Page:The history of yachting.djvu/391

 'That the captains of this club, who have boats, and shall not attend properly for the future, by sending their boats (unless they can show very good cause), shall for every such offence, forfeit one English crown towards buying gunpowder for the use of the fleet, which the secretary is hereby ordered to levy, and lay out for the said use.' And in No. 1 of the Sailing Orders we have, 'The fleet shall rendezvous at Spithead on clubdays, by the first quarter ebb; and a boat not being in sight by the time the Admiral is abreast of the castle in Spike Island, to forfeit a British halfcrown for gunpowder for the fleet.' Verily we think these two rules might, with a less warlike appropriation of the fines, be applied to advantage to many of our modern clubs. We fear much that the admirals would be heavy sufferers in more instances than one. The sailing orders contain very many more stringent and admirable regulations under which, together with the general rules, the Water Club of Cork Harbor, and its gallant little fleet, appears to have flourished and progressed amazingly up to the year 1765; but from this year, we are at fault, for the transactions of the club' do not appear to have been at all recorded, or, if they were, the records have disappeared; at all events it is quite conclusive that the club had so far declined, or, in fact, ceased to exist for the time."

So the old Water Club of Cork, as we have known it, passed out of existence; the castle, fleet, admirals, captains, knight of the island, flags, guns,