America owes a great deal to this gallant young Frenchman who crossed the seas to aid the colonies. He was among the first of those foreigners who showed the colonists that the love of liberty was as wide as the world. He came when hope was low, and his coming meant much to the brave men who had to undergo the long, discouraging winter at Valley Forge, and the days when it seemed as though time would prove them only rebels and not patriots. He brought ships, and men, and money to aid in the great cause, but more than all these were his own magnetic personality and the buoyant spirit that refused to be cast down. The War of Independence came to an end, and Lafayette returned home. Trouble was brewing there. The old nobility had grown too overbearing; the men and women who tilled the soil were considered hardly better than mere beasts of burden. Such a state could not last, and so the time came when the mobs of Paris broke into the beautiful gardens of Versailles, stormed the Palace of the Tuilleries, scattered some of the vain and foolish old courtiers, but imprisoned many more, and brought to trial the hapless King Louis and the charming Marie Antoinette. Lafayette, friend of their early days, stood by them through the height of the storm, but there was little he could do against the people's fury. The Revolution rolled over King and Queen, crushing them and their resplendent court, and when it had passed a different type of men and women governed France. Only a few of the old nobility were left, and they had learned their lesson. Lafayette and his wife were of that number. Lover of liberty as he was, these great events could scarcely have surprised him. The people had done much the same as had he when, a boy at Versailles, he rebelled against the selfish court that trod down all opposition with a heel of iron. XI Horatio Nelson The Boy of the Channel Fleet: 1758-1805 It was a dark, rainy autumn afternoon, and the small boy, who was trudging along the post-road that led to the English river town of Chatham, was wet to the skin, and thoroughly tired into the bargain. He was thin and pale, with big-searching eyes, and coal black hair that hung tangled over his forehead. He had been traveling all day, and had had only a roll to eat since early morning. Sometimes he was tempted to stop and ask people he met how far it still was to the town on the Medway, but he overcame the temptation, because he knew that he could reach his destination by six o'clock, and that thinking of the distance still to go would not help him. Occasionally he would stop, fling his arms about his body for warmth, and stamp his feet hard to drive away the chill. But his stops were not frequent, because he was in a hurry to end his journey.