The Looe Diehards (seventy men and two uniforms) wore dark blue coats and pantaloons, with red facings, yellow wings and tassels, and white waistcoats. Would you know by what feat they earned their name? Listen. I quote the very words of their commander, Captain Bond, who survived to write a _History of Looe_--and a sound book it is. "The East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery was established in 1803, and kept in pay from Government for six years. Not a single man of the company died during the six years, which is certainly very remarkable." But, when you come to think of it, what an even more remarkable boast for a body of warriors! We of Troy (180 men and two uniforms) laughed at this claim. Say what you will, there is no dash about longevity, or very little. For uniform we wore dark-blue coats and pantaloons, with white wings and facings, edged and tasselled with gilt, and scarlet waistcoats, also braided with gilt. We wanted no new name, we! Ours was an inherited one, derived from days when, under Warwick the King-maker, Lord High Admiral of England, we had swept the Channel, summoned the men of Rye and Winchelsea to vail their bonnets--to take in sail, mark you: no trumpery dipping of a flag would satisfy us--and when they stiff-neckedly refused, had silenced the one town and carried off the other's chain to hang across our harbour from blockhouse to blockhouse. Also, was it not a gallant of Troy that assailed and carried the great French pirate, Jean Doree, and clapped him under his own hatches? "The roaring cannons then were plied, And dub-a-dub went the drum-a; The braying trumpets loud they cried To courage both all and some-a." "The grappling-hooks were brought at length, The brown bill and the sword-a; John Dory at length, for all his strength, Was clapt fast under board-a." That was why we wore our uniforms embroidered with gold (_dores_). The Frenchmen, if they came, would understand the taunt. But most of all we were proud of Solomon Hymen, our Major and our Mayor of Troy. I can see him now as he addressed us on the evening of our first drill, standing beside the two long nineteen-pounders on the Old Fort; erect, with a hand upon his ivory sword-hilt, his knops and epaulettes flashing against the level sun. I can see his very gesture as he enjoined silence on the band; for we had a band, and it was playing "Come, Cheer Up, My Lads!" As though we weren't cheerful enough already!