constitute the substantial excellence of the national character; and
the shipwrecks of the Royal Navy illustrate this national character
even more than the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar. The perils of
a shipwreck are so much beyond those of a battle, that the loss of
life, when the St. George, the Defence, and the Hero, were wrecked in
the North Seas, in 1811, was far greater than that on the part of the
English in any naval action of late years. In order to place the
qualities of obedience and endurance--so characteristic of the British
seaman--in the strongest light, and to show by contrast that the
possession of them is the greatest security in danger, whilst the want
of them ensures destruction, I commend the following statement to the
attention of all who shall read this volume.

In the year 1816 two stately vessels were sailing on the ocean, in all
the pride of perfect equipment and of glorious enterprise. The one was
an English frigate, the Alceste, having on board our ambassador to
China; the other was a French frigate, the Medusa, taking out the
suite of a governor for one of the colonies of France on the coast of
Africa. The importance of the mission on which each ship was
despatched, and the value of the freight, would seem to assure us that
the Alceste and the Medusa were officered and manned by the best crews
that could be selected. Two nations, rivals in science and
civilization, who had lately been contending for the empire of the
world, and in the course of that contest had exhibited the most heroic
examples of promptitude and courage, were nautically represented, we
may suppose, by the elite who walked the decks of the Alceste and the
Medusa. If any calamity should happen to either, it could not be
attributed to a failure of that brilliant gallantry, which the English
and French had equally displayed on the most trying occasions.