* * * * * There Shovel unamaz’d, by nature Brave, Spreading his Arms embrac’d a briny Wave, And where he had reign’d with Honour, made his grave. * * * * * A Man, till now, that e’er was fortunate Precisely Good and regularly Great: * * * * * The Nations Trust, and Sailor’s joy he prov’d And still where e’re [he] came he was belov’d; None ever fought her Cause with more success, None e’re did more--or ever boasted less; His early valour did proclaim his Worth And help’d to set the growing Hero forth; At Bantree, Beachy and at Malaga The French too well his dauntless Conduct saw; There you might see the Brittish glory shine, And Shovel break th’ Impenetrable Line.’ A third disaster, the loss of the Edgar, seventy-gun ship, which blew up at Spithead on October 15, 1711 (Clowes iii. 529) is the subject of a dialogue in verse of which a copy is preserved amongst Douce’s collections in the Bodleian Library. It is reprinted at p. 160. Another incident of an entirely different character requires mention--that is, the execution of the traitor Captain Thomas Smith in 1708. Smith had been dismissed from his command and fined six months’ pay in September 1703 for corruption, drunkenness and other crimes. In 1707 he entered the French service, and apparently acted as pilot to the squadron of French galleys which captured the Nightingale frigate off Harwich on August 24, 1707, after the very gallant fight which is described in the _Memoirs of Jacques de Marteilhe_ (ed. by H. Paumier, 1865, p. 169). Smith was given command of the captured ship, but was taken during his first cruise by Captain Nicholas Haddock in the Ludlow Castle. He was then tried at the Old Bailey on June 2, 1708, found guilty of bearing arms against his country, and executed on June 18, 1708 (see the lives of Thomas Smith and Seth Jermy in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and an article on _The Captains of the Nightingale_ in the _English Historical Review_ for January 1889). _The Last Farewell of Captain Smith_ (p. 154) purports to be his dying speech.