Page:Notes and Queries - Series 7 - Volume 5.djvu/138

 garrison and two regiments of local militia were soon under arms; but in the mean time the governor, Corbet, had been seized by the French and forced to sign a capitulation. The troops and the islanders determined on resistance, and the governor being no longer a free agent, the command devolved on Major Peirson, of the 95th, who was stationed in Elizabeth Castle, a fortress situated on a small island opposite the town. He sent detachments to take possession of the heights commanding the spot where the French were assembled. The English force then advanced on the town, and Capt. Lumsden, of the 78th, proceeded with a field-piece through the High Street towards the square where the French had taken up a position. The French had seized on the Town Arsenal and placed the cannon they had found there in such a position as to command all the streets opening into the square. Capt. Lumsden and his men received the first fire. In the mean time other troops had come up, and the fighting became very severe. Major Peirson was one of the first to fall, and the French general was also killed, upon which the French surrendered as prisoners of war. Seventy-eight of them were killed and seventy-four wounded. The loss on the English side was eleven of the regular troops killed and seventy-four wounded. Of the islanders, twelve of the militia were killed and thirty-five wounded. Of the eleven regulars killed, seven perished in retaking the battery at La Roque.

In my father’s ‘Gossiping Guide to Jersey,’ a whole chapter (iii.) is given to the battle of Jersey. The 78th Highlanders were certainly engaged in it; they were quartered at the General Hospital, and on hearing of the landing of the French marched to Gallows Hill. There a general rendezvous was held; part of the 78th was sent to secure the Town Hill, and three companies, under Capt. Lumsden, attacked St. Helier’s itself through Broad Street, ably seconding Major Peirson in the defeat of the French. De Rullecourt, the French commander, was mortally wounded by a man of the 78th.

The London Gazette of Jan. 16, 1781, gives full particulars of the attack referred to. The 78th Regiment was certainly engaged in repelling it, for the return of killed and wounded states that its Light Company had one rank and file killed and three wounded, and the Battalion Company two killed and twelve wounded.

(7 S. iv. 428; v. 49).—The term “man,” as applied to a ship, is much older than your correspondent seems to think. It is used familiarly in the ‘Paston Letters,’ e.g., March 8, 1473: “A few Frenchmen be whyrlyng on the coasts, so that there no fishers go out.” May 13, 1488: “They had nott seylyd not paste vj leges butt they aspied a Frencheman, and the Frencheman made over to them......and soe toke the Frenchman and caryed the men, schyppye and all in to Breaten.” Or yet again, July 31 (?), 1491: “Richard Calle toke certeyne men of werre robbyng upon the coste” (Gairdner’s edition, iii. 81, 344, 369). If still older examples are not to be found, I should attribute it to a defective literature rather than to the then novelty of the usage. What seems to me more curious is the use which a sailor would make of the feminine pronoun to a man, whether man-of-war or merchantman; but nautically a ship, under whatever name, is “she.”

Is not the origin of the words “man-of-war” and “merchantman” to be sought in the unconscious animism that pervades common people’s mind and language? Uneducated men do often, like children, animate inanimate beings, and speak of things as if they were persons. The metaphor comes out of this root, and may be considered as a cultivated flower that throws into the shade its wild-growing congener.

“Man-of-war” is probably a word coined by blue-jackets, not by scholars. This is the starting-point which is to be kept in sight. It was invented by the same man who said “she” of a ship; and this last way of speaking has been admitted into the literary language. By the same animistic bias of the popular mind, “she” is said of the engine, at least on railway lines, for I do not know if it has also become literary.

Your correspondent the, refers to Smollett for the use of this term in 1760, and asks for examples of any earlier instances of its official use. In order to narrow the question, I wish to say that Pepys, in his ‘Memoires relating to the state of the Royal Navy,’ 1690, never uses the term, but calls H.M. Ships, always Ships (or Vessels) of War. The expression men-of-war, therefore, if it came into official use before 1760, certainly was introduced later than 1690.

(7 S. v. 3, 43).—It is quite a treat to read  calm, philosophic note on the errors of his work—national, I was going to say, but that is only what it ought to be. The nation that can spend millions in blowing up shot-proof ships does not subsidize books. Many editors would have waxed wroth and hit out all round. method shows how much at heart he has the success of his great work. This is only preliminary. The object of this note is to suggest to him, in reply, that we are obliged to