Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... gar, had been fought, and the English nation adored her fleets as her own peculiar glory: -- Britannia needs no bulwarks, No lowers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak She quells the floods below-- As they roar on the shore, When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow. The Mediterranean fleet during the Peninsular War was the corps cTelite of the British navy. During those years Malta was the great naval rendezvous, and travellers from England began to appear there, coming down as guests on board the frigates and men-of-war which were frequently passing to and fro where now the " P. and O." has the right of way. Sir Alexander Ball was the governor; he was a kind friend of Father's, and Government House, with its gayeties, was always open to the young commander of the "crack brig," as the M1norca was called in the fleet. Malta was to us children as if we had lived there; we knew it by heart, and Valetta, St. Elmo, and above all the "Nix Mangare Stairs." were to us as familiar as the Regent's Park. Your mother went there three years ago--that is, your father took her to see with her own eyes the places she knew so well by heart. Her account was very interesting; she said she felt in the tight little island, with the ships about it and the guns and the flags perpetually proclaiming the British empire, more in England than in England itself. Your aunt Elizabeth has put a very good description of Malta into her novel " Amabel "--in fact, it is a transcript ot Father's talk, and all the naval incidents are his adventures; the novel hinges on a favorite anecdote of how he carried off a M. Guiscard, the secretary of...