s superior, the latter
had disappeared.

CHAPTER XX.

"Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed."

SHAKESPEARE.

The reader will remember that the wind had not become fresh when Sir
Gervaise Oakes got into his barge, with the intention of carrying his
fleet to sea. A retrospective glance at the state of the weather, will
become necessary to the reader, therefore, in carrying his mind back to
that precise period whither it has now become our duty to transport him
in imagination.

The vice-admiral governed a fleet on principles very different from
those of Bluewater. While the last left so much to the commanders of the
different vessels, his friend looked into every thing himself. The
details of the service he knew were indispensable to success on a larger
scale, and his active mind descended into all these minutiae, to a degree
sometimes, that annoyed his captains. On the whole, however, he was
sufficiently observant of that formidable barrier to excessive
familiarity, and that great promoter of heart-burnings in a squadron,
naval etiquette, to prevent any thing like serious misunderstandings,
and the best feelings prevailed between him and the several magnates
under his orders. Perhaps the circumstance that he was a _fighting_
admiral contributed to this internal tranquillity; for, it has been
often remarked, that armies and fleets will both tolerate more in
leaders that give them plenty to do with the enemy, than in commanders
who leave them inactive and less exposed. The constant encounters with
the foe would seem to let out all the superfluous quarrelsome
tendencies. Nelson, to a certain extent, was an example of this
influence in the English marine, Suffren[1] in that of France, and
Preble, to a much greater degree than in either of the other cases, in
our own. At all events, while most of his captains sensibly felt
themselves less of commanders, while Sir Gervaise was on board or around
their ships, than when he was in the cabin of the Plantagenet, the peace
was rarely broken between them, and he was generally beloved as well as
obeyed. Bluewater was a more invariable favourite, perhaps, though
scarcely as much respected; and certainly not half as much feared.

[Footnote 1: Suffren, though one of the best sea-captains France ever
possessed, was