- 
 ments showed that two quick-firing 47-mm. guns could 
 only expect to hit a torpedo-boat approaching at the rate 
 of 18 knots once, before she got within torpedo range. 
 The general protection to engines and boilers offered by an 
 approaching torpedo-boat was such, that so light a gun 
 would be ineffective to stop her even if the shell struck. It 
 was not safe to consider that, under the most favourable 
 circumstances, a single gun could stop a single torpedo- 
 boat before she got within torpedo range. 
 
 The mixture of the defending fleet's boats with those 
 of the enemy, in darkness or hazy weather, would be fatal 
 to the defence, as the fire would be hampered, and would 
 tell on its own boats. 
 
 Booms and nets were, in fact, the only available defence 
 by warships against torpedo-boat attacks, and even they 
 were uncertain in their preventive powers. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key has not left behind him any available 
 record of his own personal views of the question. All that 
 can be said is that the conditions very much disturbed 
 him. 
 
 Whatever might have been the case at the moment, the 
 words given in italics were presently seized upon to denote 
 that in the opinion of the Admiralty — and therefore of 
 Sir Cooper Key — there was already a plethora of naval 
 force, and that no more money was wanted. Whereas it is 
 obvious that Lord Northbrook was only summarising what 
 has already been said, namely, that the question of type 
 was so uncertain that any hurried expenditure would most 
 likely be wasted. 
 
 The proof is absolute that Lord Northbrook was right. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 449 
 
 Not one of the types which the hurried programme intro- 
 duced has since been repeated. 
 
 The storm burst in September, when the Pall Mall 
 Gazette, on the 15 th, published an article headed, " What 
 is the Truth about the Navy ? " and on the 1 8th another 
 headed, " A Startling Revelation " ; and then followed it 
 up by the series of powerful statements and arguments 
 entitled, " The Truth about the Navy. By one who knows 
 the Facts." Those who were most conversant with naval 
 affairs at once blazed up, truly and seriously alarmed. Mr. 
 W. H. Smith wrote a letter to the press, referring to the 
 statements of the Pall Mall Gazette, which was published 
 on the 23rd. In this he declared that inquiiy into the 
 naval position had been evaded by setting party against 
 party. The real question was, he said, " Whether we had 
 a fighting fleet which could dispose of any probable com- 
 bination of forces which could be brought against it in 
 battle ; whether our food supplies, our trade, and our com- 
 merce were reasonably secure from interception by an 
 enemy ? Whether, in point of fact, we were strong enough 
 to make it in the highest degree improbable that an attack 
 shall be made anywhere, and impossible that such an attack 
 could be successful ? " Mr. Smith repeated the demand 
 for Parliamentary inquiry, which Sir John Hay had so fruit- 
 lessly urged from the beginning of the session. 
 
 The Times, in its leader on Mr. Smith's letter, was 
 evidently not certain how the country would go. It bal- 
 anced considerations. How was it that Mr. Smith ex- 
 pressed no opinion of his own, whether the anxiety was well 
 founded or not ? It was not right of him to have moved 
 unless he had an opinion. But then, it was no answer 
 to say, as Mr. Campbell-Bannerman had done, that some of 
 the responsibility rested on Mr. Smith's own shoulders. 
 The Times had every confidence in the Board of Admiralty, 
 but it was necessary to remember it was under the control 
 of the Treasury. On the other hand, statements made by 
 Mr. Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Brassey had not allayed 
 anxiety. The " Government must not shrink, from mis- 
 taken motives." 
 29 
 
45o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 The Times was not wrong to be cautious in its expres- 
 sions. The area of the storm was very confined. On the 
 20th October Sir E. J. Reed published four columns of 
 criticism on the untried designs of warships, and attacked 
 Sir William Armstrong's proposal to rely upon fast un- 
 armoured cruisers only. 
 
 The Times adverted to the real difficulty of design, and 
 all it could say was that we " must not cease to build iron- 
 clads because scientific shipbuilding was progressing and 
 constantly changing." But even then, the Times declared, 
 the nation treated the affairs of the Admiralty with " care- 
 less and complacent indifference." 
 
 Meantime Lord Northbrook had undertaken the difficult 
 task of putting the affairs of Egypt, which had now practi- 
 cally passed under the protectorate of England, into order, 
 and was absent at Cairo. Nothing could be done till his return. 
 
 He was back before the ioth of November, and in a 
 speech at the Guildhall on that evening had promised to 
 profit by the advice and criticisms tendered. He admitted 
 that it was desirable steadily to increase the strength of our 
 armour-plated ships ; secondly, to increase the number of 
 swift cruisers for the protection of our commerce; and 
 thirdly, to pay greater attention to the element of speed in 
 the construction of the smaller class of vessels. The next 
 day Mr. Gladstone promised an official statement with 
 regard to the navy ; and Mr. Brassey, at Fishmongers' Hall, 
 referred to " proposals " that were then under consideration. 
 
 Such, then, was the history and inception of the " North- 
 brook programme," which, had it been put forward before the 
 public expression of feeling, would certainly have been scouted 
 as a mere exaltation of the naval leather by the naval shoe- 
 makers, but which was now to be scouted as insufficient. 
 
 It was here, perhaps, that Sir Cooper Key's unpopu- 
 larity in the navy rose to its height. There is no doubt at 
 all that his contemporaries on the Flag List regarded him 
 as weak and time-serving, and claimed, if they did not 
 personally urge, that he should have resigned rather than 
 be a party to a policy about which the navy itself, for 
 some five years, had been practically silent. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 451 
 
 But even now it seemed as if it was not the steady 
 course which had been pursued for five years at the 
 Admiralty which was censured, but just that a much 
 larger programme was not immediately set forth. 
 
 The Admiralty proposal, made in December 1884, was 
 to spread over the next five years an expenditure on ship- 
 building of £3, 1 00,000, in addition to the ordinary estimates. 
 There were to be built by contract, with this money, two first- 
 class ironclads, five armoured cruisers, six torpedo cruisers, 
 and fourteen torpedo boats. The mere fact that none of the 
 types proposed in the programme have since been followed 
 is almost an answer to the whole question from beginning to 
 end. It shows that the unsettled state of design, which was 
 either not alluded to or placed in a subordinate position, was, 
 so far as the Admiralty was concerned, the great obstacle. It 
 may not be denied that the Cabinet of those days had no 
 just appreciation of the naval position, and forbade even 
 reasonable expenditure ; but had there been no question of 
 type, the backbone of the opposition to expenditure would 
 have been broken. 
 
 The ships built under this suddenly devised programme 
 were the Victoria and Sans Pareil', the cruisers Australia, 
 Galatea, Narcissus, Orlando, Undaunted, Immortality and 
 Aurora. The torpedo cruisers were the Archer, Brisk, 
 Cossack, Mohawk, Porpoise, and Tartar. 
 
 The storm which raged in naval circles outside the 
 Admiralty reached Sir Cooper Key's ears. On the 2nd of 
 December he wrote thus to Sir Geoffrey Hornby, who was 
 then Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth : — 
 
 " I am told that it is rumoured at Portsmouth that I 
 am opposed to an increase of the fleet. I wish to disabuse 
 your mind on the subject. If you had seen what I had 
 written, heard what I have said at the Board, you would 
 know how I have been disturbed about the absurdly small 
 sum the Government are asking for ; and you will not find 
 it will be said in either House that the First Sea Lord con- 
 siders the proposals sufficient. I have protested against 
 them as insufficient. I have scarcely slept for the last five 
 nights, having been so worried about it. I write to you, 
 
452 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 as I should much dislike that the service should suppose I 
 concur in what has been asked for. But it is made a 
 Cabinet question, and I have had my say, which is recorded. 
 We are losing a good chance. I could not judiciously 
 resign on the point, as we have had no more reason for that 
 than we had three months ago." Sir Cooper might have 
 better said five years ago, for our naval position was not now 
 weaker, by comparison, than it had been then. If there was 
 blame anywhere, it was not blame on account of the state 
 of the navy, for that had only greatly improved. Such 
 blame as there might be, rested on the Cabinet, and con- 
 sisted, as Key put it, in " losing a good chance," which the 
 sudden outbreak of alarm had put in its hands. 
 
 He was pressed again upon his position, as I very well re- 
 member, at the time, and on the 5 th of December he wrote : — 
 
 " I have not read either Lord N.'s or Brassey's speeches, 
 but, as I told them clearly that they could not state that I 
 or the other members of the Board were satisfied with the 
 proposals, they could not have intended to infer that we 
 were. On Wednesday, after the debate, Lord N. told me 
 that he was not properly reported in that respect. 
 
 " I have a very lively sense of the responsibility of 
 Naval Lords, in spite of the Order in Council which proposes 
 to relieve us from it. Our power lies in resigning if we 
 think any vital question is carried against our opinion. I 
 remain here " (at the Admiralty) " very loosely just now. I 
 have a house preparing for us in Berkshire, to which I will 
 gladly retire when I feel it right, or am compelled to do so. 
 I have made two measures vital ones during the past three 
 years as regards myself, and had determined to go if my 
 advice had not been followed. It would, therefore, not take 
 much to induce me to go if I found that loyalty to my chief 
 involved disloyalty to the service. But it is not so now. 
 
 " Before this scare came I had written two strong con- 
 fidential letters — one on the defence of our coaling depots 
 abroad, which was sent to Lord Hartington, and bore fruit ; 
 the other on the necessary increase of the navy estimates. 
 I asked for an additional million a year for additional iron- 
 clads, torpedo vessels, belted cruisers, and other matters. I 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 453 
 
 believe now that if this sum is added and increased in 
 future years we shall be placed in a proper position. I 
 have always deprecated asking for a very large lump-sum 
 for shipbuilding purposes. It will only induce other nations 
 to make another start. When I found the feeling of 
 Parliament and the country, I advocated a large expendi- 
 ture, and was very much disappointed when we did not 
 get it. But now we have got our half-loaf, which is about 
 what I originally asked for, I cannot say that I resign 
 because the press has gone beyond that, although I much 
 regret that we did not go beyond it also. 
 
 " I believe that if our successors maintain the expendi- 
 ture we have ensured for the next few years, we shall have no 
 reason to doubt our position in the future — unless the other 
 countries go ahead ; then we must go farther ahead also. 
 
 " We have now twenty-seven ironclads in commission. 
 The French have eleven. We could commission thirteen 
 more within a month. I cannot find that the French have 
 more than two ready, and one of these has boilers con- 
 demned (Richelieu), but of course she is ready. Many of 
 our ships are of obsolete types — so are many of the French. 
 However, they, being of wood, cannot last long. 
 
 " I should have no fear whatever of war with France 
 and Russia now, so far as our navy is concerned, but I do 
 fear that our relative strength in five years' time will be 
 much too nearly equal for safety." 
 
 Sir Cooper Key, therefore, was practically in accord 
 with Lord Northbrook as to the objection to large and 
 sudden expenditure. If the extreme step which had been 
 suggested to him had been taken at all, it ought to have 
 been taken in 1881. But it is clear that no one then 
 would have suggested it, and if he had taken it, the navy 
 would merely have shrugged its shoulders at him. Now 
 there was nothing to go on. It was better to take money 
 while the country was in a spending humour, but in reality 
 what had been wanted was the pushing on of the new 
 experimental types and pausing in construction until it was 
 known how they would turn out. It was impossible to be 
 satisfied with an arrangement that was to have a Hero, a 
 
454 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 Victoria, and a Sans Pareil under construction beside a 
 Collingwood and an Admiral class. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key's career as connected with the material 
 part of the navy has now been traced, and the saying that 
 the child is father to the man has been once more verified. 
 It is probable that no naval officer who ever lived had more 
 influence over this department of naval policy than he had. 
 It is evident that his personal views were consistent and con- 
 tinuous. One point may very easily be forgotten in thinking 
 them over. Naval material progress is governed by opinion, 
 and it does not even follow that what is discarded is truly 
 set aside, or that what is advanced merits the foremost place. 
 A great deal of the material progress made was initiated 
 and followed up by Sir Cooper Key. Some of his thoughts 
 have not yet taken root ; some have been set aside. 
 
 That remarkable conception of the swift armoured 
 torpedo vessel, which may have been suggested by the 
 Polyphemus \ has not yet been realised, though armoured 
 torpedo-boat destroyers are actually afloat now. In that 
 profound matter of the type of gun and gun-ship for battle, 
 Sir Cooper Key's conception of the high shell-power rather 
 than long-range penetration has fallen through, and with 
 it, of course, his conception of close action. Is this partly 
 because of his failure to connect high speed necessarily 
 with the short-range weapon ; or has the torpedo enforced 
 the long-range in men's opinions ? 
 
 The belted first-class cruisers of the Australia type may 
 be said to have been nearest Sir Cooper Key's ideal of any 
 that had been built, but we have never repeated the belt in 
 the cruiser until this year (1897). 
 
 Yet, if we study the general drift of Sir Cooper Key's 
 mind over these questions, it is not easy to say that his 
 views were wrong, or that they will never be revived. 
 
 In the machinery of administration the chief work of 
 Lord Northbrook's Board was the establishment of the 
 Intelligence Department; and it is very remarkable that, 
 having joined the Admiralty with a distinct feeling in 
 favour of it, experience should have made Sir Cooper Key 
 an opponent to its establishment. His fear was lest it should 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1879-1886 455 
 
 encroach on the territory of the First Sea Lord, and absorb 
 some of his functions. He was a desperate worker, and had a 
 dislike to trusting what he thought his own business to others. 
 Probably, he soon found that his fears were groundless. 1 
 
 There were grave doubts as to what the result of the 
 abolition of flogging in the navy might be, and at first the 
 alternative sentences pronounced by courts-martial seemed 
 very severe. Lord Northbrook has kindly allowed me to 
 say that he attributes the ease with which the changed 
 system passed into action as greatly due to Sir Cooper 
 Key's care in examining every case, and his steadfastness 
 in recommending that the exercise of the prerogative of 
 mercy should be confined to cases that really deserved it. 
 
 While Sir Cooper Key was in office the whole of the 
 measures adopted towards the personnel were in the direc- 
 tion of amelioration and settlement of difficulties. There 
 were few ranks that were not touched by them. 
 
 It is not generally remembered that the plan of colonial 
 naval defence adopted by the Australian Colonies, which, 
 though incomplete, is nearer to a true method than any- 
 thing we have had elsewhere, 2 is due to Sir Cooper Key's 
 initiative, and it was he who gave to Admiral Tryon the 
 instructions he so ably carried out. 
 
 His memorandum on it was dated 28th October 1884. 
 He based it on the belief that it was both our duty and our 
 interest to assist the Colonies in the defence of their ports 
 and their commerce to the utmost of our power. It is clear 
 that at this date Sir Cooper Key was impressed by a belief 
 in attacks on colonial ports, which had scarcely precedent in 
 the history of naval war; yet he advocated getting away from 
 the idea of strictly colonial and strictly localised naval forces, 
 and took up with the more elastic arrangement that was 
 afterwards brought into being in Australia by the ability 
 and tact of the late lamented Admiral Sir George Tryon. 
 
 1 The change of view was the more remarkable, as before Sir Cooper Key went 
 to the Admiralty he had written to Mr. W. H. Smith, the then First Lord, to 
 urge the establishment of an Intelligence Department. 
 
 2 But if the proposal of the Cape Government, to contribute an annual sum 
 to the cost of the navy without conditions, is carried out, that will be still nearer 
 the ideal arrangement. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 AT THE ADMIRALTY AS AN EXECUTIVE 1 882-1 885 
 
 IT is remarkable that while a much greater call than 
 common was, as we have seen, made upon the Board 
 of Admiralty, of which Sir Cooper Key was the naval 
 head, for administrative decision and work, its executive 
 capacity was tested on several occasions to an unusual 
 degree. 
 
 Early in May 1882 the rebellion of Arabi in Egypt 
 had reached a point which brought England and France 
 together in considering what steps should be taken in regard 
 to it, both nations having such great interests and so many 
 of their citizens in the country. By the 1 1 th of May it 
 was agreed to put pressure on the Sultan to intervene and 
 restore order by landing troops ; but, instead of taking note 
 of the advantageous position he would have secured by 
 accepting and acting on the invitation, the Sultan raised 
 difficulties. It was then agreed, after some hesitation as to 
 taking overt action before the intervention of the Porte, 
 that two French and two English ironclads should go to 
 Alexandria to guard the lives and interests of the several 
 populations. On the same day, the 1 1 th of May, the 
 Admiralty telegraphed to Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour, 
 then in command of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean, 
 to prepare two ironclads not drawing too much water to 
 enter the harbour of Alexandria, to proceed thither when 
 ordered. On the 12th Sir B. Seymour reported that the 
 Invincible and Monarch would be ready. There was con- 
 stant negotiation with the French, and constant telegraphing, 
 because of the necessity then existing for absolute identity 
 of action ; and it would seem as if the position of the French 
 
 456 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 457 
 
 Government at home had been so precarious that it could 
 not venture to act with that clearness of vision and resolute- 
 ness of purpose which dictated the English action. 
 
 At the Admiralty, our immense stake in the safety of 
 the canal was the governing factor ; and it fell out, partly in 
 consequence of the question being a naval one, that Lord 
 Northbrook, as First Lord of the Admiralty, with Sir Cooper 
 Key at his side with complete technical knowledge and 
 grasp, had necessarily to take the greater part in almost 
 every detail of the action adopted. 
 
 The full work done by the Admiralty of that day, and 
 its immense weight in council, will surely be dwelt upon by 
 the future historian. Everything went with such perfect 
 smoothness, promptitude, and regularity, so far as the 
 Admiralty was concerned, that the public and Parliament 
 of the day were scarcely aware of the debt that they owed 
 to the Board, and especially to its political and naval heads. 
 
 By the 1 3th of May it was the opinion of the Govern- 
 ment, especially at the Admiralty, that Arabi might try 
 some violent coup - de - mai?t. The French and English 
 Ministers at Alexandria desired the support of ships, and 
 Sir B. Seymour was ordered to proceed with his fleet at 
 once to Suda Bay in Crete, whither coal was quickly de- 
 spatched to meet him. Time and circumstance pressed 
 heavily. We were quite ready to act, but the extreme 
 delicacy of the international situation hindered us, and 
 made our slightest movements the subject of grave dis- 
 cussion. But on the 17th of May a definite telegram went 
 to Sir B. Seymour at Suda Bay, ordering him to proceed at 
 once to Alexandria with one ironclad and two smaller vessels, 
 the French proposing to do the like ; and Sir B. Seymour 
 was to have ready to follow, a second similar detachment. 
 
 The same day the British admiral sailed with his flag in 
 the Invincible, accompanied by the Bittern and Falcon ; the 
 French admiral with his flag in an ironclad, and also with 
 two small vessels, sailed with him, all bound for Alexandria. 
 Before he left, Sir Beauchamp Seymour telegraphed to the 
 Admiralty the exact position of every ship under his 
 command. 
 
458 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 But Arabi's movement went on in increasing strength, 
 and France vacillated as to the proper mode of treating it. 
 The danger to the canal and to British life and property grew. 
 The forts surrounding Alexandria harbour covered our ships 
 at anchor there, and were being strengthened in a manner 
 which became a distinct threat. 
 
 On the 5th of June it was arranged to send the whole of 
 our Mediterranean Fleet to Egypt; and on the 14th to 
 support it by sending the Channel Fleet, under the command 
 of Vice-Admiral Dowell, forward to Malta. The hopes of 
 inducing the Sultan to intervene seem at this time to have 
 been small; but as an encouragement, our Government offered 
 to transport and land his army in Egypt. Sir Cooper Key 
 was in communication with the military authorities, and Sir 
 Garnet Wolseley in particular, as to the situation, and his 
 opinion was that before landing troops at Alexandria it 
 would be necessary to silence the forts, which could be done, 
 though not without loss, by four or five ironclads. That 
 then the troops, having been embarked in ships of sufficiently 
 light draught, might be landed under cover of the warships' 
 guns, on the beach near the British Consulate. Alexandria 
 might thus be occupied ; but, on account of the Nile floods, a 
 march thence to Cairo would be difficult. As Cairo would 
 probably be the objective, the true method of proceeding 
 was to make Port Said the rendezvous for the transports, 
 where, if they exceeded convenient draught of water, the 
 troops could be transhipped into lighter craft and carried to 
 Ismailia. Here, the east end of the fresh-water canal could 
 be secured, and the troops being landed might follow its 
 course in the march to Cairo. The troops should not be less 
 than 20,000 in number, and should be embarked in ships not 
 drawing more than 25 feet of water. Port Said and Suez 
 must be taken and held ; and the canal must be secured by 
 an ironclad at IsmaYlia, and from four to six gunboats, with 
 three fast torpedo-boats patrolling its waters, while 2000 to 
 3000 troops patrolled the banks. 
 
 The capture of Alexandria might also be effected by a 
 repetition of Sir Ralph Abercromby's operations in 1800. 
 The landing at the west extreme of Aboukir Bay, or near 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 459 
 
 Lake Mareotis, the troops occupying an isthmus only one 
 mile broad, would prevent the escape of the army of 
 Alexandria if a fleet at the same time occupied the harbour. 
 
 It was necessarily on the Admiralty that the weight of 
 the Egyptian question, naval and military, rested ; and no 
 one studying the annals of the time can fail to see how the 
 old thread of naval history was picked up, spun, and drawn 
 out, if with different materials, still in like manner and with 
 the objects pursued of old. As it was always the protec- 
 tion of " the trade " which came first, and dominated all in 
 the naval strategy of one hundred years ago, so it was the 
 protection of " the trade " — but this time through the canal 
 — that dominated at the Admiralty, and thence governed 
 the great decisions of the State. 
 
 Every point, indeed, which the existence of the canal 
 raised in international diplomacy was necessarily under 
 review. The question of the neutrality of the canal had 
 never been settled. The very basis of the concession for 
 constructing it was that : " Les approches du canal, les ports 
 qui en dependent, ainsi que les eaux territoreales de l'Egypt 
 seront egalement a l'abri de tout fait de guerre." Russia, 
 when pressed to declare herself in 1877, had agreed that 
 the canal was an international work in which the commerce 
 of the world was interested, and which should be kept free 
 from attack. She had pledged herself neither to blockade 
 nor in any way menace the free navigation of the canal. 
 The British Government then, in declining to make more 
 definite proposals, contented itself with calling on the Porte 
 and on the Khedive to preserve its freedom. But in prac- 
 tice the Government had gone somewhat further than this, 
 in putting quietly a naval watch over the canal traffic. 
 But now it was the basis of the whole thing that was 
 threatened, the canal itself: first, by the Bedouins, acting 
 for Arabi, or merely for plunder; and secondly, directly 
 by Arabi, for his own purposes. It was growing hopeless to 
 expect any aid from the Sultan in this direction ; and if 
 the Khedive had the will, he had not the power. Then, 
 too, was the exceedingly delicate situation as regarded 
 France. But, on the other hand, no blow to British com- 
 
4 6o MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 merce so great as the blocking of the canal could be allowed ; 
 and whether France took our initiative action ill or not, the 
 Admiralty must have been impressed with the consideration 
 that no time was to be lost. 
 
 About the 23rd of June orders in accordance with these 
 views went to Sir Beauchamp Seymour. The ships in the 
 harbour of Alexandria were to remain there, and with the 
 rest of the fleet were to be prepared to land seamen and 
 marines, with field-guns, to the assumed number of 2000. 
 Two ironclads were, however, to be kept off the coast, ready 
 for emergencies, and with their crews intact. 1 000 marines, 
 under a lieutenant-colonel, were to be added from England. 
 It was intended to occupy Port Said, Ismai'lia, and Suez ; 
 and then an ironclad was to be stationed at Port Said, a 
 ship in the Bitter Lakes ; and the force off Suez was to be 
 reinforced by another vessel. Enough vessels were to be 
 provided for the efficient patrol of the canal. In further- 
 ance of these arrangements, Admiral Sir Wm. Hewett, who 
 commanded on the East India station, was ordered to Suez 
 with some of his ships. 
 
