Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/396

 322 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2S.ix.o OT .22 f 1021. repeatedly urge Wentworth to exert- on and pointed out the danger of delay, it was always in language of scrupu- lous courtesy." Nevertheless, it is too large an order to dismiss all rumours of the lower decks or the subsequent gossip in London Port (a place especially con- cerned not only as furnishing recruits of both arms, but also the fearful junk and the foisonous medicinal drugs and alcoholics). t suffices to know that the remonstrances of the Admiral, civil or otherwise, were overruled by the Council of War composed of land officers only ; and it was determined to relinquish the enterprise. Still remon- strating, Vernon saw the army re-embarking, and so the fleet returned to Jamaica. The Ministry at home took courage to rid them- selves of responsibility for the deep popular disappointment (for " another Porto Bello " had been too confidently anticipated, and, indeed, had been partially celebrated). Both Admiral and General were recalled home from the Jamaica headquarters, and in December of the same year Vernon took passage for England and was soon after followed by Wentworth and his surviving, half -trained, ill-disciplined and ill-fed levies of the Port. Vernon remained unemployed until the year 1745 (although the sop of Vice -Admiralty of the Red was thrown at him). Then suddenly, in consequence of the imminent invasion of Scotland in favour of the Pre- tender, he was promoted to be Admiral of the White, and appointed to command the fleet ordered to be equipped for the North Sea. This period of his command, it is agreed by the textbooks of the Founda- tion and other best schools a hundred years ago, " was the most interesting of his whole life ; and no man could have been more successful in that particular service to which the necessities of his country called him." The boys of 1820-1830 were told, even in the common schools of the Church and Dissent in the Port of London, that the prudent disposition of Admiral Vernon's cruisers totally prevented the introduction of any rebel or enemy succour, and the ferment as well as fear of that part of the Nation furthest removed from the scene of action was considerably allayed by the firm confidence of all ranks of people placed in the circumspection and diligence of this very popular Commander. The sorry sequel is thus explained in the accepted textbooks of a century ago and even a generation later. During a consider- able part of the uninteresting thirty years of British naval history which followed the Peace of Utrecht, Captain Vernon served as representative in Parliament for Ipswich, lear which he possessed considerable landed property. Being a man of strong natural abilities, and possessed of a fluent and strong, though coarse md sometimes improper, mode of delivering lis sentiments, he was considered by Ministers o whom he was constantly in Opposition at east as one of their most disagreeable antagonists. Being politicians, it was natural, therefore, for them to seize, with avidity, the earliest opportunity of removing him, by any means, "roni their immediate presence. He had a natural impetuosity in argument, not to be restrained by prudence, so that he was not infrequently betrayed into assertions men of greater deliberation would have hesitated to make. In one of those paroxysms of oratory, after arraigning most bitterly the torpid measures of Administration, he proceeded, in very strong terms, to insist on the facility with which the most valuable and formidable of the Spanish possessions in the West Indies might be reduced under the dominion of Britain. In particular, he asserted, not only that the town of Porto Bello might be reduced by a force not exceeding six ships of the Line, but that he himself was actually ready to hazard his life and reputation by undertaking such an enterprise which he would answer with toth should terminate with success. With the hope that Vernon might disgrace himself and his Party in Opposition, the Administration instantly closed with this hasty and perhaps not quite serious opinion. On July 9, 1739, Vernon was advanced to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Blue and appointed Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's ships in the West Indies. To the astonishment of the Administration the conquest of Porto Bello was effected, and the loss sustained did not exceed twenty men in killed and wounded of which three were killed and five wounded on board Vernon's own. ship, the Burford, seventy guns. The students' annalists stiy the news of this success was received in England with a degree of ecstasy scarcely to be described. Mothers even taught their children to lisp out the name of Vernon (as their fathers doubtless stuttered it and mispronounced it in suddenly re-named Inns and Taverns !) as a hero whose deeds stood far beyond all competition ; and thus by one single action Vernon acquired a universal popularity which other men, not so fortunate, have in vain offered the less dazzling, - but not less valuable action of a long arid well- spent life, without being able to obtain. Entick, the Stepney Curate -in- Charge (notable in other of his books for the intimate knowledge he reveals of the operations of