y indeed, and it would be obviously inconvenient to
have the boat swamped, and her crew all drowned. The boat-builder
having mastered the conditions, felt certain that he could turn out the
craft required, which my father proposed to stroke himself.

When we returned to Cannes in 1866, the completed boat was sent out by
sea, and we saw her released from her casing with immense interest. She
was christened in due form, with a bottle of champagne, by our first
cousin, the venerable Lady de Ros, and named the Abercorn. Lady de Ros
was a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and had been present at the
famous ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo in 1815; a ball given by
her father in honour of her youngest sister.

The crew then went into serious training. Bow was Sir David Erskine,
for many years Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons; No. 2, my
brother-in-law, Lord Mount Edgcumbe; No. 3, General Sir George
Higginson, with my father as stroke. Lord Elphinstone, who had been in
the Navy early in life, officiated as coxswain. But my father was then
fifty-five years old, and he soon found out that his heart was no
longer equal to the strain to which so long and so very arduous a
course (three miles), in rough water, would subject it. As soon as he
realised that his age might militate against the chance of his crew
winning, he resigned his place in the boat in favour of Sir George
Higginson, who was replaced as No. 3 by Mr. Meysey-Clive. My father
took Lord Elphinstone's place as coxswain, but here, again, his weight
told against him. He was over six feet high and proportionately broad,
and he brought the boat's stern too low down in the water, so Lord
Elphinstone was re-installed, and my father most reluctantly had to
content himself with the role of a spectator, in view of his age. The
crew dieted strictly, ran in the mornings, and went to bed early. They
were none of them in their first youth, for Sir George Higginson was
then forty; Sir David Erskine was twenty-eight; my brother-in-law, Lord
Mount Edgcumbe, thirty-four; and Lord Elphinstone thirty-eight.

The great day of the race arrived. We met with one signal piece of
ill-luck. Our No. 3, Mr. Meysey-Clive, had gone on board the French
flagship, and was unable to get ashore again in time, so at the very
last minute a young Oxford rowing-man, the late Mr. Philip Green,
volunteered to replace him, though he was not then in training. The
French men-of-war produced huge t