Boscawen’s _Dreadnought_ comes next, a sixty-gun ship built in the year 1742. She was the first ship of the line that Boscawen had the command of, and she gave him his _sobriquet_ in the Navy, “Old Dreadnought,” the name of his ship just hitting off the tough old salt’s chief characteristic—absolute fearlessness. An incident that occurred on board the _Dreadnought_ while Boscawen commanded the ship gave the _sobriquet_ vogue. It is, too, a fine sample of what Carlyle calls “two o’clock in the morning courage.” It was in the year 1744, when we were at war with both France and Spain, one night when the _Dreadnought_ was cruising in the channel. The officer of the watch, the story goes, came down after midnight to Captain Boscawen’s cabin and awoke him, saying, “Sir, there are two large ships which look like Frenchmen bearing down on us; what are we to do?” “Do?” answered Boscawen, turning out of his cot and going on deck in his nightshirt, “Do? why, d⸺ ’em; fight ’em!” The fight did not come off, however, as the suspicious strangers disappeared. On board Boscawen’s _Dreadnought_ it was that, fourteen years later, Nelson’s uncle, Maurice Suckling, who got Nelson his first appointment in the Royal Navy, and under whose command the boy Nelson first went to sea, made his mark as a post-captain. It was in the West Indies in 1757, the year in which Byng was shot, and the day was the 21st of October. The _Dreadnought_ with two consorts met seven French men-of-war, four of them individually bigger and more heavily gunned ships than ours, and the other three powerful frigates, and gave them a sound thrashing. The news was received in England with exceptional gratification as the first sign of the turn of the tide since Byng’s defeat off Minorca. That was one thing about it that stamped the event in popular memory. A second memorable thing was the incident, according to the popular story, of the “Half Minute Council of War” that preceded the fight. The three British ships were the _Augusta_, Captain Forrest; the _Dreadnought_, Captain Maurice Suckling; and the _Edinburgh_, Captain Langdon. The three had been sent by the admiral at Jamaica to cruise off Cape François, in order to intercept a large French homeward merchant convoy reported to be weakly guarded. The available French naval force on the station was believed to be too weak to face our little squadron. But, unknown to Admiral Cotes at Port Royal, fresh men-of-war had just arrived from France purposely to see the convoy home. In the result, when our three ships arrived off Cape François, seven French ships stood out to meet them. In spite of the odds the British three held on their course. These were the forces on either side, in ships and men:— BRITISH LINE OF BATTLE.