Sketches From My Life: By The Late Admiral Hobart PashaHobart-Hampden, Augustus Charles
History
Sketches From My Life: By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha
Hobart-Hampden, Augustus Charles
Adventure and adventurers; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Blockades
'There will be some slight and melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing
family, and his many friends, in the knowledge of the fact that Hobart
Pasha, a short time before his death, had prepared for publication a
memoir of his stirring life and adventures. The only fault, if fault
there be, in this record, may lie in the circumstance that its readers
may think it too brief. At all events, we shall be told what Hobart had
been about ever since the year 1836. It is certain that he never was
idle. Even before he had passed his examination for lieutenant, he had
distinguished himself while serving in the squadron told off to suppress
the slave trade in Brazilian waters: and in those days our naval
operations against the Portuguese traders in "blackbirds" involved
considerable peril to life and limb.
'Eighteen years, however, elapsed before Captain Augustus Hobart was
able to shot his guns in view of the broadside of a European foe. He had
previously enjoyed two years' half-holiday at home; that is to say, he
had been appointed, as a reward for his services in South America, to a
lieutenancy on board the Royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert, then
commanded by the late Adolphus Fitz-Clarence. But in the historically
momentous year 1854 there was serious business to be done by
Lieutenant--now Commander--Hobart. A diplomatic squabble between France
and Russia about the Holy Places in Palestine developed into an angry
quarrel between the Emperor Nicholas, France, and England. We went to
war with Russia. A magnificent squadron of British first-rates was
despatched to the Black Sea with the avowed object of destroying the
Russian Fleet, which had characteristically annihilated the Turkish
Fleet in the harbour of Sinope. We did not do much in the Black Sea
beyond running the Tiger on shore, where her crew were captured by the
Muscovites. We bombarded Odessa perfunctorily, and precisely in that
portion of the city where our shot and shell could do the least harm. We
did not destroy the Russian Fleet, for the sufficing reason that the
Russian Commander-in-Chief sank all his three-deckers full fathom five
in the harbour of Sebastopol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account