up. The guard of red-coated marines presented arms, and
the hundreds of bluejackets were all in their places as
the two commanders stepped on board. The naval officers
on the quarter-deck were very spick and span in their
black three-cornered hats, white wigs, long, bright blue,
gold-laced coats, white waistcoats and breeches and
stockings, and gold-buckled shoes. The idea of having
naval uniforms of blue and white and gold--the same
colours that are worn to-day--came from the king's seeing
the pretty Duchess of Bedford in a blue-and-white
riding-habit, which so charmed him that he swore he would
make the officers wear the same colours for the uniforms
just then being newly tried. This was when the Duke of
Bedford was first lord of the Admiralty, some years before
Pitt's great expedition against Quebec.

The sailors were also in blue and white; but they were
not so spick and span as the officers. They were a very
rough-and-ready-looking lot. They wore small, soft,
three-cornered black hats, bright blue jackets, open
enough to show their coarse white shirts, and coarse
white duck trousers. They had shoes without stockings on
shore, and only bare feet on board. They carried cutlasses
and pistols, and wore their hair in pigtails. They would
be a surprising sight to modern eyes. But not so much so
as the women! Ships and regiments in those days always
had a certain number of women for washing and mending
the clothes. There was one woman to about every twenty
men. They drew pay and were under regular orders just
like the soldiers and sailors. Sometimes they gave a