 One of the difficulties likely to arise was water-supply, 
 and for this purpose a steam water-tank was to be sent 
 from Malta, and a condenser capable of distilling twenty- 
 seven tons a day provided. It was ordered that vessels 
 entering the canal were to carry machine-guns in their tops, 
 and rifle-proof shields for the shelter of the guns' crews were 
 already being prepared at Malta. The first step of all was 
 to occupy Port Said without delay. 
 
 Meanwhile Arabi's party continued to strengthen, to 
 increase, and to arm the works which covered our ships in 
 Alexandria harbour, and no possible object could be in 
 view but preparing to open fire on them. Notices were 
 sent to Arabi, pointing out that the thing could not be 
 allowed to go on. Assurances passed, but there was little 
 or no check to the work. Sir B. Seymour was authorised 
 to open fire upon the works if conditions named were not 
 adhered to. Things grew rapidly to a head. About the 
 5th of July it was decided to forward two battalions of 
 troops to Cyprus, and to commission Rear-Admiral Hoskins, 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 461 
 
 then one of the Lords of the Admiralty, to take charge of 
 the defence of the canal. 
 
 These things were all put in training at once; but, 
 however rapid the decisions were, and however steam and 
 telegraph facilitated their speedy execution, facts ran too 
 fast for them. 
 
 The situation was entirely anomalous. Arabi being in 
 rebellion against our ally the Khedive, it was a question 
 whether we should simply look on at the certain success of 
 the rebel, whether we should make terms with him, or 
 whether we should destroy him. It was a further question 
 whether we should decide for ourselves, or let France decide 
 for us, or continue to negotiate while Arabi was making his 
 position stronger every hour. Except for the canal, the 
 matter might perhaps have been no business of ours. 
 With the canal, it was impossible for us, however it might 
 have been for France, to run any risks ; and there was no 
 guarantee for the canal's safety under Arabi's rule. It was 
 an Admiralty matter, and from the Admiralty came the 
 spirit that guided the whole thing. In the first week in 
 July Sir Beauchamp Seymour was directed to inform the 
 military governor of Alexandria that any attempt to block 
 the channel would be a hostile act. The continued increase 
 in the power of the forts went on all the same, and on the 
 5th of July Sir Beauchamp Seymour proposed that he 
 should demand the cessation of this work, under penalty of 
 his opening fire. The Government at home approved, with 
 the proviso that the French admiral should be invited to 
 co-operate. Yet the die was cast, and if France held back 
 we should go on. 
 
 Admiral Dowell, at Malta, received orders to prepare 
 the Channel ships for the reception of troops, and on the 
 7th of July the admiral reported that the military had 
 received orders to embark, that his ships would be ready 
 at noon next day, that the Hecla and Achilles would start 
 for Alexandria that evening, and that the Agincourt and 
 Northumberland would embark the men. 
 
 On the 9th Sir Beauchamp Seymour reported that he 
 would give the foreign Consuls notice at daylight next day, 
 
462 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 and open fire in twenty-four hours later, unless the forts on 
 the isthmus and those commanding the entrance to the 
 harbour were temporarily surrendered, for the purpose of 
 being disarmed. Sir Beauchamp Seymour was informed, by 
 way of reply, that all the ships, including the Tantar, with 
 the marines, at Malta, were at his disposal, and that he could 
 use the Tamar for troops as soon as the marines were 
 removed. On the nth the latter ship, having on board 
 the battalion of marines already mentioned, was ordered to 
 proceed to Limasol in Cyprus ; and later, Sir B. Seymour 
 reported that he had silenced and destroyed the forts. 
 
 What is striking in this narration is the important part 
 that the Admiralty took in every detail of the business; 
 then the promptitude with which decisions were arrived 
 at, and the speed with which action followed. We do 
 not trace a single hesitating or backward step on the part 
 of the Admiralty; and Lord Northbrook has more than 
 once told me that it would have been almost impossible to 
 have conducted the business in the way it was done, had it 
 not been for Sir Cooper Key's complete technical knowledge, 
 his quickness of apprehension, the speed with which his 
 mind was made up, and his staunch adherence to the views 
 once expressed. 
 
 But, as is well remembered, the troubles only began 
 with the bombardment of the forts at Alexandria. For a 
 few days Sir Beauchamp Seymour could not guarantee the 
 freedom of the canal, and his stoppage of the traffic called 
 forth strong protests; then the civil authority in Alex- 
 andria collapsed. Through all these troubles the Admiralty 
 steered with a clear head and a firm hand. On the 14th 
 of July it undertook to protect the canal by means of the 
 navy alone. It had given its officer on the spot, Rear- 
 Admiral Hoskins, who had been sent out as second in 
 command, such instructions as enabled Sir Beauchamp 
 Seymour to telegraph, on the 1 3th, that the canal traffic 
 was going on as usual ; and such was the care on all sides 
 as to the susceptibilities of the French, that on the 1 8th 
 their admiral wrote to Sir Beauchamp Seymour, how the 
 conduct of the captain of the Ms, Captain E. H. Seymour, 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 463 
 
 at Port Said, had assured him that England was only at 
 war with the partisans of Arabi, that she respected the 
 Khedive's authority, and preserved the neutrality of the 
 canal. The anarchy at Alexandria was met by authorising 
 Sir B. Seymour to land the seamen and marines of the 
 fleet ; and the admirable manner in which that service was 
 performed, and the speed with which order was restored in 
 the ruined city, are on record. 
 
 From the Admiralty everything was pushed forward. 
 On the 14th Admiral Dowell proceeded in the Minotaur 
 from Limasol to Alexandria. Troops were advanced from 
 Cyprus on the 15 th. On the 16th Sir B. Seymour had 
 landed every available man, but wanted at least 3000 
 troops besides the 1000 marines in the Tamar. For, as 
 soon as order was restored in Alexandria, Arabi's army was 
 found to be investing it on the land side. The delicacy of 
 the international situation was great ; for we had to restore 
 peace and order, while making it clear to other Powers that 
 we were forced to do it, and were not taking advantage of 
 our position to occupy Egypt prematurely. Troops were 
 being pushed on, but there was some difficulty about the 
 commander, and on the 1 6th Sir Beauchamp Seymour was 
 informed that whoever the military officer appointed might 
 be, he was to take his instructions from Sir Beauchamp, as 
 representing Her Majesty's Government. Such an order 
 was perhaps almost without precedent in the annals of 
 British joint naval and military operations. 
 
 A few days later the position was defined in a message 
 to Sir Beauchamp, informing him that though the military 
 commander had no authority to operate beyond the defence 
 of Alexandria without his instructions, yet once those were 
 given, the responsibility, in a military point of view, rested 
 with him. 
 
 Sir B. Seymour, on his side, was uneasy. The position 
 was one requiring the utmost caution. The men landed 
 were overworked night and day, and it was absolutely 
 necessary that they should return to their ships. By the 
 1 8th of July the House of Commons was becoming restless 
 and threatening. 
 
464 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 But now the strain was almost over. On the 1 8th Sir 
 Archibald Alison, who had been placed in the military 
 command, reported that the South Staffordshire Regiment 
 and the battalion of marines having been landed, they had 
 relieved the crews of the ships nearly along the whole line. 
 He was informed in reply that two battalions would be sent 
 to him from Malta. The final proposal, through the Ad- 
 miralty, was that the Major-General should be put in charge 
 of the police at Alexandria and the defence of the city, with 
 two battalions from Cyprus, one and a half battalions and 
 artillery from Malta, and iooo marines from the Tamar. 
 Then the whole of the landed crews might return to their 
 ships, which would thus be freed to operate in the canal. This 
 was still the chief subject of anxiety, and Sir Beauchamp was 
 desired to reinforce Admiral Hoskins with ships and marines, 
 if it were possible to do so. Sir Beauchamp replied that 
 these arrangements would exactly meet the case ; that he 
 had landed three weeks' provisions for the men on shore, 
 and was obtaining provisions and rifle ammunition from 
 Malta. The General and he worked together in the most 
 cordial spirit. 
 
 The situation as regarded France was clearing. From 
 the first the Government had used their utmost endeavours 
 to co-operate with the Government of France in all the 
 measures taken, and M. de Freycinet, who was the French 
 Prime Minister, agreed to join in the protection of the canal; 
 but this was not settled till the 16th of July, when Captain 
 Rice was sent to Paris to make arrangements with the 
 French Minister of Marine, and Admiral Hoskins was 
 authorised to act in concert with the French admiral. On 
 the 29th of July M. de Freycinet's Government was defeated 
 in the French Chamber, and resigned office. The result 
 was the complete withdrawal of France from all action in 
 the business of destroying Arabi's rebellion and restoring 
 the authority of the Khedive ; and as it was the doubtful 
 concert with France which more than anything else tied 
 our hands, there must have been great rejoicings at the 
 Admiralty when the English Government was compelled to 
 act independently. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 465 
 
 By this time the navy may be said to have fulfilled 
 its independent mission. It was holding Alexandria, Port 
 Said, and the canal, while from the other side Sir William 
 Hewett was holding Suez. The way was clear for the 
 military operations that followed, and which took the form 
 proposed by Sir Cooper Key and the military authorities 
 conjointly, for the advance of the Turkish army had it been 
 landed. 
 
 It was not till the 1 3th of September that news reached 
 the Admiralty of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir ; and next day 
 the news of the capture of Arabi ended the first stage of the 
 Admiralty dealings with Egypt, and allowed the Board to 
 rest from its labours. 
 
 Before passing on, it may be well to give Sir Cooper 
 Key's views as to the position of the canal in war, which I 
 have been able to collect from his papers. He thought that 
 there were three modes of dealing with the question. First, 
 leaving matters as they stood, which would permit the canal 
 to be treated like any other waters of a neutral State. But 
 this appeared to be an anomalous position in which to place 
 Egypt, as she is debarred from fortifying the entrances and 
 banks; she cannot therefore be responsible for not permitting 
 an act of war to take place in her waters. 
 
 Free passage might be permitted to all vessels of war 
 or commerce during war, under the restrictions proposed for 
 neutral harbours, and under the support and guarantee of 
 the Great Powers. 
 
 Or, the canal might be closed to belligerent ships of 
 war. This would exclude also munitions of war, which 
 would involve great difficulties on the part of Egypt as to 
 searching ships, and the carriage of coal, etc. 
 
 On the whole, Sir Cooper Key was of opinion that the 
 second proposal was the only one practicable. 
 
 At a later stage of the Egyptian troubles, the Admiralty 
 was called on suddenly as an executive body, and acted 
 with remarkable speed and precision. 
 
 Before the defeat of Baker Pacha's ill-disciplined force 
 near Trinkitat, five miles south of Suakim, there was fair 
 reason to believe that he would be able to raise the invest- 
 30 
 
466 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 ment of Tokar and Sinkat by the Soudanese, and relieve 
 the garrisons. 
 
 Admiral Sir William Hewett was then at Suakim with 
 the bulk of the ships of the East India squadron. The 
 news of Baker's defeat reached the Admiralty at 2.30 p.m. 
 on the 5th of February 1884. Hewett reported that the 
 Egyptian troops left in Suakim were utterly unreliable, and 
 that he was landing men to defend the place. The Ad- 
 miralty immediately telegraphed approving, and asking 
 what reinforcements he would require? But the great 
 question at once arose — Would it be possible to get troops 
 into Suakim in time to relieve the garrisons of Tokar and 
 Sinkat? The answer given and the steps taken not only 
 exhibit the great capacity of the Board, of which Sir Cooper 
 Key was a member, but the extraordinary power we have 
 of dealing with unforeseen emergencies, and the unlikelihood 
 of our being struck at so suddenly as to preclude our imme- 
 diate recovery. 
 
 The situation was this. The Jumna trooper was ex- 
 pected from Aden with some 1400 troops on board. The 
 Orontes trooper was approaching Suez with about 1 000 sea- 
 men and marines from China ; some at least of these might 
 be rapidly available. Egypt could furnish British troops, 
 but it was a question whether it would at that moment be 
 safe to withdraw them. There was a special difficulty here. 
 General Gordon was then on his way from Korosko to 
 Berber. Until news of his safe arrival there reached the 
 Egyptian Government, it was impossible to part with British 
 troops, which might be required for immediate action if any- 
 thing happened to him on the way. On the other hand, 
 the seamen and marines of the Mediterranean Fleet could 
 temporarily relieve the garrisons of Alexandria and Port 
 Said, and the Channel Fleet, then at Cagliari, might be 
 hurried up to Egypt in about five days. Lastly, there was 
 Malta, from whence troops might be pushed forward. 
 
 Orders by telegraph flew from the Admiralty in rapid 
 succession. The Orontes was caught in the canal ; the 
 Jumna on her way thither. Transport was taken up in 
 Egypt. Admiral Lord John Hay at Malta, the Commander- 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 467 
 
 in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, was warned to be ready 
 to reinforce Sir William Hewett at Suakim. The Carysfort, 
 at Alexandria, was ordered to take men from routes and 
 carry them on. The Jumna herself was ordered to Suakim. 
 Sir William Hewett's proposal to withdraw the dangerous 
 remainder of Baker Pacha's force was approved ; and he 
 himself was invested with full powers, civil and military, to 
 act at Suakim. The Government heard of Gordon's safe 
 arrival at Berber on the 1 1 th, and the way was then clear. 
 
 The general result of all was this. Sir William Hewett 
 had on shore, at Suakim, 350 English and 500 black troops, 
 the English chiefly seamen and marines. The Carysfort 
 was to arrive there with 227 seamen and marines on the 
 13th. The Jumna was to arrive on the 15th with 1130 
 British troops. A transport was to be there on the 1 8th 
 with 800 men ; another was due on the 19th. The Orontes 
 was due the same day with 1270 more, including 370 
 marines ; while two smaller vessels brought up 300 British 
 cavalry. 
 
 Thus 5381 men had been concentrated upon Suakim, 
 not, properly speaking, between the 5th of February 1884, 
 when the news of Baker's defeat reached home, but really 
 between the 1 1 th, when Gordon's safe arrival left the Govern- 
 ment free to act, and the 20th, when the force was con- 
 centrated at Suakim. It was not in time to save the 
 garrison of Sinkat ; but the battle of El-Teb was fought on 
 the 29th. Tokar, though it had surrendered to terms about 
 25th February, was reoccupied on 2nd March, and the 
 garrison relieved and brought away. 1 
 
 The Admiralty played a less prominent part in the 
 advance upon Khartoum, which was unhappily too late to 
 effect its object. The Admiralty surveyed the Nile route, 
 and gave its opinion against it. As the Nile route was 
 ultimately taken against the Admiralty advice, and especially 
 
 1 Sir William Hewett wrote as follows to Sir Cooper Key from Massowah, 
 under date 6th April 1884, when all was well over: "I am so glad you think 
 the navy work was well done. One thing, my dear admiral — you looked after 
 our wants so well at home that it made our work easy here. I never saw a force 
 so well supplied as Graham's troops were. They had more than they could eat, 
 and the navy did its best to keep up the water-supply." 
 
468 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 against Sir Cooper Key's view, the Board naturally played 
 a secondary part, confining itself to assisting in every pos- 
 sible way the progress of the army by the route it had 
 chosen. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key was again in constant discussion with 
 the military authorities, and gave his views with his usual 
 precision, frankness, and clearness. There were, he thought, 
 but two alternative routes — the water transport from 
 Wady Haifa to Khartoum by Berber ; and a railway from 
 Suakim to Berber, with a march thence by the Nile to 
 Khartoum, using the Nile itself, as far as might be, to assist 
 transport. 
 
 The survey of the Nile, which had been made by the 
 Admiralty officers, had discounted the value of that route. 
 Steamers might no doubt be tracked through the cataracts, 
 but there was much difference between such an operation 
 and the transport of an army. Most likely, the steamers 
 and boats would have to be unloaded below each cataract ; 
 the men, stores, and ammunition would have to be carried 
 by land some miles, and re-embarked after the cataract was 
 passed. The time of the rising of the Nile, and the height 
 of the rise, were both uncertain ; but it would be necessary 
 to pass each cataract at the highest Nile, which only lasted 
 a few weeks. The highest Nile at the second cataract was 
 some weeks later than that at Abu Hamed, and this would 
 greatly increase the difficulty in passing them. 
 
 The Nile route, he conceived, could not be relied on. 
 Success over it depended on too many contingencies. 
 
 On the other hand, the construction of a railway from 
 Suakim to Berber had been considered, and it appeared 
 feasible to complete it by the 1st of November. Then the 
 troops could be assembled at Suakim and proceed rapidly 
 to Berber. But again, delay in constructing the railway 
 might risk the success of the expedition. 
 
 After the railway was completed, difficulties would arise 
 as to its disposal, and reasons would in consequence be 
 alleged for the occupation of Berber and other parts of the 
 Soudan. 
 
 Sir Cooper thought there was a middle course. The 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 469 
 
 railway should be at once laid from Suakim to the hills, 
 where a good position should be selected and entrenched, 
 camels procured, etc., and, when all was ready, the expedi- 
 tion should proceed on camels to Berber, and onwards to 
 Khartoum by the Nile bank. If there were a difficulty 
 about camels, it would be better to push on the railway to 
 Berber as fast as possible. 
 
 At this time there was a small expedition under Major 
 Kitchener crossing the Korosko Desert from the Nile to 
 Berber. When accounts were received of its result, it 
 might be practicable, and would certainly be desirable, to 
 send a small body of carefully selected troops by that route, 
 to make a simultaneous advance on Berber with the expe- 
 dition from Suakim. There were sufficient steamers and 
 boats below Korosko, so it would not be necessary to con- 
 struct any, and no difficulty presented itself as to water 
 transport, so far. The advance of the two expeditions 
 would have a tranquillising effect, and would check the 
 Mahdi's advance northwards. 
 
 These views, the wisdom of which are by many believed 
 to have been sadly confirmed by subsequent events, exhibit 
 Sir Cooper's clearness and precision of thought in a matter 
 which, but for the changes in modern warfare, would have 
 been far outside the range of a sailor's purview. But 
 whether Sir Cooper Key was right or wrong in the advice 
 he tendered, it was not accepted, and his functions as an 
 executive were not exercised in the operations which so 
 unhappily failed at the last moment, as they had been in 
 the affairs of Egypt previously. 
 
 Of course, when the Nile route was finally decided on, 
 the only question before the Admiralty was to help the 
 army in every possible way. Sir Cooper Key wrote a 
 memorandum, at the end of July, stating what the navy 
 would undertake to do, and how far it would be responsible 
 in carrying out a plan it did not favour, which was at once 
 accepted by Lord Wolseley as being " all that could be 
 desired." 
 
 He thought it would be too late in the year to collect 
 labourers and necessary appliances to enable steamers to be 
 
470 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 passed up the second cataract, but that no difficulty would 
 be found in transporting troops to its foot at any season. 
 Above the second cataract, transport must be effected by 
 land or in small boats. He proposed that the navy should 
 be responsible for transport up to the foot of the second 
 cataract, but that after that, while the navy would provide 
 all it could that might be required by the military autho- 
 rities, the naval responsibility should cease. Mr. Cook 
 would contract to carry 4000 troops from Assiout to 
 Wady Haifa in one trip. There were two stern-wheel 
 steamers building by Messrs. Yarrow that would be avail- 
 able, and might be sent up in sections to any point where 
 it was desired to launch them, with workmen to put them 
 together; this could be done in about three weeks, and 
 they could be worked by native crews. 
 
 There was yet one more case in which Sir Cooper Key, 
 acting as a member of the Board, was to exhibit his 
 executive capacity before he went out of office. 
 
 The news of the advance of Russia to Merv reached 
 this country in February 1884; it raised a considerable 
 amount of excitement and alarm, and no doubt contributed 
 to awaken us to the consciousness of our naval position. 
 Though Russian diplomacy was, through its recognised 
 channels, pacific, the Russian press was allowed to be 
 decidedly hostile to us, and it was at anyrate seen that 
 some treaty of delimitation, some paper barrier to Russia's 
 otherwise undefined advance, was necessary. An immediate 
 Commission of Delimitation was proposed by us and accepted 
 by Russia, and Sir Peter Lumsden, on our part, was ap- 
 pointed to meet General Zelenoi, on the Russian part, on 
 the Afghan frontier, and proceed to define a boundary. 
 
 The feeling of disquiet which now possessed the public 
 was not allayed when we learned that Zelenoi was post- 
 poning the meeting on the plea of ill-health. The English 
 Commission waited for months in idleness, but Zelenoi did 
 not join it. In December the notorious General Skobelef 
 wrote plainly, that it was a " political necessity " for 
 Russia to possess herself of India. 
 
 At the opening of the year 1885 Russia was wholly 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 471 
 
 given over to considering the two war-threatening ques- 
 tions of Afghanistan and Bulgaria. Negotiations went on 
 between London and St. Petersburg with formal civility ; 
 but the delimitation did not progress, and the Russians 
 continued to press on towards the doubtful territories. The 
 settlement of the boundary was transferred to London, so 
 that, on the 29th of January, a Russian engineer was de- 
 spatched thither from St. Petersburg to urge — it was under- 
 stood — the Russian claim to Penjdeh. 
 
 But there was no cessation of the Russian advance. 
 Her troops occupied Sari Yazi and the Zulficar Pass, and 
 declined to withdraw when requested. The situation 
 became extremely menacing. On the 15 th of March the 
 Foreign Minister, Lord Granville, declared publicly his 
 objections to the Russian claims, but, as if Russia was 
 determined to force a war on us at all hazards, her army, 
 on 30th March, attacked the Afghans on the river Kuslik, 
 and after a struggle occupied Penjdeh. 
 
 The movement had been anticipated by increased feel- 
 ing in England. On the 26th of March the reserves were 
 called out by proclamation. The Admiralty, through the 
 Foreign Office, had obtained the cession of the island of 
 Port Hamilton, south of the Korea, as an advanced depot on 
 the line to the Russian war port of Vladivostock ; on the 
 2nd of April the British flag was hoisted there, and it was 
 subsequently connected with the mainland and Hong Kong 
 by a telegraph cable. 
 
 This was a bold stroke, particularly advocated by Sir 
 Cooper Key, and much criticised then and afterwards, when 
 it was determined to abandon the possession. It may be 
 granted that the island was more theoretically than practi- 
 cally an ideal spot for a naval base, and that there would be 
 little or no value in it in peace time. But at least some who 
 had visited it saw great value in the position, and if war 
 with Russia had ensued, it may scarcely be doubted that 
 the wisdom of the Admiralty step would have been fully 
 confirmed, inasmuch as every ship despatched from Hong 
 Kong to the north would have almost inevitably been ordered 
 to call there for telegraphic and final orders, and coals and 
 
472 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 other stores would have, automatically almost, found their 
 way to the port at which our warships would, for other 
 reasons, have been bound to call. 
 
 From the very first the Admiralty had taken that pre- 
 liminary step which works so silently, is heard of so little, 
 and yet is such an absolute preventive of any disaster to 
 ourselves at the opening of a war. 
 
 Every Russian warship all over the world, absent from 
 her own ports, was shadowed by a sufficient British force. 
 It was in the general case good-humouredly borne by the 
 Russian officers, as the camaraderie cultivated in the sea- 
 republic enables the naval officers of all nationalities, even 
 when political relations are most strained, to recognise, and 
 admit to one another, that each is a passive instrument or 
 agent in the hands of its Government at home, and that 
 no personal animosities need intrude themselves. So 
 generally, and especially in the China Seas, where the 
 Russian warships were most numerous, Russian officers put 
 a good face on what could not but have been humiliating to 
 them,'and they managed commonly to join with the English 
 in looking at the humorous side of things. To shake off 
 the watcher on the one side, and not to be shaken off on 
 the other, by any changing of port or misleading intelligence, 
 was often made a sort of friendly game, and if a Russian 
 was beaten at it he lost with a good grace. 
 
 But it was, obviously, delicate ground. It was a necessity 
 for us, in a case of such strained relations, to do it ; but when 
 the telegraph might at any instant convert the watched and 
 watching into deadly enemies, and when the less controlled 
 feeling of the younger officers and the ships' companies are 
 taken into account, the wonder, and the credit of those con- 
 cerned, is, that our imperial duties were carried out without 
 bloodshed. It was sometimes very near it. 
 
