and help an old friend with
knowledge that is useful to him.--I should be afraid to do a dashing
thing, unless I felt the certainty of having you in my van, to strike
the first blow; or in my rear, to bring me off, handsomely.

"You would be afraid of nothing, Gervaise Oakes, whether I stood at your
elbow, or were off in Scotland. Fear is not your failing, though
temerity may be."

"Then I want your presence to keep me within the bounds of reason," said
Sir Gervaise, stopping short in his walk, and looking his friend
smilingly in the face. "In some mode, or other, I always need your aid."

"I understand the meaning of your words, Sir Gervaise, and appreciate
the feeling that dictates them. You must have a perfect conviction that
I will do nothing hastily, and that I will betray no trust. When I turn
my back on King George, it will be loyalty, in one sense, whatever he
may think of it in another; and when I join Prince Charles Edward, it
will be with a conscience that he need not be ashamed to probe. What
names he bears! They are the designations of ancient English sovereigns,
and ought of themselves, to awaken the sensibilities of Englishmen."

"Ay, Charles in particular," returned the vice-admiral, with something
like a sneer. "There's the second Charles, for instance--St. Charles, as
our good host, Sir Wycherly, might call him--he is a pattern prince for
Englishmen to admire. Then his father was of the school of the
Star-Chamber martyrs!"

"Both were lineal descendants of the Conqueror, and of the Saxon
princes; and both united the double titles to the throne, in their
sacred persons. I have always considered Charles II. as the victim of
the rebellious conduct of his subjects, rather than vicious. He was
driven abroad into a most corrupt state of society, and was perverted by
our wickedness. As to the father, he was the real St. Charles, and a
martyred saint he was; dying for true religion, as well as for his legal
rights. Then the Edwards--glorious fellows!--remember that they were all
but one Plantagenets; a name, of itself, to rouse an Englishman's fire!"

"And yet the only difference between the right of these very
Plantagenets to the throne, and that of the reigning prince, is, that
one produced a revolution by the strong hand, and the other was produced
by a revolution that came from the nation. I do not know that your
Plantagenets ever did any thing for a navy; the only real source of
England's power and