a time when we are raising the age of entry in the navy to an average of fifteen, which many naval officers think a dangerous mistake, it is worth remarking that Boscawen was nearly fifteen when he entered the service, and that some of our most distinguished officers-Lord Cochrane for one-were much older. In modern times, too, the older age of entry has produced good officers. Sir George Tryon was over sixteen when he joined the navy; and though his biographer1 will not claim for him that he was a great man, as circumstances refused him the crucial test of active command during war, it would be impossible to deny his talent and his unrivalled knowledge of the service to which he devoted his life.

After three years in the Superbe in the West Indies, Boscawen served for three more years on the home station and in the Mediterranean with Sir Charles Wager, and was promoted to be lieutenant on the 25th May, 1732. It is certainly worthy of note that Boscawen, as Hawke, served his full time in the subordinate position, and did not become a lieutenant till he was very near twenty-one. Similarly he was nearly twenty-six when, on the 12th March, 1737, he was promoted by Sir John Norris, then commanding in the Channel, to be captain of the Leopard, a 50-gun ship, which gave him post-rank at once. The admiralty confirmed the commission, and in June 1738 he was appointed to the Shoreham of 20 guns. In June 1739 the Shoreham was sent to the West Indies, and Boscawen was there when war broke out with Spain in that year.

On the 5th November, when Vice-Admiral Vernon

1 Rear-Admiral C. Penrose Fitz-Gerald.

sailed from Port Royal to attack Porto Bello, the Shoreham was refitting; and as his ship would not be ready for sea, Captain Boscawen was allowed to serve on board the flagship as a volunteer. After the capture he was employed, under Captain Knowles of the Diamond, as an engineer, and he assisted in blowing up the forts; a work of much difficulty, as they were very strongly built. In February 1741, being then actually in command of the Shoreham, he was detached by Vernon to look into Port Louis of Hispaniola, with a nominal request for permission for the fleet to wood and water, and really to ascertain what had become. of the French fleet under the Marquis d'Antin. He was able to bring out news that D'Antin, having lost two-thirds of his men by sickness, had been obliged to return to France; and Vernon, thus relieved of all apprehension of French interference, decided to attack Cartagena.

It is not necessary to say much of this unfortunate expedition. The Shoreham's share in it was necessarily insignificant, though Boscawen, by a sort of natural selection, was put in command of a force of 300 sailors and 200 soldiers, to land on the south side of the Boca Chica, and destroy a troublesome battery. And this he did on the night of the 17th March. The fort was taken in the rear, and carried after a short, sharp resistance. The guns were spiked; gun-carriages, platforms, magazines, etc., set on fire, and Boscawen's party returned to their boats having sustained very little loss. little loss. After the failure of the assault on St. Lazar, the sickness which raged among the troops rendered any further attempt impossible. It was decided to re-embark the men and withdraw; but before leaving, the forts, castle, and batteries which had been captured

were destroyed; and in this service, Boscawen, who had succeeded to the command of the Prince Frederick, was again employed under Knowles. In May 1742 the Prince Frederick returned to England; and in the following month Boscawen was appointed to the Dreadnought of

60 guns.

There is no doubt that Boscawen's rapid promotion was due, to some extent, to family interest; but he owed much to his distinguished gallantry and professional qualifications. It is easy to disparage the quality of "rough courage," to use Horace Walpole's expression when referring to Boscawen; but it will be admitted to be a necessity for a naval or military officer; and though it is a pleasing fancy in these piping times of peace to assume that all Englishmen, at least, have this essential, it is certain that when serious fighting is to be done, it has been found that some, who had high reputations as good officers, have not escaped the imputation of "shyness" or "misconduct,” the naval euphemisms for cowardice. In the wars in which Boscawen was engaged, no less than four flag officers were suspected of having failed in personal courage; and Marryat, who saw much active service during the Napoleonic war, has, in Peter Simple, drawn-probably from life -the portrait of one captain as a rank coward. Courage such as that undoubtedly possessed by Boscawen, is accordingly a high quality, and one not so common as is generally assumed.

The position of responsibility to which Boscawen had now attained, makes it advisable to recur, for a moment, to the state of the navy at the time of the attack on Cartagena, though it is unnecessary to repeat what I have already said

in the previous chapter. During the long peace, the reduced state of the navy had slackened the bonds of discipline, and lack of supervision had allowed the most abominable corruption to establish itself in the dockyards and storehouses. This affected all departments of supply, and especially the victualling department. We have seen how often Hawke had to complain of the quality of the provisions; and I have quoted Smollett's vigorous description of those issued to the seamen in the West Indies; but as this may be thought to be written with the licence of a novelist, I will refer to a pamphlet published in 1757, under the title of The Royal NavyMen's Advocate, in which "the persons who have been concerned in victualling the royal navy" are charged with offences of which "no man who is not hackneyed in the vilest practices, and become callous by habitual villainy can read without astonishment and indignation." 1 One William Thompson, a cooper in the victualling yard, whose testimony seems to have been uncontradicted, though he was got rid of on a frivolous pretext,2 states that the casks are frequently filthy and putrid, the meat that of animals that had died, and the brine "stinking "; with similar details of neglect and swindling on the part of contractors. The dry stores were no better. One Lloyd, late

1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1757, p. 114.

2 [In April 1745 Thompson (who is described as a man of some education, the son of a clergyman) was appointed 'Foreman of the Pickle Yard Coopers.' His complaints to the superintendent began in June, and in the following January he was discharged. The victualling board reported that he was incompetent; but the correspondence as published in the pamphlet referred to, and in others which followed it, makes it pretty clear that the true reason was his unseasonable and inconvenient revelations.]

Inspector of Dry Stores at the Victualling Yard in London, states that "meal, flour, groats and other stores" which he had rejected as "foul and unwholesome," were frequently "barrelled up and sent away" for issue to the ships.1

I need not dwell upon these mal-practices, but it is important that the difficulties, with which men like Hawke and Boscawen had to contend, should be appreciated, and that it should be realized that they could not rely on the departments whose duty it was to supply the stores and provisions. It should be remembered that these departments were full of abuses, and that jobbery was rampant; while they were so independent of the admiralty that the latter often complained of them with but little result.

I must now return to Boscawen. He served in the Dreadnought under Sir John Norris and Sir Charles Hardy in 1743-44; and on the 27th April in the latter year he chased and captured the French frigate Médée of 26 guns and 240 men, the first capture made during the war with France. This ship was found to be too weak for the navy, but she did good service as a privateer, under the name of Boscawen. In 1744 Boscawen commanded the Royal Sovereign, guard-ship at the Nore, and in the following year he was mainly employed in the important though

1

1 [There is no doubt that the supply departments at this time were extremely bad, perhaps at their worst; but similar disgusting offences have been reported at much later dates-notably in the parliamentary inquiry of 1784-whenever supervision has been relaxed. It can never be forgotten that the loss of the Franklin Arctic expedition may be in great measure attributed to the wholesale fraud of a "respectable" firm of contractors, who supplied filth unutterable—uncleaned paunches and other offal-in place of "preserved meat." Cf. Richardson's Polar Regions, p. 163, where, however, the disgusting nature of the contents of the tins is scarcely hinted at.]