 Captain Long 1 had been despatched with his own ship, 
 the Agamemnon, and another, to do this shadowing towards 
 the Russian Admiral Crown, and his flagship the Vladimir 
 Monomack. He was understood to be at Yokoska, in the 
 Gulf of Yedo, Japan. Captain Long was necessarily debarred 
 
 1 Died a rear-admiral ; killed by a fall from his horse. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 473 
 
 from news while at sea, and on entering the gulf before day- 
 light, on the 6th of May 1885, he was in some doubt of 
 what his meeting with the Russian admiral might come to, 
 supposing war had been declared in the interval ; as, though 
 our officers had been instructed to respect the neutrality of 
 the Japanese waters, it did not follow that such a precaution 
 had been taken by the Russian Government. 
 
 With that caution to which I have adverted, Captain 
 Long separated his ships to mark his duty of shadowing 
 as little as might be to the Russian view, and steamed 
 slowly up alone. Just as day was breaking he saw the 
 Russian admiral anchored in such a situation as made it 
 necessary for the Agamemnon to pass her closely. As light 
 came and the Agamemnon neared her, Captain Long saw 
 that the Russians were not only at their quarters, but were 
 keeping their guns trained upon the English ship — the 
 heavy guns depressed for her water-line, but the light guns 
 ready to sweep the bridge and upper-deck. Captain Long 
 felt it quite possible that war had been declared, and that 
 in a moment he might have to sustain the Russian broad- 
 side, but yet the slightest move on his side in response to 
 the Russian threat might have drawn their fire, peace or 
 war notwithstanding. He was consoled by thinking that, 
 if the broadside did come, he could respond to it with his 
 ram and instantly send the Vladimir to the bottom. But 
 as there was no response from the English ship, the Russian, 
 whose action had been prompted by a simple desire to be 
 prepared, while in doubt whether the Agamemnon came in 
 peace or in war, secured her guns again, while the latter 
 quietly anchored. 
 
 But the danger was great and immediate, for, as the 
 Russian admiral afterwards told Captain Long, his men 
 were so excited that he dreaded that he might at any 
 moment lose control over them. Captain Long, still with 
 that care for susceptibilities which so much characterises 
 the modern naval officer, considered that, on the whole, his 
 watch could be as well maintained at some little distance, 
 and he shifted his quarters to Yokohama. 
 
 The excitement in England reached its height on 9th 
 
474 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 of April, when there was a panic on the Stock Exchange. 
 Russian stocks fell 10 points, Egyptian 6, and our own 
 Consols 2 points. A great meeting to consider the state of 
 the navy was held at the Cannon Street Hotel on the I 3th, 
 and a resolution urging Government to take immediate 
 steps in regard to it was moved by Mr. Henry Hucks 
 Gibbs, 1 and seconded by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, First 
 Lord of the Admiralty under the former Government. On 
 the 2 1 st of April Mr. Gladstone moved for a credit of 
 £1 1,000,000, — £4,500,000 for the Soudan, and £6,500,000 
 for naval and military preparations. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key's views of the naval situation were as 
 clear and decided as usual. The Baltic was assumed as our 
 chief field of action, but the force to be sent should from the 
 first be sufficient to effect the blockade of the Russian Fleet 
 there, and to make it likely that the chief danger to our 
 ships there would be from torpedo-boat attack. Admiral 
 Sir Geoffrey Hornby, then Commander-in-Chief at Ports- 
 mouth, was selected for the command, and it was intended 
 to send with him, as the first instalment, 10 ironclads and 
 the Polyphemus, the Hecla torpedo-vessel, 6 cruisers, 1 3 
 gunboats, 8 hired armed vessels and 2 armed fast tugs, 16 
 torpedo-boats, of which the Hecla would carry the second- 
 class boats, 8 in number. 
 
 The object, however, was to be more ready than we 
 seemed to be. " We have not commissioned," wrote Sir 
 Cooper to Sir Geoffrey Hornby on the 7th of May, " and, if 
 peaceable counsels prevail, shall not commission, all the 
 ships intended for the first instalment of the Baltic Fleet, 
 especially the small vessels which would be necessary for 
 carrying out the exercises you propose. Even if we had 
 only to guard against Russia, we should have at least thirty 
 or forty small vessels round the coast in addition to the 
 ironclads, and vessels of the Cyclops class, to protect the 
 commercial harbours when sub-marine mines would be laid 
 down; so that, even if a squadron of ironclads were to arrive 
 off a port, there would be ample time for our fleet to follow 
 them before they could do much harm. We must also bear 
 
 1 Created Baron Aldenham, 1896. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 475 
 
 in mind that our fleet at home would, and always should be, 
 much superior to any attacking fleet. We ought always to 
 be in such a position that an enemy's fleet would not like 
 to risk an encounter with ours. They might endeavour to, 
 and might succeed in, evading them for a time — but would 
 scarcely risk landing a force (except perhaps in Ireland), 
 unless they could ensure throwing in reinforcements and 
 supplies. I am quite aware that our very existence as a 
 nation depends on this being the case, and no efforts should 
 be spared to ensure it." 
 
 But when we were thus ready, with Russian ships all 
 over the world that were absent from their own ports 
 shadowed; with a sufficient fleet ready to sail for the Baltic 
 at a few days' notice ; and with the inner line of naval 
 defence near our own shores, which was the element of 
 ultimate security arrived at by Lord St. Vincent, the sky 
 began to clear. On the 2nd of May so conciliatory a reply 
 arrived from St. Petersburg that the prospects of war be- 
 came remote, and the Stock Exchange recovered itself. 
 
 Then it was a question what to do with the large fleet 
 already assembled or ready to assemble. Sir Cooper had 
 his eye on turning things to account by getting exercises 
 with ships and torpedo-boats, but he " objected as a rule to 
 sham fights — they were apt to lead people astray. But he 
 was much in favour of exercising officers and men more 
 constantly in handling both ships and torpedo-boats, though 
 it was not always easy to carry them out without interfer- 
 ence with other calls for the ships." However, in the end 
 a plan of general exercise was decided on. 
 
 It requires some explanation before we can understand 
 how it was that the exercises took the form they did. That 
 difficulty, absence of uniformity of type, which had held the 
 hands of Lord Northbrook's Board, and subjected it to so 
 much opprobrium, at once attracted attention as soon as the 
 fleet was assembled. It was characterised as " a menagerie of 
 unruly and curiously assorted ships." But there it was. A 
 modern fleet of twelve " battleships," as we now call them, 
 some ten cruisers and gunboats; the Polyphemus, a novel type 
 of which no one could say whether it was sporadic or the first 
 
476 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 outbreak of an epidemic ; six first-class torpedo-boats ; and 
 the Oregon, a splendid specimen of the subsidised mercantile 
 marine " liner." In the result the experiments were chiefly 
 defensive, and chiefly so against torpedo-boat attack. It is 
 true, no doubt, that much was learned regarding torpedo-boat 
 attack, and the best means of breaking down an enemy's 
 defences against such an attack ; but, on the other hand, the 
 sense of it was, and was taken to be, a lesson as to how our 
 ships could best protect themselves from the enemy's tor- 
 pedo-boats. The explanation appears to be the conviction 
 to which Sir Cooper Key, and no doubt many others, had 
 come, that the role of our ships, had they gone to the 
 Baltic as belligerents, would have been chiefly defensive. 
 We must couple Sir Cooper Key's thought, as the thought 
 of the day, with another measure which had his approval. 
 Vice-Admiral Hamilton 1 was one of a joint Naval and 
 Military Commission which was visiting the mercantile 
 marine ports with a view to induce the municipal authorities 
 to contribute to their local defence. The fact was, that at 
 that time, no less by Sir Cooper Key than by other autho- 
 rities, the defensive power of the modern navy was dis- 
 trusted. Theoretically, as we have seen, Sir Cooper Key 
 was ready to acknowledge its defensive power. Practically, 
 that feeling was weak. 
 
 But now Sir Cooper Key's influence over the fortunes 
 of the navy was drawing to a close. In any case, he was 
 but a few months off the age of sixty-five, when the rule of 
 compulsory retirement would dismiss him from further 
 service. But the end of his active career was nearer than 
 that. On the 9th of June Mr. Gladstone was beaten on the 
 Budget resolutions, and his Government fell. " I am off," 
 wrote Sir Cooper on the 24th of June, " to vegetate on 
 half-pay. Now the time has come, I regret my sever- 
 ance from the service in which and for which I have passed 
 my life. I feel, however, that changes at headquarters 
 please the service, and are therefore desirable." 
 
 Perhaps no better summary of the impression Sir 
 Cooper Key created at the Admiralty can be conveyed 
 
 1 Now Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, G.C.B. 
 
AT THE ADMIRALTY— 1882-1885 477 
 
 than by the following extract from a letter written by his 
 chief, Lord Northbrook, in October 1882, to Sir Beauchamp 
 Seymour, and which his Lordship has kindly permitted me 
 to use : — 
 
 " Key will, I trust, remain as Senior Naval Lord as long 
 as he can, for I don't think we ever had so good a one 
 before. He has all the ability which Frederick Grey had, 
 with the additional merit of being the most ready man I 
 ever came across to listen to the arguments of men who do 
 not agree with him, and consider them, and modify his own 
 opinions when necessary, — added to this, he has a first-rate 
 political head." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LAST DAYS 1885-1888 
 
 THERE were many by-products of Sir Cooper Key's 
 active mind while he was at the Admiralty. One 
 of them was the study of the real position of the 
 torpedo as an addition to the armament of ironclads. He 
 raised the question of how far the manoeuvring powers of 
 a ship would go in avoiding the torpedo fired by another 
 ship in an ordinary action. I recollect his writing to me 
 for details of the manoeuvring powers of various ships, and 
 for diagrams of their possible application to the avoidance 
 of an approaching torpedo. 1 He employed others in the 
 same way, and the general conclusion seemed to be that 
 in certain cases of torpedoes fired from above water, so that 
 they could be seen, a ship turning towards the torpedo 
 might often avoid a blow otherwise certain. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key was a strong opponent of the Channel 
 Tunnel. Early in 1882 he was full of objections to it, 
 and could not understand how any sailor could feel indif- 
 ferent about it. He thought that if the tunnel were to be 
 constructed, and a French invasion were to be contemplated, 
 it would take place through the tunnel. Vast expenditure 
 on our side would be necessary, as nothing short of the 
 military occupation of a large area round Dover by well- 
 armed fortification ought to satisfy the people of this 
 country. 2 He thought we should find it necessary to put 
 
 1 I was then captain of the Steam Reserve at Portsmouth, and was in the 
 habit of making the most accurate experiments possible to ascertain the limits to 
 the manoeuvring powers of the ships that passed through my hands. 
 
 2 I remember having a long and interesting argument with him in his room at 
 the Admiralty on the point. I thought that, so far as I understood military 
 
 478 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 479 
 
 on foot a standing army equal to that of a continental 
 Power. He did not believe in any arrangements for imme- 
 diately blocking or flooding the tunnel. He thought we 
 need not doubt the friendliness of the French, but that 
 history taught us to be distrustful when the interests or 
 passions of a people were concerned. He thought our 
 shipping interest would be impaired by the traffic through 
 the tunnel. What would be the use of the command of 
 the Channel to us, when the enemy could pass under it? 
 
 An undoubtedly strong point with him was that, accord- 
 ing to our present belief, even a successful invasion, owing 
 to the absence of our fleet, would collapse when the navy 
 cut the landed force off from its base. It could not be so 
 cut off if the enemy got possession of the tunnel. He 
 thought that if the tunnel were made, and were commer- 
 cially successful, another would follow, and the difficulties 
 would be doubled. 
 
 There is no doubt that these views have prevailed, and 
 it may be supposed will permanently prevail unless some 
 great change takes place to prevent the undertaking of 
 that great engineering enterprise. 
 
 Very different were his views regarding another great 
 engineering achievement for facilitating international com- 
 munication. The question of the Suez Canal in relation to 
 traffic was before him in 1883, and he was all for widening 
 and deepening it to three times the then width and to 
 thirty feet depth. 
 
 By this means the passage through the canal would 
 be facilitated — (a) by ships being able to pass both ways 
 without impediment ; (J?) by their being able to proceed at 
 greater speed and with better steerage ; (c) by their being 
 able to proceed on fine nights. 
 
 history, it would be difficult to find a French general who would deploy a force 
 out of the tunnel, and try to fight a battle with no line of retreat but a mere rat- 
 hole in his rear. I held that fortification of any kind was a mistake, — that a 
 clear glacis surrounding the mouth of the tunnel would make the enterprise of 
 invasion hopeless in the eyes of French generals. But I made no way at all in 
 urging my point of view. I also thought that the French would keep any pro- 
 mise made in regard to attack via the tunnel. Sir Cooper did not think they 
 would. 
 
480 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 He thought it would not be possible to block such a 
 canal by accident or design ; a matter of vital importance 
 to us in case of our requiring to reinforce navy or army in 
 India. Nothing would be so certain to keep communica- 
 tion open as widening and deepening the canal. France 
 and Turkey had more ironclads which could pass the existing 
 canal than we had, and we must either build ships to match 
 the canal, or fit the canal to match our ships. He thought 
 also that efforts should be made to introduce English pilots. 
 
 The ever-green question of the age and method of entry 
 of naval cadets bloomed once more in 1881 under the 
 treatment of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre. Sir Cooper thereon wrote 
 a memorandum strongly advocating retention of the early 
 age and the limited competition. He quoted the head- 
 master of Eton as being not altogether favourable to com- 
 petition, but considered that on the whole the opinions were 
 in its favour. He thought the existing system, in its 
 practical working, entered the boys under limited competi- 
 tion at the age of thirteen, and then gave them two years 
 in the Britannia. Other proposals were, to have limited 
 competition at the age of fifteen, and one year in the 
 Britannia ; or to have open competition at sixteen, and one 
 year in the Britannia. 
 
 Sir Cooper claimed to be an advocate for reform in any 
 system that was found defective ; that he approved of a 
 standard of education for every path of life. But he felt 
 that defects must be proved, and that " education " must 
 mean training of mind and intellect for the path chosen. 
 
 He did not think the results of our system showed 
 defects which proposed changes would remedy. He held 
 that our young officers, as a body, compare favourably with 
 those of the line and of the marines, and that our more 
 highly-instructed lieutenants showed well beside the officers 
 of the engineers and artillery. There was no doubt about 
 the energy and intelligence of our young lieutenants and 
 sub-lieutenants. Where they failed was in want of practical 
 experience in handling ships in bad weather, and in other 
 details of a seaman's duty. Such knowledge was only to be 
 gained on board ship. It could not be gained by two years 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 481 
 
 in a public school. The young officers would be thus 
 unfitted to obey or to command, and would be more like 
 young subalterns in the army, inclined to delegate their 
 authority to non - commissioned officers, as having more 
 practical experience. 
 
 He failed to see that the existing system did not pro- 
 duce and nourish the qualities most required in a naval 
 officer; but he saw very distinctly that raising the age of 
 entry would put obstacles in the way of those qualities 
 being attained. 
 
 Lads from public schools would not take kindly to the 
 rough and uncomfortable life that they must lead at sea 
 at first. It would be very difficult to instil into them that 
 implicit and ready obedience, habits of subordination, and 
 knowledge of the character of seamen, which are necessary 
 to fit a man for command. 
 
 If it were said that officers were deficient in " educa- 
 tion," then he held the answer to be that an officer's true 
 education was carried on at every stage of his career; and 
 as the object was to fit him for the path of life he had 
 chosen, his retention at school on shore would not effect 
 that object, but would unfit him for his future duties. 
 
 He thought nine-tenths of the work of the service was 
 done, and must be done, by practical men with very little 
 book-learning, who are thoroughly at home at sea in all 
 circumstances, have the full confidence of the seamen, as 
 they have been at sea from their boyhood, and know the 
 seamen's duty as well as their own. The remaining tenth 
 must be this and more. They must have a thorough 
 theoretical and practical knowledge of some sciences, and 
 a partial knowledge of many. Such men will, if given the 
 opportunity, work for the higher knowledge, not only for its 
 own sake, but as a means of advancement. 
 
 The college at Greenwich was established with this 
 object, and was succeeding. Only a small portion of the 
 officers passing through it would carry away much, but all 
 would carry away something, and perhaps a tenth will lay 
 the foundation on which they can afterwards build. 
 
 It might be thought that we were aiming at a low 
 3 1 
 
482 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 standard when only I oo out of iooo were expected to be 
 highly qualified. But we should be satisfied with that. 
 
 If other countries were referred to who kept their 
 midshipmen at school till they were seventeen or eighteen, 
 the answer was that Greenwich College was unrivalled by 
 any in Europe, and we were only now beginning to realise 
 its benefits. When it was recommended that cadets should 
 only remain one year in the Britannia, it could be replied 
 that this was tried for some years when the Illustrious was 
 first organised, and was found insufficient. 
 
 Not impossibly these views of Sir Cooper's may be still 
 held by the great body of naval officers who have given 
 consideration to the subject. It is constantly noticed when 
 British and foreign warships are in company, that the 
 officers in the British ships are far more enterprising in all 
 that relates to the navigation and pilotage of their ships 
 than are the foreigners. They will proceed in fog, they 
 will enter ports at night without a pilot, when foreign 
 officers will not do it without a pilot even in the day-time. 
 Officers sometimes attribute this to early training. But as 
 I write, the pendulum is swinging heavily the other way, 
 and the reasonings used by Sir Cooper Key have not been 
 held strong enough to maintain the age-entry at the point 
 he desired. 
 
 Allusion has been made in Chapter XVII. to the wide- 
 spread belief of the service that Sir Cooper Key did not 
 make that full use of his position and antecedents to estab- 
 lish a predominant navy while he was at the Admiralty. I 
 have given in that chapter some reasons of a very practical 
 character to show that it was almost impossible to have 
 done in 1884 what was afterwards done in 1889. But if it 
 is asked, why, in spite of these difficulties, so advanced a 
 thinker as Sir Cooper Key did not lead, or attempt to lead, 
 the navy to claim supremacy at sea as the goal towards 
 which it ought to struggle with all its force, a clear answer 
 can be given. 
 
 Sir Cooper Key never realised that, in this Empire, in 
 war there was nothing between sea-supremacy and ruin. 
 He had not read naval history much, and not at all as con- 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 483 
 
 taining within it the rules of naval warfare which must be 
 followed in the future, if the Empire was to be preserved. 
 No naval histories had been written from that point of view ; 
 and the idea of judging of the present and future in naval 
 affairs by reference to their past, which is now so common, 
 had scarcely shown itself. 
 
 No one, perhaps, had ever as much as thought of ex- 
 amining the conditions of 1779 to 1783, when our fleets were 
 liable to be overmatched in every part of the world, and of 
 their application to the present day. No one certainly had 
 perceived that while such conditions were dangerous then, 
 their recurrence would be fatal now. 
 
 We have seen how, just before his appointment to the 
 Royal Commission of 1859, and as a Royal Commissioner, 
 he viewed with comparative complacency the arrival of a 
 time when the enemy's fleets might wholly command the 
 Channel, thinking that the perils of such a condition would 
 be met by sufficient fortification of the naval ports. We 
 have also seen how in the Excellent he held that the 
 appearance of the enemy's fleets in our home waters with 
 hostile intent would be a normal circumstance in war, to be 
 met by local defences such as the Staunc/i-c\a.ss gunboats 
 offered. To the day of his death he had not parted with 
 conceptions based on the idea that the sea would become in 
 war a free territory for each side to operate in with very 
 little hindrance from the other. He has not left behind him 
 a line to show that he understood how naval power in 
 defence must operate to be successful, by its effective 
 observation of all the enemy's forces that could attack. 
 And though, as we have seen, he, as a member of the Board 
 of Admiralty, put that form of defence into operation as a 
 matter of course, when relations with Russia became strained, 
 he never admitted it as a leading principle of naval war. 
 
 The state of his mind is shown by two papers on the 
 defence of our outlying territories that he has left behind 
 him, the last of which was published in the Nineteenth 
 Century for August 1886. The first, dated September 1884, 
 was penned while he was still at the Admiralty. 
 
 In the first paper he addressed himself to the question of 
 
484 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 defending those ports or stations abroad — naval depots — 
 which were in peace of use and importance to the navy, 
 and might presumably be of still greater use and importance 
 to it in war. 
 
 The form of attack he anticipated as likely to be 
 developed by an enemy against these " naval stations " was 
 an attack by " a squadron," and he makes no allusion to the 
 historical fact that an attack on such places by " squadrons " 
 was rare and exceptional ; while the attack by landed troops 
 was an almost unbroken rule. 
 
 He urged that all naval stations should be put in such 
 a state that they could "defend themselves against the 
 attacks of an enemy's squadron without relying on the 
 presence of our ships for that purpose." He did not in any 
 way consider the result of a long experience, showing the 
 hopelessness of believing any garrison of a naval station 
 capable of doing such a thing, and therefore of the impractic- 
 ability of the task he would place upon the army. Nor did 
 he take any note of the powerlessness of a garrison to defend 
 the port against a blockade ; and the consequent duty — a 
 duty always attended to in our wars — of localising a naval 
 force having that object in view. He did not, in this paper, 
 give any hint of meaning that the places should be able to 
 locally defend themselves for a time pending the arrival of 
 naval assistance. 
 
 He held remarkably strong opinions as to the primary 
 importance of these naval stations to the fleets maintained in 
 different waters, going so far as to say that our squadrons 
 must draw their supplies from them, and effect all their 
 repairs and refits at them ; and that the destruction of an 
 important naval depot would mean the dispersion of the 
 squadron on that station. Here, again, he made no reference 
 to even our latest experience, where our fleets, both in the 
 Black Sea and the Baltic, drew their supplies from home, 
 and must have come home for most of the repairs and refits, 
 which could not be carried out in the anchorages which the 
 squadrons had seized in the enemy's waters. He did not 
 remark upon the special character of depots along the line 
 of a trade-route which sustained not only the commerce 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 485 
 
 passing over it, but any warships protecting such a route by 
 convoy, by patrol, or by simply resting in or near the port, 
 for the purpose of preventing it from being blockaded. He 
 did not allude to the obvious point that the navy could not 
 possibly protect the trade over any route unless it also — by 
 the fact that it protected the route — protected the ports of 
 call along it. He assumed, therefore, that depots which 
 were of convenience and importance to a particular class of 
 our ships engaged upon a special duty, would, even in a 
 higher degree, be of convenience and importance to our 
 capital fleets, which would have nothing to do with the 
 trade-routes while they were observing the enemy's naval 
 forces in the enemy's waters. 
 
 He seemed to think that, unless our capital fleets were 
 localised at the places most requiring their defensive help, 
 they could not defend ; and he did not appear to note that 
 the whole course of our war experience showed that the only 
 way to make naval defence effective was to put our fleets 
 in the closest touch with those forces of the enemy which 
 would have in some way to avoid their observation before 
 they could proceed to attack. On the contrary, he thought 
 our fleets would be employed in protecting our commerce 
 and merchant shipping, attacking the enemy's ports, and 
 destroying his merchant shipping ; and for this reason he 
 thought that none of our naval force could be relied on to 
 protect the depots, on which, in his view, its very existence 
 depended. 
 
 In his subsequent paper, published in the Nineteenth 
 Century -, he drew a curious distinction between (1) places 
 like Malta, Aden, Simon's Town, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and 
 Hong Kong, which were places for the repair and equipment 
 of ships of war ; and (2) places usually called " coaling 
 stations," like King George's Sound, Port Royal, St. Lucia, 
 and Perim, which were places of value for the replenishment 
 of our ships of war and merchant vessels with coal, stores, 
 and provisions, and which might also serve as refuges when 
 ships were pressed, either by the enemy or by bad weather. 
 
