The _Thunderer_ was sent to blow up a vessel which had {151} capsized and which was floating in the Channel, a danger to mariners. Explosives attached to her side tore pieces out of her, but the wreck continued to float. In these cases it is necessary to disintegrate the vessel, whether sunk or floating, into fragments. I suggested that the hull should be girdled with an iron hoop to which explosives were attached at intervals, and the device was successful. The explosion cut her into holes like the perforations of a sheet of postage stamps and she broke up. The _Thunderer_ was lying off Queenstown, and I was watching a cutter which was running out of the harbour. On the deck was a group of Irish farmers. The cutter suddenly gybed, the boom knocking down the farmers. Getting up, they instantly fell upon one another with sticks; and they were hard at it when over came the boom again, and again felled them all to the deck. It could be they had had a drop of liquor taken, which confused their intellects. In the year 1878 I married Miss Jeromina Gardner, daughter of the late Richard Gardner, M.P. for Leicester, and of Lucy Countess Mandelsloh, whose father, Count Mandelsloh, was for some years Minister in London, representing Würtemberg. Shortly afterwards I was appointed to command the royal yacht _Osborne_. The _Osborne_ was used by the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII). In those days she was not kept in commission for more than a few months in each year. Several cruises were made to Denmark, and there were many shooting expeditions. On one such occasion I was the only person present who was not either a king actual or a king prospective. There were the King of Denmark, the King of Norway and Sweden, and the King of Greece, the Prince of Wales, the Cesarewitch, the Crown Princes of Denmark, of Norway and Sweden, and of Greece. We shot foxes, hares, deer, and anything that came along; and I was laughed at when my instincts forbade me to shoot a fox. {152} Upon a return voyage, when all the Royal children were on board, a gale sprang up just off the Skaw. The starboard paddle-wheel was smashed upon some wreckage; and the next thing I saw was a small craft being driven on a lee shore. The _Osborne_ dropped anchor, in order both that the paddle-wheel should be repaired and that the crew of the driving vessel might be assisted. The only way to rescue them was to veer a boat astern with a hawser. Just as the arrangement was ready, to my delight I perceived the crew--there were four--embarking in their own boats. They reached the shore in safety, but their ship was wrecked.