“These men entirely overturned the whole discipline and constitutional temperament of the navy. An honest zeal was changed for gloomy discontent: grievances were magnified into oppressions, and the man who had cheerfully executed his subordinate duties, in what he as yet considered his proper sphere, now aimed at an equality with, or superiority to, his own respected superiors. Thus arose the mutiny.” “After the mutiny, numbers of the Irish were sent to foreign stations, as a punishment, and disseminated the same spirit.” The poor Irish! They have for many generations fought the battles of the English, and of several other nations, but their case seems more unsettled than before. Without a permanent contingent from Irish recruits England would be badly off. To continue with our quotation, “Patrick Little, who was Secretary to Parker, the leader of the mutiny of the Nore, had been an attorney in Dublin. He was sent to the West Indies, and, in a few months, was accused of fostering mutiny there. He was not convicted of the full offence charged, but was sent to receive six hundred lashes, did receive two hundred and fifty, and is said to have died, soon after, of the ‘prevailing fever.’ “The ships in the Mediterranean in 1797-’98-’99, were so short of men that foreigners of all descriptions were received; and I have often heard it stated that the fleet could not have gone to sea at times, if a certain commissioner at Lisbon, about that period, had not assumed the post of head of Police in that Metropolis, and made, occasionally, clean sweep of all individuals on the quays and adjacent streets, who were sent indiscriminately on board the British fleet; from whence none returned who were serviceable.” This British Admiral proceeds to quote, “if the battle of the Nile had not been fought under the directing skill of such a chief, and under _all the effects of surprise_, I have heard Sir Thomas Louis declare that the result might have been very different. As it was, the defence was much more obstinate than is generally imagined, and much more protracted.” (In America we have been used to read English accounts of the battles of those days, because they were written in our own language.) He goes on to say, “I have understood it was certainly not the superiority of the crews which prevailed. The Vanguard was wretchedly manned; and but for the assistance of the Minotaur, which I saw acknowledged in Lord Nelson’s handwriting, her fate would have been precarious.” These remarks are from high English cotemporary authority, we must remember.