 He thus drew some distinction between the uses of 
 different sorts of naval depots, though not that which can 
 
486 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 be based on historical antecedents. But on the distinction 
 he drew he came to a still more curious conclusion as to 
 their defence. With the first class of stations, he followed 
 historical teaching, saying that these depots " should be 
 made capable of protecting themselves against any force 
 that might reasonably be expected to be brought against 
 them, and be prepared to stand a siege until the arrival of 
 our fleet to their support? This plan of defence is not only 
 conformable to reason, but is proved by history and ex- 
 perience to be the only effective plan. 
 
 But the second class of places were still, as in his first 
 paper, to be left absolutely alone to defend themselves. 
 They were to be " defended as independent of the presence 
 of our fleet, which must always be left free for offensive 
 operations, and for the protection of our trade on the high 
 seas. The permanent self-defence of these ports should be 
 sufficient to deny the anchorage to an enemy, and to pre- 
 vent the occupation or destruction of the depot by a hostile 
 squadron." He considered that the best form of defence 
 would be sub-marine mines, supported by guns mounted 
 on shore. 
 
 The correctness or otherwise of these views may properly 
 be subject for argument. What has to be explained in Sir 
 Cooper Key's case is that views running very counter to 
 history and experience were not seen to need explanation. 
 
 Nothing is made clearer by history than the action of 
 the enemy in attack, and of the navy in defence. The 
 enemy never attacked by squadrons ; he always attacked 
 by landing troops, not where batteries were placed, but as 
 far as could be where there were none ; and the supporting 
 ships kept pretty clear of even the lightest batteries, and 
 never attempted to enter harbours. The navy defending, 
 always, if it was strong enough, defended by watching as 
 closely as it could the enemy's fleet. If it was not strong 
 enough for this, it sought a rendezvous ; and whenever 
 it received intelligence of an attack, it embarked troops 
 and flew to the rescue. Only in rare and particular cases 
 did any other duty intervene to prevent the support of 
 garrisons becoming the first of all the naval duties. 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 487 
 
 The remarkable experience of St. Lucia — one of the 
 places mentioned by Sir Cooper in the article — would of 
 itself have been sufficient, had it been in his mind, to suggest 
 some attempt at reconciliation between experience and 
 forecast. In 1778 it was powerfully fortified and well 
 garrisoned by the French ; but, in the supposed absence of 
 the superior French Fleet, some 5000 men were landed by the 
 British Fleet under Barrington for its capture. After the 
 landing, the superior French Fleet arrived, and only Bar- 
 rington's promptitude and skill in securing a defensible 
 anchorage prevented the French from capturing the trans- 
 ports and cutting off the landed men from their stores and 
 supplies. The French landed all the men they could to 
 assist the garrison, but the British invading force was too 
 strong, and the place fell. In 1780 the French determined 
 to recover the island, but the presence of the British Fleet, 
 though it was very inferior, compelled them to abandon 
 their design. In 1781 the French landed forces for its re- 
 conquest ; but the landing of seamen and marines from a 
 squadron that happened to arrive at the moment, together 
 with news that the inferior British Fleet was pushing with all 
 speed to the rescue, compelled the French to re-embark 
 their troops. Apart from the defending fleets, therefore, 
 there could have been no hopes of defending St. Lucia ; and 
 unless the defending fleet was able to overcome the attack- 
 ing fleet, or at least to land a force great enough to make 
 the garrison superior to the invading force, the place could 
 not be saved after the men were landed. The only defence 
 shown to be real by history was the prevention of attack, 
 and this no works or garrisons have shown themselves 
 capable of doing, unless they were superior to the attacking 
 force. When Sir Cooper Key wrote, no one had drawn out 
 these historic parallels for the service of naval statesmen. 
 There was no basis to go upon in considering attack and 
 defence. They were thrown back on pure speculation ; and 
 it was impossible for a man who had hardly ever been free 
 from the pressure of considering the mediate, if not the 
 immediate, to carry the speculation beyond what seemed 
 on the surface most plain and likely. Even to-day the 
 
488 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 great body of men who are concerned in these matters do 
 not think they do at all an unreasonable thing when they 
 declare to the army that it is expected to defend the post it 
 occupies. The unreasonableness appears to them, as it did 
 to Sir Cooper Key, on the other side. 
 
 But the examination of his views compels us to believe 
 that he considered the question of the size of our fleet, in 
 proportion to that of probable opponents, as one of degree 
 only. If we had a larger fleet, we should do better; if we 
 had a smaller fleet, we should do worse : that was all. He 
 had no clear idea that the difference between a supreme 
 navy and one which was not supreme was a difference 
 in kind. 
 
 And yet, when it came to the practical issue, he, in 
 agreement with the Board, caused every Russian ship out 
 of Russian waters to be watched by a superior British force 
 when there was a prospect of war, well knowing that there 
 was no complete defence except this. 
 
 As a worker at the Admiralty, Sir Cooper Key was 
 insatiable. He was in his room early and late, and he 
 generally took home to his official residence— 23 New Street, 
 Spring Gardens, just at the back of the Admiralty, and now 
 pulled down — masses of papers for consideration in the 
 evening. It grew, indeed, to be a difficulty with him, for 
 he could not bear to be without a full supply of "current 
 business " to occupy his mind. He absorbed an immense 
 proportion of Admiralty work into his own hands ; but it 
 was the more natural for him to do so, as there was no class 
 of Admiralty work with which his career had not given him 
 the familiarity of an expert. All questions of personnel and 
 discipline were the everyday experience of the naval com- 
 mander ; naval architecture and marine engineering fell in 
 with his experience in the Steam Reserve at Devonport ; 
 everything relating to offence and defence was merely a 
 return to his work as captain of the Excellent and Director of 
 Naval Ordnance ; as superintendent of two dockyards, his 
 knowledge of our manufacturing establishments was com- 
 plete ; the first head of Greenwich Naval College was neces- 
 sarily abreast of all that related to naval education. Possibly, 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 489 
 
 no one who had before occupied, or who has since occupied, 
 the post of First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, had such a 
 wide knowledge of every naval department. But it is a 
 question whether any man with Sir Cooper Key's ante- 
 cedents could avoid being somewhat hampered by them, if 
 it were at any time demanded of him to withdraw his mind 
 to the consideration of great principles apart from their 
 surrounding details. 
 
 Although of a lithe and agile frame, and normally 
 devoted to athletics, and yet not a horseman, Sir Cooper 
 was hard put to it for sustaining exercise in support of the 
 incessant brain-work of his office. In the summer he found 
 it after office-hours in the little green behind the Admiralty, 
 where a vigorous bout of lawn tennis set him up for the 
 next day's work. In the dark hours of winter, smoking a 
 great cigar, he rushed through a round of the streets in the 
 vicinity of Whitehall, exploring odd and out-of-the-way 
 passages ; and, if he had a naval friend with him, talking 
 hard on the latest naval developments. 
 
 Surely, never were the ostensible grounds for enforcing 
 retirement upon active flag officers at the fixed age of sixty- 
 five more absurdly belied than, as far as could be seen, they 
 were in the case of Admiral Sir Cooper Key. Quitting the 
 Admiralty after more than six years' service there, from the 
 legitimate cause of a change of Government, he was within 
 seven months of compulsory retirement from the public 
 service altogether. 
 
 But the release from work and anxiety, and latterly 
 from the disappointment and worry which his loss of naval 
 popularity had entailed upon him, was to his temperament 
 as the coming of an Indian summer. All things seemed to 
 become new to him, and he took up a new life with new 
 interests, as if there had never been an old one with old 
 interests. The mere physical change in him was delightful 
 in the eyes of his friends. His ever-active body grew more 
 active, and his mind blossomed anew in the new soil. 
 
 The dormant sportsman's instincts broke out in him in a 
 way surprising to notice. He shot and he fished as he had 
 never done either before, and the killing of his first salmon 
 
490 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 after his retirement was described to me with a glow of 
 enthusiasm which it is charming to recall. He always drove 
 well, and was proud of his driving ; and one of the last of the 
 memories I have of him, which is glad and pathetic at the 
 same time, is sitting beside him on the box of a mail phaeton 
 or waggonette, while, with an immense cigar in his mouth, 
 his face beaming all over, and with a fine pair of horses in 
 hand, he exhibited his perfect control over them by making 
 what appeared to me as a series of the closest of shaves. 
 
 Retirement schemes which suddenly break the continuity 
 of an active life drive the technically, but not really, worn- 
 out soldiers and sailors much into the city, not always to 
 their own advantage. Sir Cooper Key was the last to be an 
 exception, and he became chairman of the new Nordenfelt 
 Company, which, entering life on a rolling wave of prosperity, 
 had its time of adversity as the Maxim-Nordenfelt Company, 
 and has since fully recovered itself under the chairmanship 
 of another distinguished sailor. Sir Cooper Key was spared 
 the days of anxiety which were in store for the managers of 
 this concern, but a long education in a service peculiarly 
 open and outspoken is hardly good training for a naturally 
 sincere and trustful character when making way for the first 
 time in business circles. A man of this sort, trained in this 
 way, is apt to be over-sanguine in estimating the prospects 
 of new enterprises. Caveat emptor is not always in his 
 mind, as it necessarily must be in the minds of men trained 
 in business habits. Sir Cooper Key showed a readiness to 
 enter upon new undertakings with all the promptitude and 
 spirit which had distinguished his naval career ; and it is 
 quite possible that such a temper would, had he lived, have 
 brought him anxieties not so easy to shake off. 
 
 He did not absolutely escape from the calls of official 
 life. Very soon after leaving the Admiralty he was 
 appointed a member of the Royal Commission for inquiry 
 into the causes of loss of life at sea, which reported later. 
 But he did not, after quitting public life, take much practical 
 interest in naval progress, or attempt to control it or advance 
 it, as many men in his position have done, by publishing 
 letters or articles. The article already quoted from the 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 491 
 
 Nineteenth Century is the only serious contribution that he 
 made to naval literature. He was, however, drawn from 
 his somewhat reticent position by published reflections upon 
 the Admiralty, which Lord Charles Beresford gave vent to in 
 justification of his resignation of the seat he held at Lord 
 George Hamilton's Board in 1 887-1 888. 
 
 Lord Charles had written to the Times on the 30th of 
 January 1888, declaring that in 1885 there was at the 
 Admiralty " no shred of system or plan for organisation 
 for war." He had said the same thing in other words in a 
 speech to his constituents in August 1886. Sir Cooper Key 
 wrote a letter to the Times, which was published on the 
 3rd of February, declaring that he felt " some protest should 
 be at once made, with the endeavour to relieve the public 
 mind from hastily concluding that the effective administra- 
 tion of the navy is dependent on one man, however capable 
 he may be." 
 
 " He would not say," he continued, " that our organisa- 
 tion was, or is, perfect, but it is clear that the actual, indeed 
 the sole duty of our naval administration is to organise our 
 fleets for war. Every order given, every pound expended 
 by the Board of Admiralty, is with the object of preparing 
 for war. It is difficult, therefore, to understand that our 
 naval successes and acknowledged efficiency of our squadrons 
 in all parts of the world have resulted from f no shred of 
 system.' He fully admitted that great assistance has pro- 
 bably been given to the Board, and especially to the First 
 Lord, who is responsible for carrying out the naval policy 
 determined on by the Cabinet, and to the Senior Naval 
 Lord, who is charged with all duties connected with the 
 movements of Her Majesty's ships, by the recent extension 
 of the Intelligence Department, which was first established 
 under Lord Northbrook's administration, and which did 
 good service under the name of the Intelligence Committee. 
 The same intelligent and zealous officer, Captain W. H. Hall, 
 who was then the chief worker on that committee, remains 
 as chief of the department. 
 
 " The committee was then presided over by the Senior 
 Naval Lord, and its proceedings were strictly confidential. 
 
492 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 " The amount of valuable information collected by that 
 committee previous to July 1885 was of the greatest service 
 to the Board when war was imminent in the early part of 
 that year. I have," he wrote, " no intention of making public 
 the details of the preparations then made. They were such, 
 however, as would make us independent of the cutting of the 
 telegraph cables, except as to the announcement to admirals 
 on foreign stations that war is declared. 
 
 * There is no point mentioned by Lord Charles Beresford 
 as being now prepared by the Intelligence Department 
 which was not prepared at that time by the Intelligence 
 Committee, or by other departments under the order or 
 superintendence of members of the Board, even to chartering 
 and preparing for armament many of the fastest merchant 
 steamers in various parts of the world. One of them, the 
 Oregon, was actually armed and commissioned. The Board 
 could not transfer the responsibility of preparing a ' plan of 
 campaign' to the Intelligence Committee; but that com- 
 mittee was of great assistance in giving information as to its 
 detail. ' Plans of campaign ' cannot be accurately prepared 
 before a war is imminent ; much must depend on the cause 
 of war and existing circumstances. Admirals on foreign 
 stations do not look to the Admiralty to inform them what 
 foreign ships of war are within the limits of their stations. 
 It is their duty to inform the Admiralty on such matters, as 
 they are the highest authority on the subject, although all 
 information obtained at home or on other stations has been 
 at once conveyed to the proper quarter." 
 
 After referring to the office of Director of Transports, Sir 
 Cooper Key continued : — 
 
 " I am far from being satisfied with the condition of the 
 navy, either as regards materiel, personnel, or organisation ; 
 but I believe it to be superior in all to any other navy, and 
 that it is improving year by year. If the estimates were 
 maintained for a few years at the same amount as they were 
 when Lord Northbrook left office, it will depend on the 
 Board of Admiralty to ensure efficiency on all points, which 
 cannot exist without economical expenditure in every branch 
 to prevent waste of the money voted. 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 493 
 
 " In my opinion, Lord Charles Beresford takes an 
 exaggerated view of the importance of the Intelligence 
 Department. I fully agree with him that it was wise to 
 extend its operations ; but they should be limited to obtain- 
 ing and collating information, leaving it to the responsible 
 Ministers of the Crown — the Board of Admiralty — to use 
 that information as our naval policy may require. I also 
 concur in his view that disaster must result if the unanimous 
 opinion of the naval members of the Board is overruled. 
 I have never known this to be the case." 
 
 In one or two ways these extracts deserve record. In 
 the first place, they are distinctly characteristic of a man 
 who had gradually become an administrator, dealing with a 
 variety of contingencies, and disinclined to trust his mind 
 beyond the solution of the mediate. Lord Charles Beresford 
 was really insisting on the thing which Sir Cooper Key did 
 not think attainable, namely, plans of campaign in regard to 
 possible future wars, which took into account all the known 
 conditions, and prepared generally to meet them. His view, 
 doubtless, was that if the plan of campaign were postponed 
 until war was imminent, we might possibly find ourselves 
 embarked without any plan ; or, worse still, might see an 
 obvious plan, but find ourselves with the wrong material for 
 carrying it out. But the administrative view would surely 
 be, that preparing for a definite scheme, and carrying on a 
 definite building policy in view of that scheme, might be 
 going further than safety and economy warranted. The 
 same administrative fear dictated the desirability of strictly 
 limiting the functions of an Intelligence Department. There 
 was danger lest the Board might be led into theories of 
 future war that would be found only theories when the 
 time came. 
 
 Then, again, Sir Cooper Key remained, in the terms of 
 this letter, just where he was in 1859 as to the strength 
 of the navy. The Hamilton programme of 1889 cast no 
 shadow before it on Sir Cooper Key's mind. The strength 
 of the navy was entirely a matter of degree. There was no 
 fixed limit of force which, on the probabilities, was necessary 
 to us. We should be better if we had more naval force, and 
 
494 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 worse if we had less. That was the whole of it ; and that 
 was in 1888 the view of all but a very few men in the navy. 
 
 But, perhaps, of all the work in which Sir Cooper Key 
 engaged after his retirement from the active service of his 
 profession, none had a greater hold on his affection than the 
 social interest of his immediate neighbourhood. Always 
 of a sincerely religious temperament, and strongly attached 
 to the Church of England, he almost at once became to 
 Maidenhead and to his own parish a centre and pivot for 
 all kinds of philanthropic and religious movement to circle 
 round. 
 
 The following note, signed " W. G. S.," * which appeared 
 immediately after his death, gives an appreciative idea of 
 what, in a short time, the Admiral became in the new 
 environment of civil life : — 
 
 " When Sir Cooper Key left the Admiralty upon the 
 resignation of the late Ministry, he settled down at Laggan 
 House, Maidenhead. During the two and a half years he 
 resided there he endeared himself to all, rich and poor alike. 
 From the very first he took the liveliest interest in all church 
 matters in the town of Maidenhead, and especially in those 
 connected with the parish in which he lived. Whatever he 
 undertook to do he did it with all his might. Constantly 
 called to London on important business, he never neglected 
 any local work which he had undertaken. As a county 
 magistrate, or as a member of the Board of Guardians, he 
 was conspicuous for the conscientious manner in which he 
 performed his duties. As president of the local branch 
 of the Church Defence Institution, he presided at a meeting 
 in the Maidenhead Town Hall a few days before his death, 
 and made a hearty speech upon the Church in Wales. As 
 treasurer of the National Schools of Maidenhead, he would 
 never miss a school meeting. As president of the local 
 School of Art, he was always ready to speak on art. He 
 also took a very lively interest in foreign missionary work, 
 and was always prepared to speak at missionary meetings. 
 In consequence of this, and of the great knowledge which he 
 
 1 The Rev. William G. Sawyer, who was then vicar of St. Luke's, Sir Cooper 
 Key's parish. 
 
LAST DAYS— 1885-1888 495 
 
 had of missionary work in many parts of the world, he was 
 elected at the last annual meeting of the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel as one of the standing committee. 
 As a Churchman he was a tower of strength in Maidenhead, 
 a place where an example like his was specially valuable. 
 Constant at the altar, never absent from church morning or 
 evening on the Sunday, ready to help in any work connected 
 with St. Luke's Church, the clergy of that parish feel that 
 by his death they have lost their right hand. 
 
 " It was the high privilege of the writer to be much with 
 him in the long and dangerous illness he had about a year 
 ago. The patience and resignation to God's will which he 
 showed through all that trying time was very beautiful to 
 see. He was in all ways a good and a true man, who lived 
 his religion in his daily life. His death has caused a void in 
 his own parish beyond what words can express." 
 
 After quitting the Admiralty, Sir Cooper Key preserved 
 his health, vigour, and bounding spirits until the end of 
 1886. Then he was attacked by a serious illness, which 
 confined him to his bed for thirteen or fourteen weeks. But 
 as he rallied and recovered, he seemed to have entered on a 
 new lease of life, and finally thought himself as well as ever 
 he was. But the former illness had left a great danger 
 behind it in the form of a clot of blood situate in the leg. 
 
 On Friday the 2nd March 1888 Sir Cooper Key had 
 been to London, and felt himself to be as well as he ever 
 had been. Next morning there was no sign of ill-health till 
 after breakfast, when he was seized by what seemed to be a 
 slight attack of indigestion. As late as eight o'clock in the 
 evening his medical attendant saw nothing more than 
 dyspepsia in the case, but at half-past ten he suddenly 
 became worse, and died quite quietly at eleven, — no doubt 
 the clot had made its fatal progress to the heart, and ended 
 the life there. 
 
 I have recorded how the boy wrote, on the first opening 
 of his naval experience, that " he never was so happy in all 
 his life." At the end of his career — it might have been the 
 day before he died, but it was certainly not many days 
 before he died — it happened that, meeting a friend in a 
 
496 MEMOIRS OF SIR COOPER KEY 
 
 railway carriage, he used almost, if not altogether, the 
 same words. The chord struck at the beginning of his life 
 was that struck at the end of it ; and between was the 
 beautiful melody of a true and real life, in which, if there 
 were discords, they served the purpose of bringing out the 
 harmony. 
 
INDEX 
 
 [Nanus of Ships are in Italics.] 
 
 Abercrombie, Mr. and Lady Mary, 
 
 139, 167. 
 Abercromby, Sir R., 458. 
 Aberdour, Lord, 180. 
 Aboukir, 458. 
 Abu Hamed, 468. 
 Accidents,[2i, 27/79, 104. 
 Achilles, 324, 355, 362, 421, 461. 
 Aci Reale, 191. 
 Acorn, 108, 280. 
 Actceon, 273, 278, 280. 
 Aden, 485. 
 
 "Admiral " class, 432, 433. 
 Admiralty, 230, 240, 242, 246, 255, 270, 
 
 288, 293, 297, 299, 302, 326-9, 331, 
 
 334, 352, 377. 
 Afghanistan, 470, 471. 
 Africa, West Coast of, 210. 
 African, 25, 75. 
 Agamemnon, 225, 472, 473. 
 Agincourt, 324, 385, 386, 421, 461. 
 AJax, 233, 243, 244, 423, 430. 
 Alabama, 345, 370. 
 Aland Islands, 242-4, 246, 255. 
 Albacore, 437. 
 Albano, 198, 199, 201-3. 
 Albion, 136. 
 Alexander 11., 252. 
 Alexandra, 346, 421, 422, 427, 431. 
 Alexandria, 36, 134, 456-65. 
 Alfred, 92, 373. 
 Algerine, 423, 438. 
 Algiers, 271. 
 Ali, 189. 
 Alicata, 34. 
 Alison, Sir A., 464. 
 Alison's " History of Europe," 97. 
 Alston, Mr., 26, 27. . 
 Alverstoke, 70, 71. 
 America, 125, 373. 
 
 32 
 
 American Civil War, 1. 
 
 American Navy, 356. 
 
 American ordnance, 355, 356. 
 
 Amethyst, 274. 
 
 Amiral Duperri, 430. 
 
 Amphion, Chapters XI. and XII., 267, 
 
 268, 286, 300, 305, 307, 314. 
 Anchors, Roger's, Porter's, Trotman's, 74. 
 Ancona, 171, 181, 182, 184, 203. 
 Andromache, 47, 49. 
 Angier, 273. 
 Anglesea, 70. 
 Anio, 203. 
 
 Annesley, Lieutenant R. M., 34. 
 Antelope, 134, 185. 
 Antrim, 271. 
 Aircy's "Disturbance of the Compass," 
 
 etc, 96. 
 Arabi, 456-61, 463, 464. 
 Archer, 237, 239, 247-50, 252, 253, 451. 
 Archipelago, 36. 
 Ardent, 210. 
 Ariadne, 36. 
 
 Armaments, 13, 91, 108, 216, 217. 
 Armour, 330, 336, 337, 352, 371, 417. 
 Armoured decks, 367, 417. 
 Arms for Spanish Loyalists, 32, 33. 
 Armstrong, Sir William, 326, 328, 330-7, 
 
 339. 34i. 342, 344. 35L 353-8. 418, 
 
 443. 45o. 
 Arnold, 134. 
 Arrogant, 195, 218, 225, 228, 233, 245, 
 
 249, 252-4, 256, 263. 
 Ascension, 273. 
 Asia, 35. 
 
 Assiout, 470. • 
 
 Assumption, 112. 
 Atalanta, 267, 420. 
 Athens, 36, 37, 213. 
 Auckland, Lord, 116, 120, 121, 163, 
 
 165-7. 
 
 Audacieuse, 277. 
 
498 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Audacious, 421, 422. 
 
 Augusta, Port, 193. 
 
 Aurora, 367, 451. 
 
 Australia, 451, 455. 
 
 Australia, 455. 
 
 Austria, 157, 160, 164, 172, 174, 178, 210. 
 
 "Autobiography of a Stomach," 22. 
 
 Avalanche, 278. 
 
 B 
 
 Bahia, 81, 82, 84. 
 Bahia Bay, 160. 
 Bains, Rear-Admiral, 252. 
 Baker, Lieutenant R. M., 85. 
 Baker, Mr. H., 95. 
 Baker Pacha, 465-7. 
 Balaklava, 271. 
 Banda Oriental, 107. 
 Bantry Bay, 226, 424. 
 Ball, Mr., 160. 
 
