consternation was followed by despair, and despair aggravated the
catastrophe with tenfold horrors.

It is not to be concealed, that occasional instances of
insubordination and pusillanimity have occurred in the British navy.
Some such appear in this narrative, and they invariably have produced
their own punishment, by leading always to disaster, and often to
death; and they serve as beacons to point out the fatal consequences
of misconduct, under circumstances either of drunkenness,
disobedience, panic, selfishness, or confusion.

The selfish cowardice, noticed in page 94, on the part of the men in
charge of the jolly-boat of the Athenienne, and of some of the crew of
the launch of the Boreas, (see p. 136,) and the tumult, intoxication,
and desertion of the majority of the crew of the Penelope, which were
followed by the prolonged sufferings and painful deaths of the
culprits, (see pp. 200-204,) are but a few dark spots in the
shipwrecks of the Royal Navy, to set off by contrast the many bright
pages, which describe innumerable traits of character that do honour
to human nature.

As a direction to some of these noble traits, every one of which will
make the reader warm to the name of a British sailor: and, if he be
one himself, will bring the blood from his heart to his face in a glow
of emulation and honest pride,--I ask him to turn for examples of
perfect discipline to pages 13, 23, 63, 70, 71, 75, 110, 173, 188,
194, 216, 223, 229, 231, 268, 269, 278, 279, 280. Here he will behold
the portraits of men on the brink of destruction, steady, 'as if they
were moving from one ship to another in any of the Queen's ports,' and
unmoved by images of death under the most appalling forms; and he will