must have been quite a small boy when Sir Joseph presented him to Lord
Nelson, and the family tradition is that the hero accosted him with a
kind smile and said, 'Give me a shake of your daddle, my boy, for I've
only one to shake _you_ with.'

The boy was sent to Harrow, and after a few years at that school was
entered, in his fourteenth year, at the Royal Naval College at
Portsmouth, where he formed a friendship with John Christian Schetky,
then drawing master at the college, and later Marine Painter to Queen
Victoria, and a man of note in his profession. What little is known of
young Yorke's career at Portsmouth points to diligence and capacity, for
he gained the gold medal in his second year after little more than
eighteen months at the college, a distinction which ensured his
immediate entry into the service. On May 15, 1815, he was appointed
midshipman on board the _Prince Regent_, 98 guns, the flagship at
Spithead, and a training which stood him in good stead in after life was
begun under the commander of this vessel, Captain Fowke. A month later
he was transferred to the _Sparrowhawk_, a brig of 18 guns
commanded by Captain Baines, then under sailing orders for the
Mediterranean.

There was no coddling in the navy in those days, and those who survived
its rigorous life were probably the fittest. I have heard my father say
that at this period the middies' soup was served in the tin boxes which
held their cocked hats, and that one of their amusements was provided by
races round the mess table of the weevils knocked out of the biscuit
which was a part of their daily fare. Young Yorke, however, accepted
this life and its hardships with all cheerfulness; and the spirit with
which he entered the service and the interest he took in his profession
from the first are, I think, abundantly clear from a letter he wrote