 Baltic, 10, 22, 222, 229-31, 235, 237, 238, 
 248-50, 252, 253, 265, 268, 269, 272, 
 
 289, 339. 424. 474-6- 
 Baltic Fleet, 233. 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers, 245. 
 Barbados, 55-7, 63, 86, 405, 406. 
 Barbettes, 425, 426. 
 Barcelona, 32. 
 Barham, 33, 34. 
 Baring, Sir Francis, 195. 
 Barker, Mr. W. W., 130, 131. 
 Barnard, Captain C. K. , 385. 
 Baro Sound, 241-4, 256. 
 Barrington, Admiral, 487. 
 Barrow, Sir John, 59. 
 Bartolucci, Signor, 405. 
 Basan, 50. 
 Basilisk, 438. 
 Batanga, 441. 
 Bate, Captain, 284. 
 Bath, Order of the, 258. 
 Batt, Mr., 257. 
 Baudin, Admiral, 196, 430. 
 Baxter, Mr. W. E., 382. 
 Bayard, 430. 
 
 Beamish, Lieutenant, 280. 
 Beauclerk, Lord A., 87, 88. 
 Bedouins, 459. 
 Belleisle, 369, 422, 430. 
 Bellerophon, 319, 324, 357, 358, 368, 371, 
 
 374, 405, 406, 421, 424. 
 Belts, The, 233, 234, 253, 254. 
 Berber, 466-9. 
 
 Berehaven, 408. 
 
 Beresford, Lord C, 491-3. 
 
 Bermuda, 47, 49, 55, 57, 58, 485. 
 
 Besika Bay, 209, 210-12. 
 
 Bight of Benin, 97. 
 
 Biorka Sound, 255. 
 
 Birch, Captain, 252. 
 
 Birkenhead, 244. 
 
 Biscay, Bay of, 23, 123. 
 
 Bitter Lakes, 460. 
 
 Bittern, 457. 
 
 Black Eagle, 270. 
 
 Black Prince, 324. 
 
 Black Sea, 222, 229, 251, 258. 
 
 Blakeley, Mr., 341. 
 
 Blancillos, 93-5. 
 
 Blazer, 407. 
 
 Blenheim, 218, 233, 243, 244. 
 
 Boadicea, 407. 
 
 Bologna, 177, 181, 184, 199, 202. 
 
 Bomarsund, 243-7, 249, 255, 266. 
 
 Boigo, 259, 260. 
 
 Bornholm, 235. 
 
 Boscawen, 230. 
 
 Bosphorus, 27. 
 
 Boston, 257. 
 
 Bothnia, Gulf of, 241. 
 
 Bouchier, Sir Thomas, 95. 
 
 Bouet, Captain, 193. 
 
 Bowman, Mr., 15. 
 
 Boyd, Lieutenant, 121. 
 
 Boyne, 6. 
 
 Boys, Rear-Admiral, 408. 
 
 Brace, Sir Edward, 74. 
 
 Brandywine, 79. 
 
 Brassey, Mr. T., 428, 443, 449, 450, 
 
 452. 
 Breech-loading, 341-5, 365, 380, 381, 417, 
 
 418, 426, 430, 433, 434, 439, 442. 
 Brest, 123. 
 
 Brickdale, Lieutenant, 111. 
 Brighton, 2. 
 Brisk, 451. 
 
 Britannia, 1, 66, 396, 480, 482. 
 Broadside system, 349, 369. 
 Brooker, Commander, 280. 
 Brunswick, 29. 
 
 Buenos Ayres, 85, 92, 93, 107, 108. 
 Bulgaria, 471. 
 Bulldog, Chapters VIII., IX., and X., 
 
 225, 228, 234, 245, 300, 306, 314. 
 Burnett, Sir William, 73. 
 Burney, Dr., 12, 15. 
 
 Burrows, Captain, and Professor M., 64, 
 72, 97, 100. 
 
INDEX 
 
 499 
 
 Burton rifle, 365. 
 Bustard, 407. 
 Byron, Lord, 129. 
 Bythesea, Captain John, 391. 
 
 " C" class, 423. 
 
 Cables, chain and hemp, io, IX, 112. 
 
 Cabul, 416. 
 
 Cadiz, 25, 32-4. 
 
 Cadogan, Mr., 139. 
 
 Caflm, Captain, 72, 260. 
 
 Cagliari, 143, 466. 
 
 Caiman, 425, 426, 430. 
 
 Cairo, 450, 458. 
 
 Calabria, 131, 132. 
 
 Calcutta, 274. 
 
 Calcutta, 274, 275, 278, 280, 287. 
 
 Caledonia, 33, 35, 210. 
 
 Cambridge, 69, 97. 
 
 Camerata, Signor, 182, 184. 
 
 Cameron, General, 294. 
 
 Camiro, Prince, 178. 
 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Mr., 434, 444, 449. 
 
 Campbell, Lieutenant Colin A., 274. 
 
 Campbell, Captain Hugh, 406. 
 
 Camperdown, 13. 
 
 Canada, 423. 
 
 Candia, 37. 
 
 Canning, Sir Stratford, 213. 
 
 Canova, 135. 
 
 Canton, 274, 275-9, 282, 285, 287. 
 
 Cape Government, 455. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 85, 86, 273. 
 
 Capstan, 303. 
 
 Captain, 380. 
 
 Caracalla, baths of, 141. 
 
 Carbele, 302. 
 
 Carbonara, Cape, 143. 
 
 Cardwell, Mr., 254. 
 
 Carlist rising, 22, 28. 
 
 Carmichael, Lieutenant, 73, 86, 87, 95. 
 
 Caroline, 437. 
 
 Carrara, 143. 
 
 Carriage Department, Royal, 326, 328, 
 
 350-4. 356, 359- 
 Carriages, Marshall's, 344, 350. 
 Carysfort, 33, 467. 
 Caselli, General, 198. 
 Castel-a-Mare, Fort, 150, 155, 156, 160. 
 Castel de Guido, 199. 
 Castor, 23, 27, 221. 
 Castro Giovanni, 194. 
 
 Catania, 154, 173, 188-95, 206. 
 
 Cavagnari, Sir Louis, 416. 
 
 Caymans, 52. 
 
 Cerigo, 37. 
 
 Chadeyson, General, 200. 
 
 Chads, Rear-Admiral, 230, 233, 234, 243, 
 
 244. 
 Channel Squadron, 385, 388, 398, 458, 
 
 461, 466. 
 Charles Albert, 188, 196. 
 Chatham, 63, 73. 
 Chichele Professor, 64. 
 Childers, Right Hon. Hugh, 382-8, 390, 
 
 39L 397. 429. 
 
 Chili, 416. 
 
 China, 273-5. 
 
 Chinese gunboats, 418, 424, 441, 443. 
 
 Cholera, 174, 249. 
 
 Chuenpee, 275. 
 
 Cicero Acchio, Signor, 172. 
 
 Circolo Romano, 177. 
 
 "Civil Engineers' and Architects' Jour- 
 nal," 85. 
 
 Civita Vecchia, 134, 137-41, 160, 169-71, 
 x 75» I 76, 179, 180, 182-6, 195, 200, 
 203-5, 207, 208. 
 
 Clanwilliam, Earl of, 416. 
 
 Clark, Lieutenant, 14. 
 
 Clarke, Colonel, 396, 400. 
 
 Cleopatra, Chapter III., 72, 212. 
 
 Coal capacity, 162. 
 
 Cobboli Russi, Monsignore, 170, 175. 
 
 Cochrane, Admiral Sir Thomas, 222. 
 
 Cochrane, Captain Hon. A., 280. 
 
 Cockburn, Lieutenant, 101. 
 
 Cockney Sam, 94. 
 
 Codrington, Captain, 147, 174, 186, 187 
 
 Coles, Captain Cowper, 324-6, 349, 407. 
 
 Coliseum, 141, 142. 
 
 Collingwood, Lord, 2, 128, 138. 
 
 Collingwood, 370, 426, 430, 432, 436, 
 
 Collins, John, 60. 
 
 Collision, danger of, 58, 77. 
 
 Colonia, 107, 109. 
 
 Colossus, 270, 423, 430. 
 
 Colorados, 93-5. 
 
 Columbia, 79. 
 
 Commission, Royal, of 1785, 288. 
 
 Commission, Royal, of 1859, Chapter 
 XIV. , to p. 300. 
 
 Commission of Delimitation, 470. 
 
 Commission, Naval and Military, 476. 
 
 Comus, 109, in. 
 
 Conflance 34, 35, 38. 
 
 Conflict ', 236-8, 247, 250, 253. 
 
Soo 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Conning-towers, 427, 436. 
 
 Constance, 423. 
 
 Constantinople, 210, 213. 
 
 Conqueror, 423, 430, 431. 
 
 Constitutional defects, 22. 
 
 Constitution, 204. 
 
 Controller of the Navy, 225, 326, 328, 
 
 329. 359-63- 
 Conway, 29. 
 
 Conyngham, Lord, 139. 
 Cook, Mr., 470. 
 
 Cooper, Bransby Blake, Esq., 59. 
 Cooper, Samuel, Esq., 2. 
 Cooper, Sir Astley, 2. 
 Copenhagen, 233-5, 2 4 8 > 2 5°. *5*i 2 53> 
 
 254, 265. 
 Corbett, Commander John, 274. 
 Corcelles, M., 204. 
 Cordelia, 423. 
 Corfu, 38, 169, 210. 
 Cork, 226. 
 Cormorant, 81, 274. 
 Cornish, 284-6. 
 Cornwallis, 259-61. 
 Coromandel, 278. 
 Corrientes, 112. 
 Corry, Captain A. L., 126; Rear-Admiral, 
 
 225, 228, 232, 242. 
 Corry, Right Hon. H. T. L., 382. 
 Corsica, 138. 
 Corunna, 22, 23, 24. 
 Corviale, 200. 
 Cossack, 253, 254, 451. 
 " Courts-Martial," M 'Arthur on, 139. 
 Crescent, 80, 81. 
 Cressy, 233. 
 Crete, 457. 
 Crimea, 250, 271. 
 Crimean War, 1, 10, 73. 
 Crispin, Captain, 222. 
 Crocodile, 49, 61, 62. 
 Croe harbour, 48. 
 Cronstadt, 229, 231, 241-3, 255, 256, 
 
 258, 263, 268. 
 Cross, Mr., 419. 
 Crouch, Captain, 116. 
 Crown, Admiral, 472. 
 Cruiser, 228, 235-8, 240, 250, 278, 
 
 280. 
 Cuba, 49, 52, 406. 
 
 " Culture and Direction of the Mind," 83. 
 Cumby, Lieutenant, 14. 
 Cumming, Lieutenant Arthur, 80, 85 ; 
 
 Captain, 237, 238, 240. 
 Cunningham, Mr., 350-4. 
 
 Curacoa, Chapter V., 92, 93, 95, 101, 108, 
 
 130, 245, 247. 
 Curtis, Sir Lucius, 130, 132. 
 Cushendun, 271. 
 Cyclops, 75, 407, 474. 
 Cyprus, 460, 462-4. 
 Czar, the, 247, 249. 
 
 Dagerort, 236. 
 
 Uahlgren gun, 334. 
 
 Danes, 239, 346. 
 
 Danish Fleet, 338. 
 
 D'Arcy Lever, 13. 
 
 Dardanelles, 209, 210, 213, 271. 
 
 Das Antas, Count, 125. 
 
 Dauntless, 164, 235, 246, 247. 
 
 De Horsey, Captain, 385. 
 
 Deane, Dr., 248. 
 
 Defence, 324. 
 
 Delhi, 274. 
 
 Delight, 318. 
 
 Demerara, 86. 
 
 Denison, Lieutenant Frank, 51, 57, 59, 
 
 61, 73. 77, 81, 86, 92, 93, 99. 
 Descartes, 193. 
 Desertions, 25, 47. 
 Despatch vessel, 423. 
 Desperate, 225, 228. 
 
 Devastation, 116, 369, 380, 430, 436, 442. 
 Devastation (French), 369. 
 Deviation of the compass, 74. 
 Devonport, 27, 29, 117, 269, 300, 302, 
 
 322, 323, 362, 364. 
 D'Harcourt, Due de, 176, 178. 
 Dickens, Capt. F., 8. 
 Dickens, Mr. S. T., 8, 22, 34. 
 Dido, 33. 
 Dillon, Lord, 34. 
 
 Dillon, Capt. Sir W. H., 10, 14, 25, 38. 
 Director of Naval Ordnance, 377. 
 Director of Transports, 492. 
 Displacement, 421, 433, 434, 438, 439, 445. 
 Disraeli, Mr., 419. 
 Dolphin, 108, 109, in, 112. 
 Donegal, 42, 385. 
 Douglas, Commodore, 49. 
 Douglas, Commander Hon. G., 235, 236, 
 
 238, 240, 246, 250. 
 Douro, 125. 
 Dover, 292. 
 Dowell, Commander, 280 ; Vice-Admiral, 
 
 458, 461, 463. 
 
INDEX 
 
 501 
 
 Downs, The, 75, 230, 232, 252. 
 
 Doyle, Lieutenant, no. 
 
 Dragon, 230, 233, 258. 
 
 Dragonne, 278. 
 
 Dreadnought, 421. 
 
 Dublin, 81, 106. 
 
 Duguesclin, 430. 
 
 Duke of Wellington, 222, 225, 228, 230, 
 2 33» 237, 240, 248, 255, 272. 
 
 Dulcigno, 442. 
 
 Duncan, Admiral, 13. 
 
 Duncan, 385. 
 
 Dundas, Captain Hon. R. S., 189 ; Rear- 
 Admiral, 255, 265, 272. 
 
 Dundas, Lieutenant, 391. 
 
 Dunlop, Captain, 252. 
 
 East Indies, 222. 
 
 Eclair, 210. 
 
 Eclipse, 405. 
 
 Eden, Admiral H., 116. 
 
 Edinburgh, 230, 233, 243, 244, 423, 430. 
 
 Education, 480, 481. 
 
 Egerton, Hon. A. Fulke, 416. 
 
 Kgypt, 4So. 45 6 . * W- 
 
 Ekins's "Naval Battles," 139. 
 
 Elba. 175. 
 
 El Cervo, 95. 
 
 Electrical experiments, 29. 
 
 Elgin, Lord, 274, 276. 
 
 Elk, 280. 
 
 Elliot family, 136, 139. 
 
 Elliot, Commodore Hon. C. G. B., 274, 
 
 279, 280. 
 Elliot, Rear-Admiral Sir George, 292, 297. 
 Elsinore, 252-4. 
 El-Teb, 467. 
 
 Emperor of the French, 246. 
 Empoli, 136. 
 Enchantress, 391. 
 Endymion, 25. 
 Enfield rifle, 365. 
 Engine-room complements, 162. 
 Engineer officers, 321, 322. 
 Epsilon, 418. 
 Erskine, Lord, 136. 
 Erstholm, 257. 
 Esk, 252-4, 280. 
 Espoir, 41. 
 Esquina, 112, 113. 
 Eta, 418. 
 Etna, Mount, 34. 
 
 Eton, 480. 
 
 Europa Point, 129. 
 
 Euryalus, 233, 252, 253, 255, 256. 
 
 Excellent, 3, 14, 59, 62, Chapter IV., 85, 
 
 293. 3!2, Chapter XV. , 418, 424, 483, 
 
 488. 
 Executions, 35, 36, 60. 
 Exmouth, Lord, 138. 
 Exmouth, 272. 
 Expeditive, 109, no. 
 Evans, De Lacy, 22. 
 Evans, Lieutenant, 14. 
 " Evidences of Christianity," 29. 
 
 Fair Rosamond, 149. 
 
 Fairy, 232. 
 
 Falcon, 458. 
 
 Falconer's "Marine Dictionary," 12, 15. 
 
 Falmouth, 10, 24, 226. 
 
 Fanny, Chapter VII. 
 
 Fanshawe, Rear-Admiral A., 224. 
 
 Fanshawe, Captain E. G., 253, 254. 
 
 Farignemo, 158. 
 
 Faro of Messina, 164. 
 
 Faro Sound, 237, 240, 250, 255, 256, 264. 
 
 Favourite, 368. 
 
 Fegen, Lieutenant, 113. 
 
 Fellowes, Commander Charles, 280 ; 
 Captain, 385. 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Naples, 154, 157, 161, 
 179. 
 
 Fergusson, Mr., 292. 
 
 Ferrol, 24-7. 
 
 Filsand Light, 237. 
 
 Fincham, Mr., 139. 
 
 Finisterre, 122. 
 
 Finland, Gulf of, 235, 236, 241-3, 248-50 
 
 253-5. 263. 264. 
 Firebrand, 20, 108, in, 214, 222. 
 Firefly, 33, 255. 
 Firm, 276, 277. 
 Fisguard, 81, 405. 
 Fishbourne, Captain, 222. 
 Fisher, Captain J. A., 406 
 Fiumicino, 199. 
 Flandre, 332. 
 
 Florence, 134, 135, 137, 145, 178, 187. 
 Flores, General, 93. 
 Foote, Captain, 237, 242. 
 Forbes, Lieutenant, 248, 249. 
 Fordyce, Lieutenant, 50. 
 Formidable, 430. 
 
502 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Forness Point, 234. 
 
 Forster, Mr., 26. 
 
 Fortification, 366, 478, 479, 483, 484. 
 
 Foudroyant, 430. 
 
 Fraser, Mr., 341. 
 
 " Frederick" gun, 334. 
 
 Freeborne, Mr., 170, 185. 
 
 French Navy, 334. 
 
 French Squadron, 241. 
 
 Freycinet, M. de, 464. 
 
 Frolic, 80, 81, 85, 86. 
 
 Frosinore, 208. 
 
 Fulton, 109. 
 
 Funchal, 78. 
 
 Furieux, 430. 
 
 Furious, 280. 
 
 Fury, 276. 
 
 Fus/e, 278. 
 
 Gaeta, 176, 178-80, 182, 190, 200, 207. 
 
 Gage, Sir William H., 96. 
 
 Galatea, 451. 
 
 Gales, 27, 37, 39, 101, 108. 
 
 Galletti, Signor, 182, 184. 
 
 Garibaldi, General, 182, 197, 199. 
 
 Gatska Sando, 237. 
 
 Gatling guns, 439. 
 
 Genoa, 134-6, 140, 141, 143, 171, 188, 196. 
 
 Genoa, Duke of, 166, 167, 172. 
 
 Giarre, 191. 
 
 Gibbs, Mr. H. Hucks, 474. 
 
 Gibson, Captain R., 305. 
 
 Gibraltar, 32, 33, 38, 129, 215, 271, 305, 
 
 485- 
 Gilford, Lord, 284. 
 Gillingham Reach, 73. 
 Gillott, Messrs., 96. 
 Girgenti, 34. 
 Gladiator, 117, 119, 125, 126, 136, 138, 
 
 *47» I5 2 . 153. 160, 172, 173. 
 Gladstone, Mr., 419, 428, 450, 474, 476. 
 Glasse, Captain, 241. 
 Glatton, 407, 408. 
 Gonville, 271. 
 
 Goodenough, Lieutenant, 280. 
 Gordon, General, 466, 467. 
 Gordon, Mr., 62. 
 Gorgon, 69, 75, 87-90, Chapters VI. and 
 
 VII., 118, 153, 236, 300, 314, 407, 
 
 408. 
 Goschen, Right Hon. J. G., 397, 400, 
 
 4°3- 
 
 Gothland, 236, 237. 
 
 Gough's Heights, 278, 282, 284, 285. 
 
 Graham, Right Hon. Sir James, 241. 
 
 Graham, Colonel, 281. 
 
 Graham's Island and Shoal, 37. 
 
 Grant, Lieutenant, 49. 
 
 Granville, Lord, 471. 
 
 Greece, 214. 
 
 Greenwich Royal Naval College, 377, 
 
 396, 397, 402-4, 401, 481, 482, 488. 
 Grenfel, Captain S., 274. 
 Grey, Admiral P., 273. 
 Guy's Hospital, 1. 
 Griffiths' propeller, 307, 310, 311. 
 Gros, Baron, 276. 
 Growler, 215. 
 
 Gun carriages, 350-2, 356-8. 
 Gun Factory, Royal, 326, 328, 341. 
 Gun mountings, 354-9. 
 Guerin, Admiral, 274. 
 Guyet, Captain, 166. 
 
 H 
 
 Halifax, 47, 55, 56, 58, 59, 406. 
 
 Hall, Captain W. H., 244, 491. 
 
 Hall, Captain W. K., 274. 
 
 Hall, Rear-Admiral Robert, 416. 
 
 Hamburg, 235. 
 
 Hamilton, Commander J. F. C, 280. 
 
 Hamilton, Lieutenant R. V. , 274, 280 ; 
 
 Sir R. V., 476. 
 Hamilton, Captain W. A. B., 124, 217. 
 Hamilton, Lord George, 491, 493. 
 Hamilton, Mr., Minister to Brazil, 86. 
 Hampton, Mr., 2. 
 Hand, Captain G. S., 274, 280. 
 Hango, 240, 246, 264. 
 Hardy, Sir Thomas, 344. 
 Harlequin, 160. 
 Hartington, Lord, 452. 
 Harvey, Sir Thomas, 47, 49, 58. 
 Haslar Hospital, 71, 114, 221. 
 Hastings, 22, 259-61, 275. 
 Hastings, Lady, 72. 
 Hastings, Sir Thomas, 97. 
 Haswell, Captain W. A., 385. 
 Haughty, 274. 
 Hawkins, Sir R., 12, 50. 
 Hay, Captain, 56. 
 Hay, Lord John, 428, 466. 
 Hay, Mr. J. H.. 93. 
 Hay, Sir John, 383, 433, 440, 441, 443, 
 
 449- 
 
INDEX 
 
 503 
 
 Hearne, Rev. Mr., 169. 
 
 Heath, Sir Leopold, 100. 
 
 Heathcote, Captain, 252. 
 
 Hecate, 157, 165, 166, 407, 408. 
 
 Hecla, 244, 274. 
 
 Hector, 324, 355, 369, 385, 407. 
 
 Heligoland, battle of, 338, 370. 
 
 Helsingfors, 256, 257, 262. 
 
 Hemel Hempstead, 29. 
 
 Henderson, Captain, 126. 
 
 Herbert, Captain F. A., 385; Rear- 
 Admiral, 428. 
 
 Herbert, Mr. Sidney, 292. 
 
 Hercules, 341, 368, 380, 407-9, 421, 422. 
 
 Hermes, 222. 
 
 Hewett, Sir William, 460, 465-7. 
 
 Hewlett, Captain, 293, 294. 
 
 Hibernia, 122, 136, 157, 160, 190, 209, 
 210. 
 
 High Flyer, 251, 280. 
 
 Highlanders, 72nd, 271. 
 
 Himalaya, 274. 
 
 Hirst, Dr. Archer, 403. 
 
 Hobart, Lieutenant, 165. 
 
 Hoche, 42, 431. 
 
 Hogue, 230, 233, 243, 244. 
 
 Holloway, Colonel, 279, 280. 
 
 Hong Kong, 274-6, 287, 471, 485. 
 
 Hood, Commander A. W. A. (Lord Hood 
 of Avalon), 280, 283-5, 287, 416. 
 
 Hoogley, 275. 
 
 Hope, Captain J., 109, in. 
 
 Hornby, Sir Geoffrey, 385, 410, 412, 413, 
 428, 451, 474. 
 
 Hornet, 274, 278, 280. 
 
 Hoskins, Rear-Admiral A. H., 428, 460, 
 462, 464. 
 
 Hoste, Sir William, 221, 274. 
 
 Hotham, Captain Charles, 87, 89, 91, 
 93-6, 98, 108, 109, in, 113, 115, 145. 
 
 Howe, 168, 210. 
 
 Howe, Lord, 13. 
 
 Huascar, 416. 
 
 Hunt, Right Hon. G. Ward, 419, 420. 
 
 Hurles's Engine, n. 
 
 Hydra, 407, 408. 
 
 Hydraulics, 427. 
 
 Icebergs, 46. 
 Illustrious, 482. 
 Immortality, 451. 
 
 Imptrieuse, 225, 228, 233, 248, 250, 252-6, 
 258, 259, 431, 43 2 > 44 2 - 
 
 Inconstant, 38-40. 
 
 India, 273, 274, 470, 480. 
 
 Indian Mutiny, 274, 275, 287. 
 
 Indomptable, 430. 
 
 Inflexible, 166, 274, 280, 287, 333, 369, 
 370, 417, 423, 433. 
 
