It is well known that the fleet which achieved this victory had, during the succeeding night and day, to contend with the fury of the elements; many ships dismasted in the battle, all shattered, and in numerous cases without an anchor to let go. It was while the storm was still raging that Lord Collingwood made a signal to the ---- cutter to send a boat for the dispatches which were to be conveyed to England. The office intended for her commander was a favor, as the harbinger of such intelligence was certain of promotion; but, alas! our young lieutenant, engrossed by the present scene, and excited by the recent march of events, was not heeding the signal of the _Euryalus_, and it had been flying five minutes before it was reported to him. _Then_ he hurried to obey the mandate--too late! Another had seen the summons, and preceded him, deeming that the state of the cutter must be the cause of her commander's delay. As her boat came alongside the _Euryalus_, that of his successful rival--if I may so style him--pushed off, and the officers exchanged greetings. Poor Y---- at that moment bade farewell to the flood-tide of his fortunes! The admiral accepted his excuses, and regretted that he had not arrived in time, giving him the only charge remaining in his power to bestow--duplicates of the dispatches--and with these he took his homeward course: but the lost five minutes had wrecked his hopes. His predecessor arrived safely, received promotion, and is now, or was very recently, an admiral, while the hero of our story obtained only a sword in commemoration of his bravery; and at the close of the war, was thrown aside, with many a gallant comrade, to waste the remainder of his life in oblivion and neglect. The disappointment of his hopes affected him deeply; the more so as his family increased, and his means of supporting and providing for them were small. What profound regret darkened the vision of Trafalgar when it recurred to the old officer's memory! He was sometimes heard to say, with a playful mockery of his own ill-fortune, "that he had grown prematurely bald from the number of young men who had _walked over his head_;" but there was a pathos in the very jest. By a marvelous coincidence, his life was closed, as its prospects had been blighted, by the fatal five minutes too late. He was engaged to dine with an old brother-officer--one who hated to be kept waiting for his dinner--and by some accident, it was five minutes after the appointed time when he left his house to proceed to his Amphitryon's. In his anxiety to redeem the lost time, he hurried up the hill he was compelled to ascend at a pace little befitting his age and infirmities--for he suffered from a complaint of the heart--reached the dining-room "again five minutes too late," as he remarked himself, in allusion to the unseen signal, was taken ill from the exertion, carried home, and died. "The tide" of life as well as of fortune had for him "passed the flood!"