the late campaign, its toils, and its anxieties, Mr. Pellew had very
largely shared; and if rashness would have been the natural fault of a
mind like his, a more effectual corrective could not have been desired.
The quick conception, and the forethought, which enabled him in after
life so well to combine caution with daring, must have greatly depended
upon natural character, but he certainly owed much of it to the severe
discipline of his early service.

He had now completed his twenty-first year. Tall, and with a frame of
strength and symmetry, nerved by the hardships of two severe campaigns,
his personal activity and power were almost unrivalled. The spot was
shown for many years at Truro, where he sprang over the high gate of an
inn-yard at the back of one of the hotels, when, hastening across the
court to assist on the sudden alarm of a fire, he found the gate fast.
The consciousness of superior strength, while it made him slow to
offend, enabled him to inflict suitable punishment on offenders, and
some incidents of a ludicrous character are still remembered.

The water was as a natural element to him, and he often amused himself
in a manner which, to one less expert, would have been attended with the
utmost danger. He would sometimes go out in a boat, and overset her by
carrying a press of sail. Acts of daring like these must find their
excuse in the spirit of a fearless youth. But he often found the
advantage of that power and self-possession in the water which he
derived from his early habits, in saving men who had fallen overboard,
and especially in the happiest of all his services, his conduct at the
Dutton. More than once, however, he nearly perished. In Portsmouth
harbour, where he had upset himself in a boat, he was saved with
difficulty, after remaining for a considerable time in the water. On
another occasion, he was going by himself from Falmouth to Plymouth in a