 Influenza, 31, 138. 
 
 Inglefield, Commander E. A., 109. 
 
 Inglefield, Rear- Admiral, 108 ; Sir Ed- 
 ward, 406. 
 
 Inkerman, 1. 
 
 Inman, Rev. Dr., 9, 67, 69. 
 
 Intelligence Committee, 491, 49 2 - 
 
 Intelligence Department, 491-3* 
 
 Invincible, 421, 456, 457. 
 
 Ionian Islands, 209. 
 
 Ireland, 271, 475. 
 
 Iris, 100, 417, 423. 424. 426, 427, 433» 
 462. 
 
 Iron Duke, 369, 421, 431, 433. 44°- 
 
 Irving, Dr., 12. 
 
 Isle of Pines, 52. 
 
 Ismaflia, 458, 460. 
 
 Italy, 134, 141, 178. 181, 199, 209, 215, 
 216. 
 
 Jackal, 129. 
 
 Jamaica, 49. 
 
 James, Duke of York, 300. 
 
 James's '* Naval History," 30. 
 
 James Watt, 267, 272. 
 
 Japan, 472, 473. 
 
 Jason, 305, 307. 
 
 Januaria, Princess Donna, 80. 
 
 Jeans, Mr., 6, 189, 191, 193. 
 
 Jena, 141, 305. 
 
 Jenkins, Captain Robert, 385. 
 
 Jervis, Sir John, 288, 443. 
 
 Jersey, 242, 271. 
 
 Johnstone, Captain, 74. 
 
 Johnstone, Dr., 31,32. 
 
 Joinville, Prince de, 138. 
 
 Jolley, Rev. W. R., 244. 
 
 Jones, Lieutenant Oliver, 86. 
 
 Jumna, 466, 467. 
 
 Kattegat, 253. 
 Kazatch, 271. 
 Kearsarge, 345, 370. 
 
504 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Keith, " Signs of the Times," 72. 
 Keith, " Evidences of Prophecy," 54, 
 
 72. 
 Keppel, Captain Hon. H., 41. 
 Key, Dr., 2. 
 
 Key, Lady (Charlotte L.), 271, 405. 
 Key, Lady (Evelyn), 406. 
 Key, Rev. Henry, 42, 56. 
 Keyham, 302. 
 Khartoum, 467-69. 
 Khedive, the, 459, 461, 463, 464. 
 Kiel, 234, 235, 247, 253, 264. 
 King George's Sound, 485. 
 Kingsley, Rev. C, 65. 
 Kioge Bay, 235. 
 Kitchener, Major, 469. 
 Knott, Lieutenant, 81. 
 Knud's Head, 234. 
 Korea, 471. 
 Korosko, 466, 469. 
 Kourland, 246, 247, 254. 
 Krupp guns, 333, 341, 381, 417, 418. 
 Kuper Passage, 279. 
 Kuslik, 471. 
 Kynaston, Mr., 26, 27. 
 
 La Bajada, 114. 
 
 Laboratory Department, Royal, 328. 
 
 Labrador, 208. 
 
 Laggan House, 494. 
 
 Lain6, Admiral, 94. 
 
 Lambert, Commodore, 222. 
 
 Lancashire Witch, 86 ■ 
 
 Landscrona, 253. 
 
 Lang, Mr. Oliver, 140, 
 
 Lauderdale, Earl of, 293. 
 
 Laughton, Professor J. K., 401. 
 
 Lavanran, 262. 
 
 Lawn, The, 112, 114. 
 
 Leander, 427, 434. 
 
 Ledsund, 242-4, 
 
 Lefroy, Colonel, 294; Major-General, 
 
 406. 
 Leghorn, 134-6, 138, 139, 141, 143, 174, 
 
 175- 
 Lemon, Lieutenant-Colonel, 273, 279, 
 
 281, 283. 
 Lennox, Lord Henry, 441, 443, 444. 
 Leopard, 225, 226, 230, 232, 233. 
 Leskar, 255. 
 Lesseps, M., 200-4. 
 Le VaUlant, General, 200, 
 
 Levinge, Lieutenant, 108, 109, 145. 
 
 Libau, 237-41, 248, 249, 254. 
 
 Libbo Fiord, 262. 
 
 Liddell, Mr., 139. 
 
 Lightning, 27, 46. 
 
 Lightning, 243, 245. 
 
 Limasol, 462, 463. 
 
 Lin, Fort, 281. 
 
 Lind, Dr., 12. 
 
 Lindsay, Mr., 15. 
 
 Linnet, 30. 
 
 Lisbon, 22, 24-7, 29, 30, 40, 41, 118 
 
 123-7, 129, 215, 228, 272. 
 Lissa, battle of, 370. 
 Lively, 407. 
 Liverpool, 305. 
 Lizard, 113. 
 Lloyd, Mr., 225, 
 Lombardy, 160, 172. 
 London, 224, 226. 
 Long, Captain S., 472, 473. 
 Lopes, Sir Massey, 416. 
 Lord Clyde, 333, 391, 392. 
 Lord Warden, 391, 392, 407, 421. 
 Louis, Prince, of Naples, 151. 
 Louis Philippe, 168. 
 Louisa, 50. 
 Lucca, 143. 
 
 Luckraft, Commander A., 14, 41, 42. 
 Lushington, Captain, 51, 53-8, 114, 155, 
 
 156. 
 Lumsden, Sir Peter, 470. 
 Lyons, Sir E., 258. 
 Lyser Ort, 248. 
 
 M 
 
 Macao Passage, 282. 
 
 Machine guns, 1 434, 436, 439, 448, 
 
 460. 
 Madeira, 76, 78, 273. 
 Madras Native Infantry, 281. 
 Magicienne, 41, 263. 
 Maglianella, 197, 200. 
 Mahan, Captain, 397. 
 Mahdi, the, 469. 
 Maiden, 28. 
 Maidenhead, 494, 495. 
 Mails, s, 35, 84. 
 Main, Professor, 69. 
 Maitland, Mr., 96. 
 Maitland, Sir Thomas, 125-7, 293, 294, 
 
 297. 
 Majendie, Mr., 96, 
 
INDEX 
 
 5°5 
 
 Majestic, 16, 423. £ 
 
 Malabar, 25. 
 
 Malta, 32-37, 129-38, 148, 149, 153, 154, 
 
 156, 159-65, 168, 174, 190, 191, 193, 
 
 194, 196, 204, 206, 212, 213, 217, 271, 
 
 377. 39L 399. 45 8 , 460-2, 464, 466, 
 
 485- 
 Mamiani, Count, 172, 176, 177. 
 Manchus, 277. 
 Mann, Captain W. S., 406. 
 Manoeuvring powers, 313, 319. 
 Marceau, 278. 
 Mareotis, Lake, 459. 
 Marie Milo, Don, 161. 
 Margate, 74, 75. 
 
 Marines, Royal, 273, 276, 279, 402, 403. 
 Marine Artillery, Royal, 279, 402, 403. 
 Marine Engineering, Royal School of, 404. 
 Marlborough, 209. 
 Martin, Captain W., 204, 205, 208, 209 ; 
 
 Sir William, 11. 
 Martin, Mr., 48. 
 
 Martin, Commodore Byam, 225, 230, 243. 
 Marsala, 157-9, I0 i» 189. 
 Massa, 187. 
 Massena, 291. 
 Massowah, 467. 
 
 Maxim-Nordenfelt Company, 490. 
 Mazarra, 159, 
 Mazzini, Signor, 204, 205. 
 M'Clintock, Leopold, 97, 98, 100. 
 M'Clure, Sir Robert, 280. 
 M'Lean, Mr., 15. 
 M'Neill, Mr. E. A., 271. 
 Medals, College, 66, 67. 
 Medea, 33, 47. 
 Medway, 292. 
 Memel, 236, 242, 247, 249. 
 Meppen, 417. 
 
 Mercantile Marine, 402, 438, 444, 476. 
 Mercury, 417, 423, 424, 426. 
 Merlin, 254. 
 Mersey, 385, 434. 
 Merv, 470. 
 Messenger, 304-6. 
 Messina, 130-3, 149, 153, 154, 160, 161, 
 
 164, 172-4, 189-91, 193, 208. 
 Metcalf, Mr., 15, 33. 
 Metternich, Prince, 119. 
 Milne, Captain Alexander, 61, 62 ; Sir 
 
 Alexander, 385, 388. 
 Miller, Captain Thomas, 385. 
 Mills, Mr., 2. 
 Milton, Lord, 139. 
 Mindello, 124, 126. 
 
 Minotaur, 324, 347-9, 357, 358, 421, 463* 
 Minto, Earl of, 134-7, 139, 142, 149, 
 
 155-7. 160, 163, 195. 
 Miolo, 257, 260, 261. 
 Mission to France, 220. 
 Mission to Rome, 168. 
 Mitraille, 278. 
 Mitylene, 212. 
 Modena, 143. 
 Modeste, 40. 
 Mohawk, 451. 
 Mola, 187. 
 
 Molliere, General, 200. 
 Molyneux, " Regeneration of Baptism," 
 
 72. 
 Monarch, 234, 380, 421, 456. 
 Monkey, 73. 
 
 Monteleoni, Due di, 152. 
 Montstorm rifle, 365. 
 Monte Video, 69, 85, 92, 93, 98-100, 113, 
 
 "5. 
 
 Moore, Captain John, 251. 
 Morton, Lord and Lady, 180. 
 Moskomisi, 213. 
 Motherbank, the, 270. 
 Mount-Edgcumbe, Earl of, 149, 150, 155, 
 
 160, 163, 180, 195. 
 Muff, 257. 
 Murillo, 25. 
 
 Murray, Lieutenant, 14. 
 Muzzarelli, Monsignor, 185. 
 Muzzle-loading ordnance, 341-5, 380. 
 
 N 
 
 Nab, the, 270, 271. 
 
 Napier, Captain, 95. 
 
 Napier, Lord, 130, 149, 151, 155, 156, 
 
 X65, 167, 180, 206. 
 Napier, Admiral Sir Charles, 124, 140, 
 
 217, 218, 230, 234, 237, 240-5, 247. 
 Naples, 130, 133, 136, 148, 149, 151-7. 
 
 160, 165, 167, 168, 170, 172-4, 178-81, 
 
 187, 188, 190, 195, 204, 206-9. 
 Naples, King of, 143, 160, 176, 178, 182, 
 
 187, 188, 192, 196, 205, 209. 
 Napoleon, 26. 
 Nankin, 280, 287. 
 Narcissus, 451. 
 Nargen, 248, 255-60, 262-4. 
 Narval, 207. 
 
 National Assembly, Rome, 182. 
 Naval Architecture, Royal School of, 404. 
 Naval College, Greenwich, 66, 69, 117- 
 
506 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Naval College, Portsmouth, 2-9, Chapter 
 
 IV., 117. 
 Naval Depots, 484-6. 
 Naval Intelligence Committee, 491, 492. 
 Naval Intelligence Department, 414, 
 
 491-3- 
 Naval Ordnance Department, 377-9. 
 Navigating officers, 319-21. 
 Navy Estimates, 442, 445, 452. 
 Nelson, 122, 129, 137, 138, 144, 147, 154, 
 
 168, 226, 254, 313, 323, 443. 
 Neptune, 232, 234, 430. 
 New Brunswick, 47. 
 Newfoundland, 47, 49, 58. 
 Ney, M., 207. 
 
 Nicholas, Emperor, 246, 252. 
 Nicholson, Dr., 169, 170. 
 Nicolas, Sir Harris, 226. 
 Niger, 278, 280. 
 Night rocket, 7. 
 Nile, 230, 344, 458, 467, 469. 
 Nimrod, 278. 
 
 " Nineteenth Century," 483, 485, 491. 
 Nodall, Mr., 95. 
 Nolloth, Captain, 38s. 
 Nordenfelt guns, 418, 424, 439, 490. 
 Nore, the, 252. 
 Northampton, 422. 
 Northbrook, Earl of, 299, 428, 429, 435, 
 
 438, 440, 441, 445, 448, 450, 451, 455, 
 
 457. 475. 476. 49L 492. 
 Northumberland, 324, 421, 461. 
 Novara, 196. 
 Nova Scotia, 58. 
 Nurse, Captain, 26. 
 Nymphe, 44, 252. 
 
 Oberon, 160. 
 
 Obligado, 1 10-13, l68 - 
 
 Odin, 139, 140, 168, 172, 190, 230, 241. 
 
 Ocean, 362. 
 
 O'Ferrall, Right Hon. More, 169. 
 
 Officers of Russell, 14 ; of Cleopatra, 44 
 
 of Curacoa, 91. 
 Opera, 30. 
 Oporto, 119, 123-6. 
 Orbitello, 187. 
 
 Ordnance, Board of, 326, 328, 355. 
 Ordnance Select Committee, 328, 330. 
 Ordnance Committee, 312, 439, 442. 
 Ordnance Department, Army, 312. 
 Ordnance Department, Navy, 377-9. 
 
 Oregon, 476, 492. 
 
 Oribe", General, 93. 
 
 Orion, 369, 430. 
 
 Orlando, 451. 
 
 Osborne, 224, 232, 240. 
 
 Osborne, Captain Sherard, 280. 
 
 Osel, 254. 
 
 Otter, Captain H. C, 255. 
 
 Oude, 269. 
 
 Oudinot, General, 196, 197, 199-205, 207, 
 
 208. 
 Overstone, Lord, 295-7. 
 
 Pacifico, Don, 213. 
 
 Packet-brigs, 24. 
 
 Page, Lieutenant, 49, 60. 
 
 Paisandu, 108. 
 
 Pakington, Sir John, 381, 384. 
 
 Palermo, 34, 36, 37, 147-9, 154-61, 165, 
 167, 172, 173, 188-90. 194, 196. 
 
 Paley's " Evidences of Christianity," 29, 
 96. 
 
 " Pall Mall Gazette," 449. 
 
 Palmas Bay, 35, 36, 143, 147, 148. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 118, 123, 132, 133, 165, 
 167, 168, 186, 190, 191, 214. 
 
 Palo, 197, 199, 20a 
 
 Pandour, 109. 
 
 Pantellaria, 391. 
 
 Paraguay, 112. 
 
 Parana, 108, no, 112, 113, 145. 
 
 Paris, 202, 207. 
 
 Parker, Captain, 57. 
 
 Parker, Captain Hyde, 222. 
 
 Parker, Admiral Sir William, 112, 113, 
 118, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132-4, 136, 
 138, 140, 141, 144, 147, 148, 152, 153, 
 x 57i I 58» 160, 161, 163, 166, 167, 
 169-72, 174, 175, 185, 189, 191, 195, 
 196, 205. 
 
 Parkes, Sir Harry, 286. 
 
 Parliament, 419, 420, 428, 453, 456. 
 
 Parma, Grand Duchess of, 143. 
 
 Parma, Grand Duke of, 164. 
 
 Partridge, 28. 
 
 Pasley, Captain Sir Thomas, 73-6, 79-81, 
 86-9, 92, 94-6. 
 
 Passe, General, 93. 
 
 Patey, Captain, 221, 227. 
 
 Payment of crews, 75. 
 
 Pearl, 25-27, 274, 275. 
 
 Peel, Captain William, 268, 274. 
 
INDEX 
 
 5°7 
 
 Peleponnesus, 211. 
 
 Pelham, Captain Hon. F., 139, 172, 255. 
 
 Pembroke, 292. 
 
 Penelope, 245, 407, 421. 
 
 Peniche, 124. 
 
 Penjdeh, 471. 
 
 Penmarcks, 123. 
 
 Perim, 485. 
 
 Pernambuco, 84. 
 
 Peru, 416. 
 
 Petre, Hon. W., 170, 171, 175. 
 
 Philomel, 108-10, 113, 243. 
 
 Phltgiton, 245, 278. 
 
 Pickle, 51-4. 
 
 Pierce, John and Charles, 131. 
 
 Pilot, 86. 
 
 Pilot-house, 373. 
 
 Pique, 33, 47. 
 
 Pius ix., Pope, 119. 
 
 " Plain Sermons," 83. 
 
 Plate, River, 85, 92, 94, 96, 106, 243. 
 
 Plumridge, Rear- Admiral, 232, 234. 
 
 Plymouth, 38, 40, 45, 47, 75, 76, 122, 263, 
 
 267, 271, 273, 288, 292. 
 Polyphemus, 417, 418, 423, 435, 441, 442, 
 
 474, 475- 
 Ponte Molle, 200. 
 Porcupine, 153, 172. 
 Porpoise, 451. 
 Port Hamilton, 471. 
 Portland, 270, 292, 358, 407, 408, 424. 
 Port Mahon, 214, 215. 
 Port Royal, 49~5 2 . 54. 55. 485- 
 Port Said, 458, 460, 463, 465. 
 Portsdown Hill, 290. 
 Portsmouth, 5, 71, 75, 123, 140, 215, 
 
 220-22, 224, 263, 288-93, 295, 322, 
 
 323, 401, 407, 451, 474, 478. 
 Portsmouth Dockyard, 377, 389. 
 Portsmouth Royal Naval College, 392, 
 
 396, 403. 
 Powder, 13. 
 Pmver/ul, 190, 210. 
 Prince Albert, 407, 408. 
 Prince Consort, 332, 333. 
 Prince Regent, 204, 208-1 1, 224, 225, 228. 
 Princess Charlotte, 276. 
 Princess Royal, 230, 233. 
 Pring, Captain, 40. 
 Procida, 109, xio. 
 Promotions, 31, 33. 
 Prout, Mr., 94. 
 
 Punishments, 20, 21, 39, 77, 419. 
 Purvis, Commodore J. B., 85, 92, 95. 
 Pyne, Sir S., 75. 
 
 Quebec, 58, 59, 
 
 Queen, 160, 190, 224, 225. 
 
 Queen of Greece, 37, 214. 
 
 Queen of Portugal, 20, 28, 29, 118. 
 
 Queen Victoria, 36, 211, 224, 225, 232, 
 
 269-71. 
 Queen's Messenger, 123. 
 Quenwell, G., 257. 
 Quirinal, the, 176. 
 
 Racehorse, 280. 
 
 Racer, 437. 438. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir W., 303, 304. 
 
 Ram, the, 421, 435. 
 
 Ramsay, Captain G., 252. 
 
 Rapid, 33. 
 
 Rayneval, M., 190, 199. 
 
 "Recovery of the Gorgon," 116. 
 
 Reed, Mr., E. J., 357, 369 ; Sir Edward 
 
 419. 450- 
 Reef Ness, 234. 
 Reform Bill, 428. 
 Reggio, 132. 
 Regiments, 65th, 109 ; 59th, 281 ; 69th, 
 
 55 ; South Staffordshire, 464. 
 Regina, 193. 
 Regnault, General, 200. 
 Reid, Colonel Sir W., 58. 
 Remington rifle, 365. 
 Rendel, Mr. George, 367, 419, 443, 444. 
 Renown, 311. 
 Requin, 430. 
 Research, 391. 
 Reserve Squadron, the, 377, 385-7, 
 
 407-9, 424. 
 Reserve, Royal Naval, 386, 389. 
 Resistance, 324, 407. 
 Revel, 237, 241, 254. 
 Revenge, 33. 
 Reynard, 211. 
 Rice, Captain, 464. 
 Richards, Commodore, 441. 
 Richardson, Mrs., 70, 71. 
 Richardson, Sir John, 71. 
 Richelieu, 453. 
 Rieti, 208. 
 
 Rifled ordnance, 337-40. 
 Riga, 236-8, 247, 248, 254. 
 Rigault de Genouilly, 274, 277, 282. 
 Rio Janeiro, 70, 81, 83-5, 87, 95, 106. 
 
5 o8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Riviera, President, 93, 94. 
 
 Robb, Captain, 52, 56, 153, 172-4. 
 
 Robinson, Captain Robert Spencer, 300 ; 
 
 Vice- Admiral, 379 ; Sir Spencer, 382. 
 Roche, Lieutenant, 350, 351. 
 Rockets, Congreve, 115, 312. 
 Rodman ordnance, 334. 
 Rodney, 35, 136, 138, 166. 
 Roger, Mr., 250. 
 Rogers, Rev. Percy, 272, 273. 
 Rolfe Kraake, 346. 
 Rome, 134, 136-9, 141, 145, 156, 169-71, 
 
 174-86, 195-200, 202-4, 206-9. 
 Rosamond, 211, 237. 
 Rosas, President, 92, 100, no. 
 Rosen, Count de, 221. 
 Ross, Mr. G. W. R., 49, 50. 
 Rossi, Count, 175-7. 
 Rostalon, General, 207. 
 Rous, Captain, 33. 
 Rouse, Lieutenant, 6. 
 Rover, 49. 
 Rowe, Mr., 8. 
 Rowley, Sir Josias, 33. 
 Royal Albert, 73. 
 Royal Alfred, 368, 369. 
 Royal Commission of 1785, 288. 
 Royal Commission of 1859, 288-300. 
 Royal George, 8, 233, 285. 
 Royal Society, 382. 
 
 Royal Sovereign, 324-8, 351, 366, 368. 
 Rudders and steering, 313-19. 
 Ruggiero Settimo, Don, 161, 196. 
 Rupert, 421. 
 
 Russell, 8, Chapter II., 214, 259, 267. 
 Russell, Lord John, 217. 
 Russia, 181, 210, 222, 230, 235, 241, 265, 
 
 269, 290, 429, 459, 470-5, 483, 488. 
 Russia, Emperor of, 229, 230. 
 Russian Fleet, 229, 231, 241, 243, 250. 
 Russian Forts, 245. 
 Russian War, 229-70. 
 Ryder, Captain, 235, 241, 246, 247 ; Sir 
 
 Alfred, 69. 
 
 Sa da Bandiera, Count, 118, 127. 
 
 Sable Island, 46. 
 
 Sailing Ordinary, 300. 
 
 St. George, 385. 
 
 St. Helen's, 222. 
 
 St. Jago de Cuba, 50. 
 
 St, Jean d'Acre, 228, 233. 
 
 St. John, New Brunswick, 45, 47, 62. 
 
 St. John's, Newfoundland, 47, 61. 
 
 St. John's, Birkenhead, 244. 
 
 St. Julian, Fort, 126. 
 
 St. Lawrence, 61. 
 
 St. Louis, 79. 
 
 St. Lucia, 485-7. 
 
 St. Luke's Church, Maidenhead, 494. 
 
 St. Petersburg, 242, 471, 475. 
 
 St. Pierre, 47, 48. 
 
 St. Thomas, 61, 405. 
 
 St. Ubes (Setubal), 127. 
 
 St. Vincent, Lord, 138, 144, 475. 
 
 Salamis Bay, 213, 215. 
 
 Salemi, 159, 160. 
 
 Salter, Captain, 125, 126. 
 
 Sampson, 274, 275, 280. 
 
 Sand ham, 257, 260, 261. 
 
 San Lorenzo, 113-15, 145. 
 
 San Martin, 109-11. 
 
 San Stefano, 132, 186, 187. 
 
 Sans Pareil, Chapter XIII., 305, 314, 
 
 4Si. 
 Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, 76, 78. 
 Santa Fe\ 1 12-14. 
 Santos, 86, 87. 
 Santander, 22, 23, 27. 
 Sapphire, 33. 
 
 Sardinia, 138, 143, 147, 160, 164. 
 Sardinia, King of, 134, 167. 
 Sargeant, Mrs., 2. 
 Sari Yazi, 471. 
 Satellite, 52, 56, 82, 108. 
 Satriano, Prince of, 189. 
 Saumarez, Commander T. , 274. 
 Sawyer, Rev. W. G. , 404. 
 Scordato, Signor, 159. 
 Scordia, Prince, 152. 
 Scorpion, 346. 
 Scourge, 215. 
 
 Scott, Captain Frank, 241. 
 Scott, Commander R. A. E., 350-5, 357, 
 
 358. 361. 
 Scout, 434, 435. 
 Screw-propellers, 307- 14. 
 Scylla, 385. 
 Search-light, 447. 
 Seccombe, Captain J., 385. 
 Serpent, 49. 
 Seskar, 262. 
 
