A Legend the Saucy Arethusa

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 23

A Legend the Saucy Arethusa

On the lower deck of the Boyal Navy there aTe. cherished quite a number of superstitions of: which landsmen seldom hear. It is fairly well'known that certain warship names ar*. .accounted unlucky, especially those of a snaky nature, such as Cobra, Python, Serpent, and Viper, but few can have heard of the curious legend attached to a par-/ ticularly'diatinguished name—Arethusa, Said a petty officer who was reading the report of the laying of the keelplate of the new cruiser Arethusa by Lady Tyrwhitt at Chatham not long ago:—: "Mark my words, there'll be another war, before long. There was never, a new Arethusa yet that didn't commission in time for a scrap." It was not true, but he could not be convinced of it. ' ''• What clinched this -belief was the fact that the completion of the sixth Arethusa, a 3500-ton cruisqr, coincided more or less with tlio outbreak ,of the Great. War. . At, the battle, of Heligoland on August-28, 1914, she flew the broad pennant of Commodore Tyrwhitt, and greatly distinguished herself in action. Thereafter, nntil she was lost through striking a mine, early in 1916, she bore the brunt of tho fighting in the North Sea. As. a battle honour Commodore Tyrwhitt had engraved on a brass plate on her quarterdeck a stanza from the 18th century ballad: — Come all ye Jolly 'sailors'bold 'Whose hearts are cast In honour's mould While English glory X unfold. Huzza for tho Arethusa! \ She* la a frigate tight, and bravo As, cyer stemmed the dashing wave. Her men are staunch :_ iTo their fav'rite launch. And when tlio foe shall meet our fire Sooner than strike we'll all expire On board of the Arethusa. This old song referred to the celebrated fight of 1778, between the first Arethusa, a 32-gun frigate taken from

the French 19 years-earlier, and the more heavily armed Belle Poule. Although the two nations were not at war at the time, relations, were strained in consequence of the depredations of American commerce raiders . fitted out in French ports. As the result of the engagement, in which the Arethusa had decidedly the advantage, France declared'war, In--both navies the names of th c antagonists at once became famous, though the >Arethusa did not long survive, being wrecked in 1779. :' The second Arethusa,* a 38-gun frigate, launched at Bristol in 1781, performed excellent service in the next war, which lasted with' one short break from 1793 until she was broken up in 1814. i Within three years; she was replaced by a new 46-gun frigate, the only, Arethusa of the series whose career was entirely peaceful. Benamed Bacchus in 1844, this' Arethusa ended her days aS .a coal hulk at Dcvonport in 1883. The fourth Arethusa, a 50-gun frigate, launched at Pembroke iv ,1849, will always be remembered as the last warship to go into, action under sail alone' —this was at the bombardment of Odessa in 1854. An'attempt to turn her into a -steamer in the sixties was a disappointment, writes F. -' E. McMurtrie in the ''News Chronicle.''' Since 187.3 she has been moored in the Thames as a training ship for boys of the Shaftesbury Homes. Completely worn out, she is now being replaced at the age of 84 by an ex-Gqrman barque. Though tho fifth Arethusa, a cruiser of 4300 tons, was launched on the Clyde in the year of the bombardment of Alexandria,., -her only war service was agaiijst the Chinese in 1900. , She went to the scrapheap-in 1905. With a displacement of 5200. tons, the seventh Arethusa, now building, will be the biggest ship that has borne this famous name.