The second was, never to allow ourselves to
be unjustly defrauded of our rights; to have an equal share of what we
paid equally for; and to gain by artifice that which was withheld by
force.
I explained to them that by the first plan we should ensure civility,
at least; for as tyrants are generally cowards, they would be afraid
to provoke that anger which in some unlucky moment might be fatal to
them, or maim them for life. By the second, I promised to procure them
an equal share in the good things of this life, the greater part of
which the oldsters engrossed to themselves: in this latter we were
much more unanimous than the former, as it incurred less personal
risk. I was the projector of all the schemes for forage, and was
generally successful.
At length we sailed to join the fleet off Cadiz, under the command of
Lord Nelson. I shall not pretend to describe the passage down Channel
and across the Bay of Biscay. I was sea-sick as a lady in a Dover
packet, until inured to the motion of the ship by the merciless calls
to my duties aloft, or to relieve the deck in my watch.
We reached our station, and joined the immortal Nelson but a few hours
before that battle in which he lost his life and saved his country.
The history of that important day has been so often and so
circumstantially related, that I cannot add much more to the stock
on hand. I am only astonished, seeing the confusion and _invariable
variableness_ of a sea-light, how so much could be known.
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