 Sevastopol, 229, 245, 249, 291, 373. 
 Seville, 25. 
 
 Seymour, Captain E. H., 462. 
 Seymour, Commodore Michael, 233, 240 ; 
 
 Sir Michael, 274-6, 278, 282, 285-7. 
 
INDEX 
 
 509 
 
 Seymour, Rear-Admiral Beauchamp, 412, 
 
 413 ; Sir Beauchamp, 440, 456, 457, 
 
 460-4, 477. 
 Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 123. 
 Shadwell, Rear-Admiral Charles, 392. 
 Shannon, 274, 275, 422. 
 Shaw-Lefevre, Right Hon., G. J., 419, 
 
 420, 480. 
 Sheerness, 10, 20, 38, 57, 74, 237, 263, 
 
 251, 265, 333, 341. 
 Siberia, 238. 
 Sicily, 34, 138, 143, 147, 152, 154, 156, 
 
 161, 164, 166-8, 172, 173, 178, 181, 
 
 190-2, 196, 208, 209. 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 446. 
 Sidon, 85. 
 
 Sidon, 125-7, 140, 141, 162, 218, 225. 
 Silva, General, 93. 
 Simonburn, 272. 
 Simon's Bay, 273. 
 Simon's Town, 485. 
 Simoom, 274. 
 Singapore, 274, 275. 
 Sinkat, 466, 467. 
 Skaw, the, 232, 253. 
 Skobelef, General, 470. 
 Slave trade, 49, 62, 80, 85, 86. 
 Slight, Lieutenant Julian F., 268, 
 
 280. 
 Smallpox, 256. 
 Smith, Right Hon. W. H., 416, 417, 419, 
 
 429, 444, 449, 474. 
 Smooth-bore ordnance, 337-40. 
 Smyrna, 214. 
 Snake, 56. 
 Snider rifle, 365. 
 Sobrano, 125. 
 Society of Arts, 11. 
 Somerset gun, 334. 
 Sotheby, Captain E. S., 274. 
 Soudan, 466, 468, 474. 
 Spain, 181. 
 Spanish Legion, 22. 
 Spartan, 274. 
 
 Speed, 14, 38, 46, 79, 106, 118, 122. 
 Spezzia, 135, 136, 140, 143, 178. 
 Spithead, 45, 49, 75, 106, 214, 215, 221, 
 222, 226, 227, 230, 269-71, 289, 293, 
 294. 
 Sprogo, 234. 
 Stael, Madame de, 143. 
 Staunch, 366, 367, 418, 443, 483. 
 Steamers and sailing ships, 121. 
 Steam force of France, 217. 
 Steam officers, 88. 
 
 Steam Ordinary and Reserve, Chapter 
 
 XIV., 323, 478, 488. 
 Steam steering, 424. 
 Steel projectiles, 332. 
 Steering appliances, 313-19. 
 Stewart, Captain Houston, 258; Sir 
 
 Houston, 428. 
 Stewart, Captain Hon. Keith, 280. 
 Stirling, Charles and Francis, 267. 
 Stockholm, 253, 257. 
 Stokes Bay, 224, 289. 
 Stopford, Sir Robert, 35. 
 Story, Lieutenant, 114. 
 Sturgess, Mr., 260. 
 Suakim, 465-9. 
 Sub-lieutenant, 15. 
 Submarine mines, 474. 
 Suda Bay, 457, 
 Suez, 458, 460, 465, 466. 
 Sulivan, Commander B. J., 108, 109, 113 ; 
 
 Captain, 243, 244, 254, 255, 260,261, 
 
 263, 264. 
 Sultan, 369. 
 Sultan, the, 456, 458. 
 Sunda, Straits of, 273. 
 Superb, 126, 136, 157, 160, 430. 
 Surf, accident in, 79. 
 Surprise, 278. 
 Sveaborg, 237, 241, 247, 255-60, 262, 
 
 266, 289. 
 Sweden, 232, 235. 
 Swinburne, Lieutenant, 150. 
 Sybille, 274, 280. 
 Symonds, Rear- Admiral Thomas, 356; 
 
 Sir Thomas, 385. 388. 
 Syra, 37, 38, 214. 
 Syracuse, 160, 161, 188, 193, 194. 
 
 Tagus, 23, 31, 122, 127, 130, 228, 
 
 273- 
 Talavera, 25, 32. 
 Tamar, 462-4. 
 Tangier, 215. 
 Taormina, 189, 191. 
 Target practice, 83. 
 Tarleton, Captain J. W. ; Rear-Admiral, 
 
 396. 399- 
 Tartar, 252-5, 451. 
 Tartars, 277. 
 Tartarus, 49, 74, 75, 210. 
 Tauranga, 280. 
 Tay, 407, 408. 
 
5io 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tel-el-Kebir, 465. 
 
 Temple, Hon. W„ 130, 176. 178, 180, 
 
 190. 
 Tenare, 176. 
 Terracina, 199. 
 
 Terrible, 140, 160, 163, 218, 430. 
 Texel, the, 13. 
 Theta, 418. 
 
 Thetis, 136, 160, 165, 186, 187. 
 Thomas, Rear-Admiral, 106. 
 Thomson, Mr., 284. 
 Thomson, Captain Frank, 406. 
 Thunderer, 380, 407, 408, 421, 422, 424, 
 
 425, 427, 431, 442. 
 Tiber, 138, 200. 
 Tiger, 250. 
 Tiger Island, 287. 
 Temeraire, 422, 431. 
 "Times," the, 238, 285, 418, 420, 441-4 
 
 449, 450, 491. 
 Tivoli, 203. 
 Todleben, 291. 
 Tokar, 466, 467. 
 Tone, Wolfe, 13. 
 Tonnant, 430. 
 Torbay, 225. 
 Torpedo-ram, 423, 427. 
 Torpoint, 302. 
 Torres Vedras, 291. 
 Toulon, 196, 202, 208, 425. 
 Trafalgar, battle of, i, 444. 
 Trafalgar, 136, 157, 160, 385. 
 Trapani, 159. 
 Travelling, cost of, 32. 
 Tredgold's " Steam Engine," 96. 
 Trehouart, Captain, 109 ; Rear-Admiral, 
 
 168, 196, 197, 202, 204, 207, 208. 
 Trevelyan, Right Hon. G. O., 442. 
 Tribune, 228, 233, 235. 
 Trinkitat, 465. 
 Tripoli, 351. 
 
 Triumph, 421, 431, 433, 440. 
 Trotter, Commodore, 273. 
 Tryon, Sir George, 455. 
 Turenne, 430. 
 Turkey, 21 1, 480. 
 Turner, Mr. and Mrs., 114. 
 Tumour, Captain, 385. 
 Turret system, 345-50, 367, 368, 421, 
 
 424. 
 Tuscany, Duke of, 134, 143, 179, 187, 
 
 196. 
 Tweed, 407. 
 Twin screws, 433, 438. 
 Tycocktow, 278. 
 
 U 
 
 Undaunted, 451. 
 Uniform, 18-20, 81. 
 United States, 164, 332, 334. 
 Uruguay, 107-9. 
 Ushant, 231. 
 
 Valetta, 34, 38, 131. 
 
 Valiant, 324, 385, 407. 
 
 Valorous, 225, 228, 233, 245, 247. 
 
 Vanguard, 33, 138, 160. 
 
 Vansittart, Captain Nicholas, 263. 
 
 Van Straubenzie, 277, 282, 285, 
 
 287. 
 Vatel's " Law of Nations," 139. 
 Vatican, 142. 
 Vauban, 430. 
 
 Velletri, 198, 199, 202, 208. 
 Venetian States, 143. 
 Vengeance, 148, 154, 160, 210. 
 Vengeance Shoal, 234. 
 Venice, 134, 171, 182. 
 Vernon, 401. 
 Victor Emmanuel, 196. 
 Victoria, 451. 
 Vigo, 23, 24, 27. 
 Villeneuve, 26. 
 Vinga Sound, 232, 233. 
 Virginie, 274. 
 
 Vladimir Monomach, 472, 473. 
 Vladivostock, 471. 
 Volcano, 34, 160. 
 Vourla, 37. 
 
 Voyol (Vowel) blocks, 11. 
 Vulture, 224, 225, 234, 241, 245. 
 Vyborg, 261. 
 
 W 
 
 Wady Haifa, 468, 470. 
 
 Wainwright, Lieutenant, 101. 
 
 Walker, Sir Baldwin, 225, 231. 
 
 Wanderer, 47. 
 
 War Office, 326-8, 355, 356, 359-61, 376, 
 
 439- 
 Warrior, 324, 331, 372, 407. 
 Warspite, 431, 432, 442. 
 Wasp, 41. 
 
 Water, distilled, 12. 
 Water tank, 460. 
 
INDEX 
 
 5ii 
 
 Watering, 11. 
 
 Watson, Captain Burges, 248, 250, 252, 
 254, 255, 275. 
 
 Wellesley, Captain G. G., 260; Vice- 
 Admiral, 384 ; Sir George, 405, 410. 
 
 Wellinge Island, 257. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 291. 
 
 Westcombe, Mr., 2. 
 
 Western Squadron, 222, 223, 227. 
 
 West Indies, 142. 
 
 Westley- Richards rifle, 365. 
 
 Whitehead torpedo, 434, 436, 447. 
 
 Whitworth and Armstrong controversy, 
 342. 
 
 Whitworth ordnance, 383, 384. 
 
 Wight, Isle of, 290. 
 
 Wilberforce, Archdeacon Samuel, 70. 
 
 Willan, Archie, 34. 
 
 William III., 401. 
 
 William iv., 1, 36. 
 
 William, Fort, 275. 
 
 Williams, W. T., 267. 
 
 Williams, Captain Woodford J., 301. 
 
 Willis, Captain, 86, 87. 
 
 Wilson, Mr. (Charge 1 d' Affaires), 91. 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, 129. 
 
 Winchester, 2. 
 
 Winchester, 49, 57-9, 78, 100. 
 
 Wivern, 346. 
 
 Wodehouse, Lieutenant Armine, 256, 258. 
 
 Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 458 ; Lord, 469. 
 
 Wolverine , 38. 
 
 Wontang, 276. 
 
 Wood, Right Hon. Sir Charles, 265. 
 
 Wood, Granville, 37. 
 
 Woolley, Rev. Dr., 394, 396. 
 
 Woolwich, 220, 417, 418. 
 
 Woolwich system, the, 341, 417. 
 
 Wormso, 264. 
 
 Wortley, Mr. , 96. 
 
 Wreck and Recovery of Gorgon, 
 
 101-6. 
 Wright, G. , 250. 
 Wyse, Mr. , 213, 214. 
 Wyvil, Captain C. , 62. 
 
 Xaros Bay, 211. 
 
 Yalu, battle of, 370. 
 
 Yarrow, Messrs. , 470. 
 
 Yedo, Gulf of, 472. 
 
 Yeh, Commissioner, 276, 277, 282, 283, 
 
 286, 287. 
 Yelverton, Captain Hastings, 245, 246, 
 
 249, 252, 253-6, 264 ; Vice- Admiral, 
 
 392. 399- 
 Yokohama, 473. 
 Yokoska, 472. 
 Young, Dr., 56. 
 Young, Sir Charles, 285. 
 
 Zealous, 362. 
 
 Zelenoi, General, 470. 
 
 '/.eta , 418. 
 
 Zucci, General, 177. 
 
 Zulficar Pass, 471. 
 
 Zululand, 273. 
 
 Zulu War, 416. 
 
 Ziinther, Fried., Burgomaster, 239. 
 
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 exquisitely printed.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES retold by S. 
 
 Baring Gould. With numerous illustrations and initial letters by 
 
 Arthur J. Gaskin. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s. 
 
 1 Mr. Baring Gould is deserving of gratitude, in re-writing in simple style the old 
 
 stories that delighted our fathers and grandfathers.'— Saturday Review. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List ii 
 
 S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. Col- 
 lected and edited by S. Baring Gould. With Numerous Illustra- 
 tions by F. D. Bedford. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s. 
 'A charming volume. The stories have been selected with great ingenuity from 
 various old ballads and folk-tales, and now stand forth, clothed in Mr. Baring 
 Gould's delightful English, to enchant youthful readers.'— Guardian. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND 
 RHYMES. Edited by S. Baring Gould, and Illustrated by the 
 Birmingham Art School. Buckram, gilt top. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 ' The volume is very complete in its way, as it contains nursery songs to the number 
 °f 77> game-rhymes, and jingles. To the student we commend the sensible intro- 
 duction, and the explanatory notes.' — Birmingham Gazette. 
 
 H. C. Beeching. A BOOK OF CHRISTMAS VERSE. Edited 
 by H. C. Beeching, M.A., and Illustrated by Walter Crane. 
 Crown Svo, gilt top. *>s. 
 An anthology which, from its unity of aim and high poetic excellence, has a better 
 right to exist than most of its fellows. '—Guardian. 
 
 History 
 
 Gibbon. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN 
 EMPIRE. By Edward Gibbon. A New Edition, Edited with 
 Notes, Appendices, and Maps, by J. B. Bury, LL.D., Fellow of 
 Trinity College, Dublin. In Seven Volumes. Demy Svo. Gilt top. 
 Ss. 6d. each. Also crown Svo. 6s. each. Vols. I., II., Ill, IV, 
 and V. 
 
 ' The time has certainly arrived for a new edition of Gibbon's great work. . . . Pro- 
 fessor Bury is the right man to undertake this task. His learning is amazing, 
 both in extent and accuracy. The book is issued in a handy form, and at a 
 moderate price, and it is admirably printed.' — Times. 
 
 ' This edition, is a marvel of erudition and critical skill, and it is the very minimum 
 of praise to predict that the seven volumes of it will supersede Dean Milman's as 
 the standard edition of our great historical classic.' — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' At last there is an adequate modern edition of Gibbon. . . . The best edition the 
 nineteenth century could produce.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT,fromthe Earliest 
 
 Times to the Present Day. Edited by W. M. Flinders 
 
 Petrie, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at University 
 
 College. Fully Illustrated. In Six Volumes. Crown Svo. 6s. each. 
 
 Vol. I. Prehistoric Times to XVIth Dynasty. W. M. F. 
 
 Petrie. Third Edition. 
 Vol. II. The XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. W. M. F. 
 Petrie. Second Edition. 
 ' A history written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily represented by Dr. 
 Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and accurate study, and 
 supply a vacant place in the English literature of Egyptology.' — Times. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN 
 ANCIENT EGYPT. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L., 
 LL.D. Fully Illustrated. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 4 The lectures will afford a fund of valuable information for students of ancient ethics. 
 — Manchester Guardian. 
 
12 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Flinders Petrie. SYRIA AND EGYPT, FROM THE TELL 
 
 EL AMARNA TABLETS. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, 
 
 D.C.L., LL.D. Crown Svo. 25. 6d. 
 
 'A marvellous record. The addition made to our knowledge is nothing short of 
 amazing. ' — Times. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis. In Two 
 
 Volumes. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 ' A valuable addition to the literature of comparative folk-lore. The drawings are 
 
 really illustrations in the literal sense of the word.'— Globe. 
 'Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine and Egypt. '—Daily News. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By 
 W. M. Flinders Petrie. With 120 Illustrations. Cr. Svo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 * In these lectures he displays rare skill in elucidating the development of 
 decorative art in Egypt, and in tracing its influence on the art of other 
 countries. '— Times. 
 
 0. W. Oman. A HISTORY OF THE ART OF WAR. 
 Vol. 11. : The Middle Ages, from the Fourth to the Fourteenth 
 Century. By C. W. Oman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Oxford. 
 Illustrated. Demy Svo. 21s. 
 
 ' The book is based throughout upon a thorough study of the original sources, and 
 will be an indispensable aid to all students of mediaeval history.' — Athemtum. 
 
 ' The whole art of war in its historic evolution has never been treated on such an 
 ample and comprehensive scale, and we question if any recent contribution to the 
 exact history of the world has possessed greater and more enduring value.' — Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CESARS. 
 With numerous Illustrations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. 
 Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. Royal Svo. 15J. 
 
 ' A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great 
 
 feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the 
 
 Caesars and the admirable critical subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with this 
 
 line o .-;s;arch. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a 
 
 rofuse magnificence. ' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 H. de B. Gibbins. INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND : HISTORI- 
 CAL OUTLINES. By H. de B. Gibbins, M.A., D.Litt. With 
 5 Maps. Second Edition. Demy Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 E. E Egerton. A HISTORY OF BRITISH COLONIAL 
 POLICY. By H. E. Egerton, M.A. Demy Svo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 'It is a good book, distinguished by accuracy in detail, clear arrangement of facts, 
 
 and a broad grasp of principles. ' — Manchester Guardian. 
 ' Able, impartial, clear. . . . A most valuable volume.' — Athenaum. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 13 
 
 Albert Sorel. THE EASTERN QUESTION IN THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By Albert Sorel, of the French 
 Academy. Translated by F. C. Bramwell, M.A., with an Intro- 
 duction by R. C. L. Fletcher, Fellow of Magdalen College, 
 Oxford. With a Map. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. 
 ' The author's insight into the character and motives of the leading actors in the 
 drama gives the work an interest uncommon in books based on similar material.' — 
 Scotsman. 
 
 C. H. Grinling. A HISTORY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN 
 
 RAILWAY, 1845-95. By Charles H. Grinling. With Maps 
 
 and Illustrations. Demy Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 'Admirably written, and crammed with interesting facts.' — Daily Mail. 
 ' The only adequate history of a great English railway company that has as yet 
 
 appeared. ' — Times. 
 ' Mr. Grinling has done for the history of the Great Northern what Macaulay did for 
 
 English History.' — The Engineer. 
 
 A. Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History 
 and their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A. 
 Clark, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. Svo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 • A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on 
 the Colleges of Oxford.' — Athenetum. 
 
 Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM 1434 
 TO 1492. By F. T. Perrens. Svo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 A history of Florence under the domination of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de 
 Medicis. 
 
 J.Wells. A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME. By J. Wells, 
 M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham Coll., Oxford. With 4 Maps. 
 Crown 8vo. 2 s - &£ 
 This book is intended for the Middle and Upper Forms of Public Schools and for 
 
 Pass Students at the Universities. It contains copious Tables, etc. 
 'An original work written on an original plan, and with uncommon freshness and 
 vigour. ' — Speaker. 
 
 0. Browning. A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ITALY, 
 a.d. 1 250- 1 530. By Oscar Browning, Fellow and Tutor of King's 
 College, Cambridge. Second Edition. In Two Volumes. Crown 
 Svo. $s. each. 
 
 Vol. 1. 1250-1409.— Guelphs and Ghibellines. 
 Vol. 11. 1409-1530.— The Age of the Condottieri. 
 
 1 Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on the production of a work of immense 
 labour and learning.' — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Standish 
 O'Grady, Author of ■ Finn and his Companions.' Cr. Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 ' Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings, 
 make it one of the freshest breeziest volumes.'— Methodist Times. 
 
i4 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Biography 
 
 S. Baring Gould. THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONA- 
 PARTE. By S. Baring Gould. With over 450 Illustrations in 
 the Text and 12 Photogravure Plates. Large quarto. Gilt top. t£s. 
 
 ' The best biography of Napoleon in our tongue, nor have the French as good a 
 biographer of their hero. A book very nearly as good as Southey's " Life of 
 Nelson." ' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 'The main feature of this gorgeous volume is its great wealth of beautiful photo- 
 gravures and finely-executed wood engravings, constituting a complete pictorial 
 chronicle of Napoleon I.'s personal history from the days of his early childhood 
 at Ajaccio to the date of his second interment.'— Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' Nearly all the illustrations are real contributions to history.' — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Morris Fuller. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN 
 DAVENANT, D.D. (1571-1641), Bishop of Salisbury. By Morris 
 Fuller, B.D. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 J. M. Rigg. ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY : A Chapter 
 in the History of Religion. By J. M. Rigg. DemySvo. Js. 6d. 
 
 'Mr. Rigg has told the story of the life with scholarly ability, and has contributed 
 an interesting chapter to the history of the Norman period.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 F. W. Joyce. THE LIFE OF SIR FREDERICK GORE 
 OUSELEY. By F. W. Joyce, M.A. 7s. 6d. 
 
 ' This book has been undertaken in quite the right spirit, and written with sympathy, 
 insight, and considerable literary skill.' — Times. 
 
 W. G. Collingwood. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By 
 W. G. Collingwood, M.A. With Portraits, and 13 Drawings by 
 Mr. Ruskin. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 32 s. 
 ' No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time.'— Times. 
 ' It is long since we had a biography with such delights of substance and of form. 
 Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 C. Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN. By Charles Waldstein, 
 M.A. With a Photogravure Portrait. Post $vo. $s. 
 'A thoughtful and well-written criticism of Ruskin's teaching.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 A. M. F. Darmesteter. THE LIFE OF ERNEST RENAN. By 
 Madame Darmesteter. With Portrait. Second Edition. Cr. $vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A polished gem of biography, superior in its kind to any attempt that has been made 
 of recent years in England. Madame Darmesteter has indeed written for English 
 readers '' The Life of Ernest Renan.'"— Athenaum. 
 
 'It is a fascinating and biographical and critical study, and an admirably finished 
 work of literary art.' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' It is interpenetrated with the dignity and charm, the mild, bright, classical grace of 
 form and treatment that Renan himself so loved ; and it fulfils to the uttermost 
 the delicate and difficult achievement it sets out to accomplish.' — Academy. 
 
 W. H. Hutton. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. By 
 W. H. Hutton, M.A. With Portraits. Crown %vo. $s. 
 ' The book lays good claim to high rank among our biographies. It is excellently, 
 even lovingly, written.' — Scotsman. ' An excellent monograph.' — Times. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 15 
 
 Travel, Adventure and Topography 
 
 H. H. Johnston. BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. By Sir 
 H. H. Johnston, K.C.B. With nearly Two Hundred Illustrations, 
 and Six Maps. Second Edition. Crown 4I0. 30J. net. 
 
 'A fascinating book, written with equal skilly and charm— the work at once of a 
 literary artist and of a man of action who is singularly wise, brave, and experi- 
 enced. It abounds in admirable sketches from pencil.' — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 'A delightful book . . . collecting within the covers of a single volume all that is 
 known of this part of our African domains. The voluminous appendices are of 
 extreme value.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 1 The book takes front rank as a standard work by the one man competent to write 
 it.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 L. Decle. THREE YEARS IN SAVAGE AFRICA. By 
 
 Lionel Decle. With 100 Illustrations and 5 Maps. Second 
 
 Edition. Demy 8vo. 21s. 
 < A fine, full book.'— Pall Mall Gazette. 
 ' Abounding in thrilling adventures.'— Daily Telegraph. 
 ' His book is profusely illustrated, and its bright pages give a better general survey 
 
 of Africa from the Cape to the Equator than any single volume that has yet been 
 
 published.' — Times. 
 'A delightful book.' — Academy. 
 
 ' Astonishingly frank. Every page deserves close attention.' — Literature. 
 ' Unquestionably one of the most interesting books of travel which have recently 
 
 appeared.' — Standard. 
 ' The honest impressions of a keen-eyed and intrepid traveller.' — Scotsman. 
 ' Appealing powerfully to the popular imagination.' — Globe. 
 
 Henri of Orleans. FROM TONKIN TO INDIA. By Prince 
 Henri of Orleans. Translated by Hamley Bent, M.A. With 
 100 Illustrations and a Map. Crown qto, gilt top. 2$s. 
 
 ' A welcome contribution to our knowledge. The narrative is full and interesting, 
 and the appendices give the work a substantial value.' — Times. 
 
 ' The Prince's travels are of real importance . . . his services to geography have been 
 considerable. The volume is beautifully illustrated.'— A thenarum. 
 
 R. S. S. Baden-Powell. THE DOWNFALL OF PREMPEH. 
 A Diary of Life in Ashanti, 1895. By Colonel Badrn-Powell. 
 With 21 Illustrations and a Map. Cheaper Edition. Large Croivn 
 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A compact, faithful, most readable record of the campaign.' — Daily News. 
 
