to institute press-gangs. I should imagine that he was often
amazed that men did not join in droves. But had he gone to the right
source for information he would soon have become disillusioned. These
gangs of ruffians preferred seamen as their prey, but they did not
discriminate very much. If they could not get a sailor they took
whatever came to hand--the bigger the better. And so, while on one of
their prowling expeditions, it came to pass that a gentleman called
Willie Carr was seized, and at the point of the bayonet or musket made
to embark aboard their boat. This person was a ship's blacksmith. His
strength was abnormal, and his feats of swimming were a marvel. He was
known to fame as the Hartley giant. Tradition has it that they put
Willie in the bow of the boat, and after they had got a little way on
their journey he asked them if they could all swim. This question
excited great laughter; but the giant coolly placed his hands on each
of the gunwales of the boat, set his knees in position, called out,
"then sink or swim, you B----," and with one mighty wrench he severed
both sides of planking from the stem. Willie swam ashore, and how many
of the men were said to be drowned I do not remember, though I have
given the main facts as I heard them scores of times in my boyhood
days. This story is told by Mr Soulsby in his excellent little history
of Blyth.

Their military champions were: the great Emperor of the French ("Bonny"
as they familiarly called him). Next came "the martyr" Ney, and then
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and the Prussian General,
Bluecher. The relative merits of these great men were discussed
sometimes with foaming partiality. Napoleon and Ney were their
favourites. Their wrath against the allied Powers was unappeasable. How
often have I heard them thunder out that Bonny would have wiped
Wellington and his myrmidons off the field but for the treachery of
Fouche, Talleyrand, and his own generals (Fouche in particular).
Wellington's prayer for "night or Bluecher" was always used in
mitigation of what might be called an unpatriotic opinion. I have
listened to the diatribes of these rugged critics who claimed for their
hero that he imbued his soldiers with a high sense of honour in
contrast to our barbarous disciplinary methods of flogging. The image
of the great man, and the part Wellington played in having him banished
to St Helena, never faded from their memories. They believed the Iron
Duk