Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/250



T was a British admiral, Sir Lewis Bayly, who told the officers of the American destroyers operating out of Queenstown, "To work with you is a pleasure, to know you is to know the best traits of the Anglo-Saxon race." In the same spirit it is generous to recall the enduring traditions of the English Navy, which were welded through many centuries of courageous conflict with the sea and the enemy. The wooden frigates and the towering ships of the line gave place to the steel-walled cruiser and the grim, squat dreadnought, but for the men behind the guns the salty lineage was unbroken. As Beatty and his squadrons kept watch and ward in the misty Orkneys, so had Nelson maintained his uneasy vigil off Toulon. 212