Beyond the _St. George_ lies another “Mediterranean ship,” just returned home—the _Revenge_, one of the ships in Byng’s battle. It was the damning evidence of the _Revenge’s_ captain—Frederick Cornwall, now at home on half-pay—as they all say in the fleet, that settled Byng’s fate. “If I cannot disprove what you have said, Captain Cornwall,” exclaimed Byng, as the one-armed captain of the _Revenge_ turned to leave the cabin, after a futile attempt at cross-examination on the part of the Admiral, “may the Lord have mercy on me.” There is no need to go further. If you could look round to Spithead from the Hard, you would see the old _Royal Sovereign_ on duty as the port flagship. On board her it was that, on the morning of the execution, Admiral Boscawen put his signature to Byng’s death warrant, and the order for the firing party. She is the oldest ship in the King’s Navy, in which connection the _Sovereign_ has other memories of her own. The great Duke of Marlborough named her at her launch in the year that William the Third died, and it was in her great-cabin, during the _Sovereign’s_ first cruise, that Rooke’s council of war planned the swoop on the Vigo treasure galleons, which Vigo Street, in London, serves to commemorate. Some of the old ship’s timbers, it is the fact, formed part of the frame of Charles the First’s world-renowned _Sovereign of the Seas_, and were salved, by special Admiralty order, out of the _débris_ when the _Sovereign of the Seas_ was burned at Chatham in January, 1696, by the carelessness of a sleepy bos’un’s mate. Out yonder at Spithead, too, at this moment, rides at anchor yet another veteran of our old-time navy, the _Royal Anne_. They have a really marvellous continuity of service, some of these ancient men-of-war. The _Anne_ carries us back to the time of the Dutch raid up the Medway. She was launched as the _Royal Charles_ to fill the place of the _Royal Charles_ that the Dutchmen carried off. William the Third renamed her the _Queen_, in honour of his consort, and the ship kept that name until George the First came over. King George, having at that time his legal consort under lock and key in Germany, promptly renamed the ship. He called her after himself, _Royal George_—the first of the series. Three kings, indeed, have been present at this ship’s various “christenings.” Charles the Second was present at her first naming as the _Royal Charles_; William the Third saw her renamed the _Queen_. George the First paid a special visit to Woolwich when she received the name _Royal George_, and gave £300 to be divided among the dockyard men employed at the float-out, in honour of the occasion. The name _Royal Anne_ was given to the ship only two years ago, when the present _Royal George_, Hawke’s flagship in the Channel Fleet, was launched. She exchanged the name for that borne on the stocks by the _Royal George_.