ADMIRAL BENBOW.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,"] Sut,—In your note on the launch of the Benbow,' you remark : —" Of Admiral Benbow, after whom it was named, it appears to be only known that he was devoted to all the old traditions of the service," &c. It is, of course, notorious that Englishmen know nothing and care nothing about their Navy and its history; but still I should have thought that such well-informed persons as Lord Northbrook and the Editor of the Spectator would have been familiar with some at least of the many anecdotes current about "honest John Benbow," bluntest and bravest of old salts. How on one memorable occasion, recorded by Macaulay, he drew a pun from William of Orange; how he pickled the heads of the Sallee rovers, whom he slew in fierce fight off the Barbary coast ; how he startled the Spanish Magistrates by his dramatic exhibition of those grisly trophies ; how he went to the Court of Madrid, and was lionised by King and courtiers ; how he fought the French Admiral Du Casse for four days, engaging the whole of the enemy's fleet single-handed on the last day ; how, though both his legs were shattered by a chain-shot, he refused to leave the quarter-deck, but fought his ship all through the summer's night till the Frenchmen sheered off in the morning—a deed of valour worthy to rank side by side with Sir Richard Grenville's last fight in the `Revenge: All these and many other stirring incidents in the
brilliant career of John Benbow may be found fully recorded in any and every sketch of British naval history ; and yet it is of such a splendid seaman as this that one sees it stated "it is only known of him that he was devoted to all the old traditions of the service." Does any other nation under the sun forget her heroes so soon and so completely as she that claims to be the Empress of the Sea ?—I am, Sir, &c., Temple, Tune 20th, 1885. Winton DIXON.
[Of course, what we meant, and, we suppose, what Lord Northbrook meant, was that, as a naval administrator, much was not known of Admiral Benbow, except as regards his attachment to the old traditions of the service.—En. Spectator.] With silver hawthorn vernal yet and sweet ; The cuckoo's cry the echoing vales repeat, The sand-rose stars the shore, the ferns unfold Their curled stems, and in cool mantles stoled The woods repose beneath the noontide heat,— I love this land of Gower; but more to climb Her cliffs deep-rooted in the cruel reef Girt with the rondure of the smiling sea ; Or from some mighty headland's height sublime, The guardian Worm behold, with full belief, In sunset ocean sleeping tranquilly. HERBERT NEW.
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