ever, a promise that they should be
guilty of no violence; that the men should not enter the house, and that
the officers, after having made their demands, should accept what might
be put into their hands without scrutiny. These conditions were
punctually obeyed. The greater part of the Selkirk plate was carried off
in triumph by the crew, and Paul Jones was, for a time, stigmatized as a
freebooter; but he nobly vindicated his character, by taking the
earliest opportunity of purchasing the whole of it, out of his own
private funds, and remitting it safe to its original owner, without
accepting the smallest remuneration. National prejudice has
misrepresented this transaction; and in order to excite the popular
indignation against Jones, it has been common to state, that this
attempt on the person, and as it was supposed the property, of Lord
Selkirk, was aggravated by ingratitude, his father having eaten of that
nobleman's bread. Nothing can be more false. Neither Mr. Paul, nor any
of his kindred, ever was in the earl's employ, or had ever the most
distant connection with his lordship or his family; and in a
correspondence which took place between our hero and Lady Selkirk,
relative to the restitution of the plate, a most honorable testimony was
gratefully paid by the latter to the captain's character.

[Illustration; NELSON SAVED BY HIS COXSWAIN.]

ADMIRAL NELSON.

Nelson lost the sight of one eye at the siege of Calvi, by a shot
driving the sand and gravel into it, and he lost his arm by a shot in an
expedition against Teneriffe; but the most dangerous of his exploits
were, boarding the battery at San Bartolomeo, boarding the San Joseph,
the boat action in the Bay of Cadiz, and the famous battles of the Nile
and Trafalgar. Of these, perhaps, the boat action during the blockade of
Cadiz was the most severe. While making an attempt against the Spanish
gunboats, he was attacked by D. Miguel Tregayen, in an armed launch,
carrying twenty-six men; fearful odds against his ten bargemen, captain,
and coxswain. Eighteen Spaniards were killed, the rest wounded, and the
launch captured.

[Illustration: ADMIRAL NELSON.]

The Spaniards were more than two to one, and yet he beat them; but it
was a hard and desperate struggle, hand to hand and blade to blade.
Twice did John Sykes, the coxswain, save Nelson's life, by parrying off
blows that would have destroyed him, and once did he interpose his head
to receive the blow