The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford. Beresford Charles William De la Poer Beresford
misfortune, in dismounting a gun, to break a bone in my foot; and although the injury seemed to heal very quickly under the application of arnica, I have felt its effects ever since.
In 1867 I was appointed to the Research, which was stationed at Holyhead, and in which I served for a few months. There was a good deal of alarm felt with regard to the Fenians, who were active at the time, and the Research was ordered to look out for them. With my messmates, Cæsar Hawkins, Lascelles, and Forbes, I hunted a good deal from Holyhead with Mr. Panton's hounds. I also hunted with the Ward Union in Ireland. I used to cross from Holyhead at night, hunt during the day, and return that night.
Among other memories of those old days, I remember that my brother and myself, being delayed at Limerick Junction, occupied the time in performing a work of charity upon the porter, whose hair was of an immoderate luxuriance. He was – so far as we could discover – neither poet nor musician, and was therefore without excuse. Nevertheless, he refused the proffered kindness. Perceiving that he was thus blinded to his own interest, we gently bound him hand and foot and lashed him to a railway truck. I possessed a knife, but we found it an unsuitable weapon: my brother searched the station and found a pair of snuffers, used for trimming the station lamps. With this rude but practicable instrument we shore the locks of the porter, and his hair blew all about the empty station like the wool of a sheep at shearing-time. When it was done we made him suitable compensation.
"Sure," said the porter, "I'll grow my hair again as quick as I can the way you'll be giving me another tip."
We had an old Irish keeper at home, whose rule in life was to agree with everything that was said to him. Upon a day when it was blowing a full gale of wind, I said to myself that I would get to windward of him to-day anyhow.
"Well, Harney," said I. "It is a fine calm day to-day."
"You may say that, Lord Char-less, but what little wind there is, is terrible strong," says Harney.
A lady once said to him, "How old are you, Harney?"
"Och, shure, it's very ould and jaded I am, it's not long I'll be for this worrld," said he.
"Oh," said she, "but I'm old, too. How old do you think I am?"
"Sure, how would I know that? But whatever age ye are, ye don't look it, Milady."
CHAPTER VII
THE CRUISE OF H.M.S. GALATEA
After a brief spell in the royal yacht, I was promoted out of her to lieutenant, and was appointed to the Galatea, Captain H.R.H. Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, K.G., K.T.
H.M.S. Galatea had four months previously returned from the long cruise of seventeen months, 24th January, 1867, to 26th June, 1868, during which the Duke visited South Africa and Australasia. While he was in Australia, an attempt had been made to assassinate his Royal Highness, who had a very narrow escape. The pistol was fired at the range of a few feet, and the bullet, entering the Duke's back, struck a rib and ran round the bone, inflicting a superficial wound. A full account of the voyage is contained in The Cruise of H.M.S. Galatea, by the Rev. John Milner and Oswald W. Brierley (London, 1869; W. H. Allen). The Galatea frigate was built at Woolwich and launched in 1859. She was of 3227 tons burthen, 800 h.p.; she was pierced for 26 guns; maindeck, 18 guns, 10-inch, 86 cwt., and 4 guns, 10-inch, 6½ tons; on the quarterdeck, 2 guns, rifled, 64-pounders; in the forecastle, 2 guns, rifled, 64-pounders. The 6½-ton guns threw a shot of 115 lb., and a large double-shell weighing 156 lb. She stowed 700 tons of coal and 72 tons of water. Previously the Galatea, commanded by Captain Rochfort Maguire, had been employed from 1862 to 1866 in the Baltic, and on the Mediterranean and West Indian stations. She took part in the suppression of the insurrection at Jamaica, and, after the loss of H.M.S. Bulldog, destroyed the batteries on Cape Haitien. Her sister ship was the Ariadne, and Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, who served in the Ariadne, in 1861, writes: "It would not be too much to say that she and her sister ship, the Galatea, were the two finest wooden frigates ever built in this or any other country" (Memories of the Sea). Personally, I am inclined to consider, that fine sailor as the Galatea was, the Sutlej was finer still.
The Duke of Edinburgh was an admirable seaman. He had a great natural ability for handling a fleet, and he would have made a first-class fighting admiral. The Duke's urbanity and kindness won the affection of all who knew him. I am indebted to him for many acts of kindness, and I was quite devoted to him.
The voyage of the Galatea lasted for two years and a half. We visited Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, India, and the Falkland Islands. It is not my purpose to describe that long cruise in detail; but rather to record those incidents which emerge from the capricious haze of memory. In many respects, the second long voyage of the Galatea was a repetition of her first voyage, so elaborately chronicled by the Rev. John Milner and Mr. Brierley. In every part of the Queen's dominions visited by her son, the Duke was invariably received with the greatest loyalty and enthusiasm. It should be understood throughout that, when his ship was not in company, or was in company with a ship commanded by an officer junior to his Royal Highness, he was received as the Queen's son; but when a senior officer was present, the Duke ranked in the order of his seniority in the Service.
We left Plymouth early in November, 1868, and once more I was afloat in a crack sailing ship, smart and well found in every detail, and once more I entered into the charm of the life in which above all I delighted. We touched at Madeira, where I grieve to say some of the junior officers captured a goat and some other matters during a night on shore; touched at St. Vincent; and arrived at Cape Town on Christmas Day.
At Cape Town, my set of tandem harness came again into requisition. From the Cape we proceeded to Perth. The fact that an attempt upon his life had been made in Australia, was one of the reasons why the Duke chose to pay the Colony another visit.
Upon a part of our voyage to Australia we were accompanied by my old ship, the Clio, and so admirably handled was she, that she sometimes beat the Galatea in sailing. In every place to which we went in Australia and New Zealand, we received the most unbounded hospitality, of which I shall always retain the most pleasant recollections. We were asked everywhere; livery stables were put at the disposal of the officers; we went to shooting parties, and to every kind of festivity.
At Perth I visited the convict settlement; and there I found a relative or connection of the Beresford family, who had been so unfortunate as to be transported for forgery. He appeared to be a most respectable old gentleman, and (with the permission of the governor) I presented him with a small cheque. Alas! incredible as it may seem, the sight of my signature awoke the ruling passion; and my gentleman promptly forged a bill of exchange for £50, and (as I found when I came home) got it cashed.
It was in Perth, too, that I visited a prisoner, a fellow-Irishman, who had been convicted of murder. He had been a soldier, and had slain his corporal and his sergeant. This man inspired me with some ideas with regard to criminals which later in life I tried to put into practice; and also aroused in me an interest in prisons and prison discipline which I have always retained. He was a gigantic person, of immense physical strength, with receding forehead and a huge projecting jaw. He was considered to be dangerous; five or six warders accompanied me into his cell; and they spoke to him as though he were a dog. I looked at the man's eyes; and I was convinced then, as I am convinced now, that his intellect was impaired. Criminal psychology then hardly existed; and although it is now recognised as a science, it must be said that existing penal conditions are still in many respects awaiting reform. Subsequent experience has proved to me that I was right in believing that many crimes of violence are due to a lesion of the brain, and cannot therefore be treated as moral offences. I heard some time subsequently that the Irishman had been shot for the attempted murder of a warder. Perth and New South Wales were the only places in the British Dominions in which there was a death penalty for attempted murder.
I may here mention that in after years I was appointed, together with the (late) Duke of Fife, as civil inspector of prisons; an office which I held for a year or two. I was able to institute a reform in the system then in force of mulcting prisoners of good conduct marks. These were deducted in advance, before the man had