We Were Ready To Burst With Laughter As
We Passed The Prince's Vessel - There Was A Little French Boy In A
French Boat Alongside Cleaning It, And Twirling About A Little
French Mop - We Thought It The Most Comical, Contemptible French
Boy, Mop, Boat, Steamer, Prince - Psha!
It is of this wretched
vapouring stuff that false patriotism is made.
I write this as a
sort of homily 'a propos of the day, and Cape Trafalgar, off which
we lie. What business have I to strut the deck, and clap my wings,
and cry "Cock-a-doodle-doo" over it? Some compatriots are at that
work even now.
We have lost one by one all our jovial company. There were the
five Oporto wine-merchants - all hearty English gentlemen - gone to
their wine-butts, and their red-legged partridges, and their duels
at Oporto. It appears that these gallant Britons fight every
morning among themselves, and give the benighted people among whom
they live an opportunity to admire the spirit national. There is
the brave honest major, with his wooden leg - the kindest and
simplest of Irishmen: he has embraced his children, and reviewed
his little invalid garrison of fifteen men, in the fort which he
commands at Belem, by this time, and, I have no doubt, played to
every soul of them the twelve tunes of his musical-box. It was
pleasant to see him with that musical-box - how pleased he wound it
up after dinner - how happily he listened to the little clinking
tunes as they galloped, ding-dong, after each other!
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