Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/46

 General Perronet Thompson's father was averse to his eldest son's entering the Naval Service, and he made it a condition of his giving his consent that his son should first make a voyage in one of his ships from Hull to the Mediterranean. The youth accordingly made a voyage in a certain brig, which from the General's not unfrequently alluding to his first voyage in that brig was called by some of his children "the celebrated brig." The General's life had been a most adventurous one, and like the old Hetman of the Ukraine he might sometimes "track his seventy years of memory back." In regard to the "celebrated brig," one story I remember was that in the Adriatic they were on the point of being attacked by a pirate and had made the best preparations they could for resistance when something occurred—probably the appearance of an English ship of war—which made the pirates retreat.

I may add that if he, like other men after a life not only long but adventurous, had many memories of the past which he was apt to recall to himself and others, he told his stories or anecdotes with clearness, conciseness and point. One anecdote I will attempt to give from memory in the General's own words, the rather that a