I never knew my mother, for she died in giving me birth; and my father, who adored her living, and revered her memory, was some years older before he fully forgave me for being the unwitting cause of her premature departure from this world. And in this I could sympathise with him as soon as I came to years of understanding, for she was not only, as everybody who had known her asserted, of a most amiable and loveable disposition, but--as her portrait in the big library bore witness--a most lovely woman. But although I was unfortunate enough never to have known a mother's love, I do not think I was actually very much the worse for the loss; for upon my mother's death her place was most ably and conscientiously filled by my aunt Griselda, my father's maiden sister, who faithfully did her duty both by my father and me until she too passed away when I was about eleven years old, by which time my father had completely conquered his original resentment toward me, and we had become all that father and son ought to be to each other. Then, after receiving the best education that it was at that time possible for a lad to receive, I had entered the navy as a midshipman, at the age of fourteen, and had gone out to the Mediterranean in the old _Colossus_, two-decker, under the command of Sir Percy Fitzgerald, where, for some two and a half years, we spent our time partly in chasing the French up and down the great inland sea, and partly in blockading the port of Toulon, under Sir John Jervis. It was while engaged upon this latter service that I was so seriously wounded in the head by a flying splinter that I was invalided home to recover, the _Colossus_ being opportunely ordered to England at the same time to undergo a general overhaul and refit. Of course I had not been in the navy for more than two years without making a few friends, among the staunchest of whom I reckoned Mr Henry Vavassour, the first lieutenant of the _Colossus_, and also a friend of my father. This officer was a very dashing fellow, a prime seaman, and a cool, courageous, resolute leader of men--he had frequently been mentioned in dispatches--and I was therefore not at all surprised to learn, as I now did, that he had gained his post rank and had been given the command of a fine ship. His letter to me ran as follows: "My dear Delamere--I think you will be glad to learn that their Lordships have been pleased to promote me, bestow upon me post rank, and give me the command of the new frigate _Europa_, just launched at Portsmouth. She is an exceedingly fine ship of 1216 tons, mounting 38 guns; and, with smart officers and a good crew, I think she ought, given ordinary luck, to render an excellent account of herself.