 R. S. S. Baden-Powell. THE MATABELE CAMPAIGN, 1896. 
 By Colonel Baden-Powell. With nearly 100 Illustrations. Cheaper 
 Edition. Large Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' As a straightforward account of a great deal of plucky work unpretentiously done, 
 this book is well worth reading.' — Times. 
 
 S. L. Hinde. THE FALL OF THE CONGO ARABS. By 
 S. L. Hinde. With Plans, etc. De?ny 8vo. I2.r. 6d. 
 
 ' The book is full of good things, and of sustained interest.' — St. James's Gazette. 
 ' A graphic sketch of one of the most exciting and important episodes in the struggle 
 
 for supremacy in Central Africa between the Arabs and their European rivals.'— 
 
 Times. 
 
16 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 A. St. H. Gibbons. EXPLORATION AND HUNTING IN 
 CENTRAL AFRICA. By Major A. St. H. Gibbons, F.R.G.S. 
 With 8 full-page Illustrations by C. Whymper, 25 Photographs and 
 Maps. Demy Svo. i$s. 
 ' His book is a grand record of quiet, unassuming, tactful resolution. His adven- 
 tures were as various as his sporting exploits were exciting.' — Times. 
 
 E. H. Alderson. WITH THE MOUNTED INFANTRY AND 
 MASHONALAND FIELD FORCE, 1896. By Lieut. -Colonel 
 Alderson. With numerous Illustrations and Plans. DemySvo. ios.6d. 
 
 'An interesting contribution to the story of the British Empire's growth.'— Daily 
 
 Nevus. 
 'A clear, vigorous, and soldier-like narrative.'— Scotsman. 
 
 Seymour Vandeleur. CAMPAIGNING ON THE UPPER 
 NILE AND NIGER. By Lieut. Seymour Vandeleur. With 
 an Introduction by Sir G. Goldie, K.C.M.G. With 4 Maps, 
 Illustrations, and Plans. Large Crown Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 ' Upon the African question there is no book procurable which contains so much of 
 value as this one.' — Guardian. 
 
 Lord Fincastle. A FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. Bythe Viscount 
 Fincastle, V.C., and Lieut. P. C. Elliott-Lockhart. With a 
 Map and 16 Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 'An admirable book, combining in a volume a piece of pleasant reading for the 
 general reader, and a really valuable treatise on frontier war.' — Athenaitm. 
 
 J. K. Trotter. THE NIGER SOURCES. By Colonel J. K. 
 Trotter, R. A. With a Map and Illustrations. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 'A most interesting as well as a lucidly and modestly written book.'— Spectator. 
 
 Michael Davitt. LIFE AND PROGRESS IN AUSTRAL- 
 ASIA. By Michael Davitt, M.P. With 2 Maps. Crcnvn Svo. 
 6s. 500 pp. 
 
 1 An interesting and suggestive work.'— Daily Chronicle. 
 'Contains an astonishing amount of practical information.' — Daily Mail. 
 'One of the most valuable contributions to our store of Imperial literature that has 
 been published for a very long time.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 W. Crooke. THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES OF 
 INDIA : Their Ethnology and Administration. By W. 
 Crooke. With Maps and Illustrations. Demy Svo. ior. 6d. 
 ' A carefully and well-written account of one of the most important provinces of the 
 Empire. Mr. Crooke deals with the land in its physical aspect, the province 
 under Hindoo and Mussulman rule, under British rule, its ethnology and sociology, 
 its religious and social life, the land and its settlement, and the native peasant. 
 The illustrations are good, and the map is excellent.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 A. Boisragon. THE BENIN MASSACRE. By Captain 
 Boisragon. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 ' If the story had been written four hundred years ago it would be read to-day as an 
 English classic.'— Scotsman. 
 
 ' If anything could enhance the horror and the pathos of this remarkable book it is 
 the simple style of the author, who writes as he would talk, unconscious of his 
 own heroism, with an artlessness which is the highest art.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 17 
 
 H. S. Cowper. THE HILL OF THE GRACES : or, the Great 
 Stone Temples of Tripoli. By H. S. Cowper, F.S.A. With 
 Maps, Plans, and 75 Illustrations. Demy Svo. 10s. 6d. 
 ' Forms a valuable chapter of what has now become quite a large and important 
 branch of antiquarian research.' — Times. 
 
 W. Kinnaird Rose. WITH THE GREEKS IN THESSALY. 
 By W. Kinnaird Rose, Reuter's Correspondent. With Plans and 
 23 Illustrations. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 W. B. Worsfold. SOUTH AFRICA. By W. B. Worsfold, 
 M.A. With a Map. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 1 A monumental work compressed into a very moderate compass.' — World. 
 
 Naval and Military 
 
 G. W. Steevens. NAVAL POLICY : By. G. W. Steevens. 
 Demy Svo. 6s. 
 This book is a description of the British and other more important navies of the world, 
 with a sketch of the lines on which our naval policy might possibly be developed. 
 'An extremely able and interesting work.'— Dotty Chronicle. 
 
 D. Hannay. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY, 
 
 From Early Times to the Present Day. By David Hannay. 
 
 Illustrated. 2 Vols. Demy Svo. 7s.6d.each. Vol. I., 1200- 1688. 
 ' Weread it from cover to cover at a sitting, and those who go to it for a lively and 
 
 brisk picture of the past, with all its faults and its grandeur, will not be disappointed. 
 
 The historian is endowed with literary skill and style.'- -Standard. 
 1 We can warmly recommend Mr. Hannay's volume to any intelligent student of 
 
 naval history. Great as is the merit of Mr. Hannay's historical narrative, the 
 
 merit of his strategic exposition is even greater.' — Times. 
 
 C. Cooper King. THE STORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY. By 
 Colonel Cooper King, Illustrated. Demy Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 ' Anauthoritative and accurate story of England's military progress.' — Daily Mail. 
 4 This handy volume contains, in a compendious form, a brief but adequate sketch of 
 the story of the British army.' — Daily News. 
 
 R. Sonthey. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins, 
 Drake, Cavendish). By Robert Southey. Edited, with an 
 Introduction, by David Hannay. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 'Admirable and well-told stories of our naval history.'— A rmy and Navy Gazette. 
 
 ' A brave, inspiriting book.'— Black and White. 
 
 W. Clark Russell. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL- 
 
 LINGWOOD. By W. Clark Russell, With Illustrations by 
 
 F. Brangwyn. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 ' A book which we should like to see in the hands of every boy in the country.' — 
 
 St. James's Gazette. * A really good book.'— Saturday Review. 
 
 E. L. S. Horsburgh. THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO. 
 
 By E. L. S. Horsburgh, B.A. With Plans. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 'A brilliant essay — simple, sound, and thorough.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 A3 
 
1 8 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 H.B. George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. ByH.B. 
 George, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. With numerous 
 Plans. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 4 Mr. George has undertaken a very useful task— that of making military affairs in- 
 telligible and instructive to non-military readers — and has executed it with laud- 
 able intelligence and industry, and with a large measure of success.' — Times. 
 
 General Literature 
 
 S. Baring Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring 
 Gould. With Sixty-seven Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Fifth 
 Edition. 6s. 
 4 44 Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move- 
 ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be 
 published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core. '— World. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE 
 EVENTS. By S. Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. CrownSvo. 6s. 
 
 ' A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful 
 reading.' — Times. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. FREAKS OF FANATICISM. By S. Baring 
 Gould. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 4 A perfectly fascinating book.' — Scottish Leader. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG : 
 
 English Folk Songs with their Traditional Melodies. Collected and 
 arranged by S. Baring Gould and H. F. Sheppard. Demy 4/0. 6s. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional 
 Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Melodies. 
 Collected by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. F. Sheppard, 
 M.A. In 4 Parts. Parts /., //., III., 35. each. Part IV., $s. 
 In one Vol., French morocco, \$s. 
 4 A rich collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE 
 EVENTS. By S. Baring Gould. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 
 6s. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPER- 
 STITIONS. By S. Baring Gould. Cretan Svo. Second Edition. 
 6s. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN 
 FRANCE. By S. Baring. Gould. 2 vols. Demy Svo. 32*. 
 
 Cotton Minchin. OLD HARROW DAYS. By J. G. Cotton 
 
 Minchin. Crown Svo. Second Edition. $s. 
 4 This book is an admirable record.'— Daily Chronicle. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 19 
 
 W. E. Gladstone. THE SPEECHES OF THE RT. HON. 
 W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Edited by A. W. Hutton, M.A., 
 and H. J. Cohen, M.A. With Portraits. Demy Svo. Vols. IX. 
 and X. \2.s. 6d. each. 
 
 E. V. Zenker. ANARCHISM. By E. V. Zenker. Demy Svo. 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 ' Well-written, and full of shrewd comments.' — The Speaker. 
 
 1 Herr Zenker has succeeded in producing a careful and critical history of the growth 
 
 of Anarchist theory. He is to be congratulated upon a really interesting work.' — 
 
 Literature. 
 
 H. G. Hutchinson. THE GOLFING PILGRIM. By Horace 
 G. Hutchinson. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 ' Full of useful information with plenty of good stories.' — Truth. 
 
 ' Without this book the golfer's library will be incomplete.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 1 We can recommend few books as better company. ' — St. James s Gazette. 
 
 1 It will charm all golfers.' — Times. 
 
 ' Decidedly pleasant reading.' — Athenaum. 
 
 J. Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of 
 the University. Edited by J. Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of 
 Wadham College. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 2 s - &d. 
 ' We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account 
 of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons who are possessed of a 
 close acquaintance with the system and life of the University.' — Athenaum. 
 
 J.Wells. OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES. By J. Wells, M. A., 
 Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. Illustrated by E. H. New. 
 Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 2 s - Leather. 4s. 
 
 'An admirable and accurate little treatise, attractively illustrated.' — World. 
 
 'A luminous and tasteful little volume.' — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 1 Exactly what the intelligent visitor wants. '—-Glasgow Herald. 
 
 0. G. Robertson. VOCES ACADEMICS. By C. Grant 
 Robertson, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Oxford. With a Frontis- 
 piece. Pott. Svo. 2 s - bd. 
 ' Decidedly clever and amusing.' — Athenaum. 
 ' A clever and entertaining little book.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 L. Whibley. GREEK OLIGARCHIES : THEIR ORGANISA- 
 TION AND CHARACTER. By L. Whibley, M.A., Fellow 
 of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 'An exceedingly useful handbook : a careful and well-arranged study.' — Times. 
 
 L. L. Price. ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND PRACTICE. 
 By L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Crown 
 Svo. 6s. 
 
 J. S. Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA : Its Origin 
 and Development. By J. S. Shedlock. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 1 This work should be in the possession of every musician and amateur. A concise 
 and lucid history and a very valuable work for reference.' — Athenaum. 
 
 E. M. Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA: Being Quota- 
 tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled 
 by E. M. Bowden. Third Edition. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
20 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Science and Technology 
 
 Freudenreich. DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual 
 for the Use of Students. By Dr. Ed. von Freudenreich. 
 Translated by J. R. Ainsworth Davis, B.A. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Chalmers Mitchell. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P. 
 
 Chalmers Mitchell, M.A., Illustrated. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of 
 Physicians and Surgeons. 
 
 G.Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THE MYXOGASTRES. By 
 George Massee. With 12 Coloured Plates. Royal Svo. iSs.net. 
 
 1 A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of 
 organisms. Indispensable to every student of the Myxogastres. '— Nature. 
 
 Stephenson and Suddards. ORNAMENTAL DESIGN FOR 
 WOVEN FABRICS. By C. Stephenson, of The Technical 
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 1 The book is very ably done, displaying an intimate knowledge of principles, good 
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 HANDBOOKS OF TECHNOLOGY. 
 Edited by Professors GARNETT and WERTHE1MER. 
 HOW TO MAKE A DRESS. By J. A. E. Wood. 
 Illustrated. Crown Svo. is. 6d. 
 A text-book for students preparing for the City and Guilds examination, based on 
 
 the syllabus. The diagrams are numerous. 
 ' Though primarily intended for students, Miss Wood's dainty little manual may be 
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 directions are simple and clear, and the diagrams very helpful.' — Literature. 
 'A splendid little book.'— Evening News. 
 
 Philosophy 
 
 L. T. Hobhouse. THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. By 
 L. T. Hobhouse, Fellow of C.C.C, Oxford. Demy Svo. 21s. 
 
 ' The most important contribution to English philosophy since the publication of Mr. 
 
 Bradley's Appearance and Reality." ' — Glasgow Herald. 
 ' A brilliantly written volume.' — Times. 
 
 W. H. Fairbrother. THE PHILOSOPHY OF T. H. GREEN. 
 
 By W. H. Fairbrother, M.A. Crown Svo. $s. 6d. 
 1 In every way an admirable book.'— Glasgow Herald. 
 
 F. W. Bussell. THE SCHOOL OF PLATO. By F. W. 
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 10s. 6d. 
 ' A highly valuable contribution to the history of ancient thought.'— Glasgow Herald. 
 ' A clever and stimulating book, — Manchester Guardian. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 21 
 
 F. S. Granger. THE WORSHIP OF THE ROMANS. By 
 
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 sity College, Nottingham. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 * A scholarly analysis of the religious ceremonies.beliefs, and superstitions of ancient 
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 Theology 
 
 Iban&boofts of Gbeologg. 
 
 General Editor, A. Robertson, D.D., Principal of King's College, 
 London. 
 THE XXXIX. ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG- 
 LAND. Edited with an Introduction by E. C. S. Gibson, D.D., 
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 and Cheaper Edition in One Volume. Demy Svo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 1 Dr. Gibson is a master of clear and orderly exposition. And he has in a high 
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 that of absolute fairness. His book is pre-eminently honest.' — Times. 
 
 1 After a survey of the whole book, we can bear witness to the transparent honesty 
 of purpose, evident industry, and clearness of style which mark its contents. 
 They maintain throughout a very high level of doctrine and tone.'— Guardian. 
 
 ' The most convenient and most acceptable commentary.'— Expository Times. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 By F. B. Jevons, M.A., Litt.D., Principal of Bishop Hatfield's 
 
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 ' Dr. Jevons has written a notable work, which we can strongly recommend to the 
 
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 ' The merit of this book lies in the penetration, the singular acuteness and force of the 
 
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 A comprehensive and thorough book.' — BirmingJiam Post. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. By R. L. 
 
 Ottley, M.A., late fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon., and Principal 
 
 of Pusey House. In Two Volumes. Demy Svo. 15^. 
 ' Learned and reverent : lucid and well arranged.' — Record. 
 ' A clear and remarkably full account of the main currents of speculation. Scholarly 
 
 precision . . . genuine tolerance . . . intense interest in his subject — are Mr. 
 
 Ottley's merits.' — Guardian. 
 
 Gbe Cburcbman'6 Xibrarg. 
 
 Edited by J. H. BURN, B.D. 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH CHRISTIANITY. By 
 W. E. Collins, M.A., Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's 
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 An investigation in detail, based upon original authorities, of the beginnings of the 
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 'An excellent example of thorough and fresh historical work.'— Guardian. 
 
 SOME NEW TESTAMENT PROBLEMS. By Arthur 
 Wright, Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 1 Bold and outspoken ; earnest and reverent. '—Glasgow Herald. 
 
22 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 S. R. Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED 
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 T. K. Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITI- 
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 Large crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 A historical sketch of O. T. Criticism. 
 
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 H. H. Henson. DISCIPLINE AND LAW. By H. Hensley 
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 A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various 
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 Cecilia Robinson. THE MINISTRY OF DEACONESSES. 
 By Deaconess Cecilia Robinson. With an Introduction by the 
 Lord Bishop of Winchester and an Appendix by Professor Armitage 
 Robinson. Crown 8vo. 2 s - &d. 
 
 'A learned and interesting book, combining with no ordinary skill the authority of 
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 — Scotsman. 
 
 E. B. Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the 
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 W. Yorke Fausset. THE DE CATECHIZANDIS 
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 An edition of a Treatise on the Essentials of Christian Doctrine, and the best 
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 F.Weston. THE HOLY SACRIFICE. By F. Weston, M.A., 
 
 Curate of St. Matthew's, Westminster. Pott 8vo. is. 
 A small volume of devotions at the Holy Communion, especially adapted to the 
 needs of servers and those who do not communicate. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 23 
 
 A Kempis. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas A 
 Kempis. With an Introduction by Dean Farrar. Illustrated by 
 C. M. Gere, and printed in black and red. Second Edition. Fcap. 
 Svo. Buckram, y. 6d. Padded morocco, $s. 
 'Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the " Imitation," there can have 
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 J. Keble. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. ByJOHNKEBLE. With an 
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 Ireland Professor at Oxford. Illustrated by R. Anning Bell. 
 Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. Buckram. 3.?. 6d. Padded morocco, $s. 
 ' The present edition is annotated with all the care and insight to be expected from 
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 plained in a note. ' — Guardian. 
 
 TZbe Xfbrarg of Devotion. 
 
 Pott Svo. 2s.; leather, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 ' This series is excellent.'— The Bishop of London. 
 
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 1 Charming.'— Record. 
 
 ' Delightful.'— Church Bells. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Newly 
 Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by C. Bigg, D.D., 
 late Student of Christ Church. 
 
 1 The translation is an excellent piece of English, and the introduction is a masterly 
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 ' No translation has appeared in so convenient a form, and none, we think, evidenc- 
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 1 Dr. Bigg has made a new and vigorous translation, and has enriched the text with 
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 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By John Keble. With Intro- 
 duction and Notes by Walter Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble 
 College, Ireland Professor at Oxford. 
 
 • No prettier book could be desired.' — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 ' The volume is very prettily bound and printed, and may fairly claim to be an 
 advance on any previous editions.' — Guardian. 
 
 ' The introduction is admirable, and admirers of Keble will be greatly interested in 
 the chronological list of the poems.' — Bookman* 
 
 THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. A Revised Translation, 
 
 with an Introduction, by C. Bigg, D.D., late Student of Christ 
 
 Church. 
 Dr. Bigg has made a practically new translation of this book, which the reader will 
 
 have, almost for the first time, exactly in the shape in which it left the hands of 
 
 the author. 
 1 The text is at once scholarly in its faithful reproduction in English of the sonorous 
 
 Church Latin in which the original is composed, and popular in the sense of being 
 
 simple and intelligible.' — Scotsman. 
 
24 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Heaters oC ReUgtaft 
 
 Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. With Portraits, crown Svo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders of religious 
 life and thought of all ages and countries. 
 
 The following are ready — 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. Hutton. 
 JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. Overton, M.A. 
 BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. W. Daniel, M.A. 
 CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. Hutton, M.A. 
 CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. Moule, D.D. 
 JOHN KEBLE. By Walter Lock, D.D. 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. Oliphant. 
 LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. L. Ottley, M.A. 
 AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. By E. L. Cutts, D.D. 
 WILLIAM LAUD. By W. H. Hutton, B.D. 
 JOHN KNOX. By F. M'CUNN. 
 JOHN HOWE. By R. F. Horton, D.D. 
 BISHOP KEN. By F. A. Clarke, M.A. 
 GEORGE FOX, THE QUAKER. By T. Hodgkin, D.C.L. 
 JOHN DONNE. By AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. 
 THOMAS CRANMER. By A. J. Mason. 
 
 Other volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 Fiction 
 
 8IX SHILLING NOVEL8 
 
 Marie Corelli's Novels 
 
 Crown %vo. 6s. each. 
 
 A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. Eighteenth Edition. 
 
 VENDETTA. Fourteenth Edition. 
 
 THELMA. Nineteenth Edition. 
 
 ARDATH. Eleventh Edition. 
 
 THE SOUL OF LILITH Ninth Edition. 
 
 WORMWOOD. Ninth Edition. 
 
 BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY. 
 Thirty-second Edition. 
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 climax of the inspired narrative.' — Dublin Review. 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SATAN. Thirty-ninth Edition. 
 
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 to win an abiding place within the memory of man. . . . The author has immense 
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Messrs. Methuen's List 25 
 
 Anthony Hope's Novels 
 
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 THE GOD IN THE CAR. Eighth Edition. 
 
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 A CHANGE OF AIR. Fifth Edition. 
 
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 A MAN OF MARK. Fourth Edition. 
 
 1 Of all Mr. Hope's books, " A Man of Mark " is the one which best compares with 
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 THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. Third Edition. 
 
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 PHROSO. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. Third Edition. 
 
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 ARM I NELL. Fourth Edition. 
 
 URITH. Fifth Edition. 
 
 IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA Sixth Edition. 
 
 MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. Fourth Edition. 
 
26 
 
 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 CHEAP JACK ZITA. Fourth Edition. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF LOVE. Fourth Edition. 
 
 MARGERY OF QUETHER. Third Edition. 
 
 JACQUETTA. Third Edition. 
 
 K I TTY ALONE. Fifth Edition. 
 
 NOEMI. Illustrated by R. C. Woodville. Third Edition. 
 
 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Illustrated by F. Dadd. Fourth 
 
 Edition. 
 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. Third Edition. 
 DARTMOOR IDYLLS. 
 GUAVAS THE TINNER. Illustrated by F. Dadd. Second 
 
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 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Fourth Edition. 
 
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 • But little behind anything that has been done by any writer of our time. '—Pall 
 
 Mall Gazette. ' A very striking and admirable novel.' — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. 
 
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 THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. Illustrated. Sixth Edition. 
 
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 WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC : The Story of 
 a Lost Napoleon. Fourth Edition. 
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 AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: The Last Adven- 
 tures of ' Pretty Pierre.' Second Edition. 
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 THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. Illustrated. Ninth Edition. 
 
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 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 ' Mr. Parker seems to become stronger and easier with every serious novel that he 
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 * A great book.'— Black and White. 
 
 'One of the strongest stories of historical interest and adventure that we have read 
 for many a day. ... A notable and successful book.' — Speaker. 
 
Messrs. Methuen's List 27 
 
 THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES. Second Edition. 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' Living, breathing romance, genuine and unforced pathos, and a deeper and more 
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 It is, in a word, the work of a true artist.'— Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Conan Doyle. ROUND THE RED LAMP. By A. Conan 
 Doyle. Sixth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
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 Stanley Weyman. UNDER THE RED ROBE. By Stanley 
 Weyman, Author of 'A Gentleman of France.' With Illustrations 
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 Lucas Malet. THE WAGES OF SIN. By Lucas 
 Malet. Thirteenth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 Lucas Malet. THE CARISSIMA. By Lucas Malet, 
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 S. R. Crockett. LOCH INVAR. By S. R. Crockett, Author 
 
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 — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 S. R. Crockett. THE STANDARD BEARER. By S. R. 
 
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 1 A delightful tale in his best style.'— Speaker. 
 
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 Arthur Morrison. A CHILD OF THE JAGO. By Arthur 
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 1 The book is a masterpiece.'— Pall Mall Gazette. 
 1 Told with great vigour and powerful simplicity.' — Athenaum. 
 
28 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 Mrs. Clifford. A FLASH OF SUMMER. By Mrs. W. K. Clif- 
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 Emily Lawless. HURRISH. By the Honble. Emily Law- 
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 Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Sixteenth Century Romance. 
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 Jane Barlow. A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES. By Jane 
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 J. H. Findlater. THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE. 
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 ' A very charming and pathetic tale.' — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
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 ' Reveals to us a new writer of undoubted faculty and reserve force.' — Spectator. 
 
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 J. H. Findlater. A DAUGHTER OF STRIFE. By Jane 
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 Mary Findlater. OVER THE HILLS. By Mary Findlater. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
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Messrs. Methuen's List 29 
 
 H. G. Wells. THE PLATTNER STORY and Others. By H. 
 
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 1 No volume has appeared for a long time so likely to give equal pleasure to the 
 
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 Sara Jeanette Duncan. A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION. 
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 E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. Benson, Author of 
 
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 E. F. Benson. THE VINTAGE. By E. F. Benson. Author 
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 W. E. Norris. THE DESPOTIC LADY AND OTHERS. 
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30 Messrs. Methuen's List 
 
 W. E. Norris. CLARISSA FURIOSA. By W. E. Norris, 
 
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