Aux combats il etoit un terrible ennemi, Son exemple animoit le coeur le plus timide, Au milieu des hazards le foible est affermi, Ayant un tel chef pour son guide. O _Monmouth_! quelle nuit, lorsque le _Foudroyant_, Par ses bouches d'arain menacoit votre ruine, Vous tenez contre lui, vous etes triomphant, La victoire pour vous s'incline, Conduit par ce heros, vos canons vomissoient La foudre a gros bouillons, et la mort tout ensemble, Il inspiroit sa force a ceux qui combattoient, Ha! l'ennemi le sent et tremble. O! quel funeste coup, ce heros n'est donc plus? Le brave Gardiner tombe et finit sa vie, Mais il vit dans nos coeurs, il vit par ses vertus, Est-ce le ciel qui nous l'envie? Quelle aimable douceur envers ses prisonniers, Sa tendresse pour eux egaloit son courage, Il ne ressembloit point aux inhumains guerriers, Qui ne respirent que carnage. Whatever may be the quality or literary merit of these verses, there could, surely, be no higher tribute to the memory of a British officer, the tribute of an enemy in the bitter hour of defeat; and the incident in all its circumstances is unique. With it we may close the story. * * * * * The 'little black ship' _Monmouth_ (Captain Fanshawe's ship), to which the officers of the French flagship _Languedoc_ drank at dinner on the night of the 6th of July 1779, was the next successor to Gardiner's _Monmouth_, and it was this _Monmouth_ on board which, in the East Indies, Captain Alms, on the 12th of April 1782 (actually the same day on which Rodney was fighting his battle in the West Indies) made so heroic a stand. The Camperdown _Monmouth_ came next, and after her a _Monmouth_ that was never commissioned at all. Finally we come to our modern _Monmouth_ cruiser of the present hour. The quondam French _Foudroyant_, as a man-of-war of the Royal Navy, fought for England and did well. Her successor of the same name in the navy had strangely varied fortunes. She began her life as one of Nelson's flagships; and when she was worn out was sold to a German shipbreaker, by whom she was re-sold at an immense profit to Mr. G. Wheatly Cobb, of Caldicot Castle, Chepstow, in Monmouthshire curiously, who interested himself in the fate of the _Foudroyant_, and 'for Nelson's sake,' as he himself put it, spent L25,000 out of his own pocket in re-purchasing her and re-building and fitting her out to make the old veteran of the sea look, as far as possible, as she appeared in Nelson's time. A cruel fate, however, cut short the nobly conceived project. Our second _Foudroyant_ ended her days off Blackpool, of all places in the world, where, in the summer of 1897, in the hundredth year of her existence, she was wrecked in a gale. [Illustration: _Photo, Symonds & Co., Portsmouth._ 'SUCCESS TO THE _FORMIDABLE_!' November 17, 1898] FOOTNOTES: