e of the foregoing facts
have insinuated themselves into this fiction.

THE TWO ADMIRALS

CHAPTER I.

"Then, if he were my brother's.
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refuse him: This concludes--
My mother's son did get your father's heir;
Your father's heir must have your father's land."

KING JOHN.

The events we are about to relate, occurred near the middle of the last
century, previously even to that struggle, which it is the fashion of
America to call "the old French War." The opening scene of our tale,
however, must be sought in the other hemisphere, and on the coast of the
mother country. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the American
colonies were models of loyalty; the very war, to which there has just
been allusion, causing the great expenditure that induced the ministry
to have recourse to the system of taxation, which terminated in the
revolution. The family quarrel had not yet commenced. Intensely occupied
with the conflict, which terminated not more gloriously for the British
arms, than advantageously for the British American possessions, the
inhabitants of the provinces were perhaps never better disposed to the
metropolitan state, than at the very period of which we are about to
write. All their early predilections seemed to be gaining strength,
instead of becoming weaker; and, as in nature, the calm is known to
succeed the tempest, the blind attachment of the colony to the parent
country, was but a precursor of the alienation and violent disunion that
were so soon to follow.

Although the superiority of the English seamen was well established, in
the conflicts that took place between the years 1740, and that of 1763,
the naval warfare of the period by no means possessed the very decided
character with which it became stamped, a quarter of a century later. In
our own times, the British marine appears to have improved in quality,
as its enemies, deteriorated. In the year 1812, however, "Greek met
Greek," when, of a verity, came "the tug of war." The great change that
came over the other navies of Europe, was merely a consequence of the
revolutions, which drove experienced men into exile, and which, by
rendering armies all-important even to the existence of the different
states, threw nautical enterprises into the shade, and gave an
engrossing direction to courage and talent, in another quarter. Whil