THE LAST OF NELSON'S CAPTAINS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 39, 15 May 1869, Page 4

THE LAST OF NELSON'S CAPTAINS.

[From Hfpemillan's Magazine^] On the Bth January the last survivor of Nelson's captains, tho Paladins of the great Avar, sank to his rest calmly at Greenwich, a hale old sea king of eighty -six. Sir James A. Gordon had been governor of the hospital since 1853, and became admiral of tho fleet just a year since, on the 30th of January, 1868. He entered the navy in November, 1793, at tho mature age of ten years, straight from his father's house, Kiklruuimie Castle, Aberdeen ; was posted in May, 1805, soveral years before the premier was born ; and had been nine times gazetted for conspicuous gallantry in the face of an enemy while Mr. Gladstone was still in tho nursery. The race to which he belonged stands out us clearly as Napoleon's marshals, of whom they wero the contemporaries. Nelson's captains, now that we can look at them as a group of historical personages, strike us as on the whole the most daring set of men ever thrown together for ono work. Were it not for their uniform success, and the thoroughness with which they carried through that work, one might bo inclined to call them foolhardy disciples of the chief who "did not know Mr. Fear." As a boy, Sir James fousht in the Rcnei'al actions, under Lord Bridport, at Capo St. Vincent and the Nile, and took part in a dozen minor engagements and cutting out, which arc chronicled in tho faithful pages of James. But it was not until 1811 that his great chance in life came. In that year he was captain of the Active frigate, cruising in the Adriatic uuder Hosle. They were three frigates and a 23-gun ship (tho Volage), when off Lissa a French and Venetian fleet of six frigates, a 16-gun corvette, and two gunboats, came in sight, llosto wore at once, and signalled, " Remember Nelson," and the four English ships went into action with 128 guns less than the enemy, and BSO men against 2.G00. In half-an-hour the Fiord, 40-gun frigate, struck to the Active ; but Gordon, without waiting to send a prize crew on hoard, followed the Corona, and took her within shot of the batteries of Lissa. Meantime tho Fiord had stolon nwny, no one knew where, nnd the ablo editors of tho day denounced her captain for treachery in not waiting for her captor's return, and blamed Gordon for lio^k securing her. lloslo only remarked that they didn't, know Gordon if they thought he would waste a minute on a prize while on enemy's flag was living. Six months later, in the same waters, Maxwell in tho Alccste, and Gordon in the Active, camo up and fought through a long autumn day with thePomone unil Piwilino, French frigates running for Trieste. Gordon's leg was carried away by v OGpounder, but Iho l\iulim> was taken, aud Maxwell brought tho sword of Rosauiil, the French captain, to Gordon, us his by right.

In 1812 Gordon, now with a wooden leg, was again afloat, captain of the Sea Horse ; and in 1814 was under Coehrane on the American station.^ In August Coehrane and Ross resolved on tho raid on Washington ; and Gordon, with a small squadron, was ordered to sail up the Potomac, in support of tho land forces. DTo started on tho 17th, and struggled up to Fort Washington iv ten days. "We were without pilots," he writes, "to assist us through that difficult part of the river called Kettles Bottoms, consequently each of the ships was aground twenty times, and the crews were employed in warping fivo whole daya." On the 27th he took Fort Washington, and on the next day appeared off Alexandria, and offered terms of capitulation to the town, which our cousins found hard of digestion. Washington city had been abandoned by Ross on the 25th, after the public buildings were burnt. Tho whole country was rising, and here was this impudent one-legged captain insisting that the merchant ships which had been sunk on his approach should be delivered to him, with all merchandise on board ov . The army was already back at the coast, there was not the slightest chance of support, and his difficulties were increasing every hour ; bufc the Alexandrians soon found that nothing but- his own terms would get vid oi' this one-legged man. So the sunk merchantmen were "weighed, masted, hove down, caulked, rigged, and loaded " with the cargoes which had been put ashore, even clown to the cabin furniture ; and, with twenty-one of them as prizes, at the end of throe days Gordon started to run the gauntlet back to the sea, our cousins vowing that they would teach him soiuelhing about " terms of capitulation " before he got there. And they worked hard to keep their vow, and afc ono point (name unknown) had nearly effected their purpose by means of a strong battery and three fircships. Bufc Gordon in tho Sea Horse, and Charles Napier in tho Euryalus, anchored afc short musket range right off the battery, and succeeded in almost silencing ifc ; a daring middy or two towed away tho fireships, and the whole fleet of merchantmen slipped by. And so Gordon got down to the sea, with a total loss of three officers and sixty-one men, after twenty-fchreo days' operations in which the hammocks wero down only two nights. No stranger feat of during was ever performed than this, now nearly forgotten. His last command was in his old ship the Active, to which ho was appointed in 1819 ; and in 1826 he was made Superintendent of Plymouth Victualling Yard, at which lime, so far as we know, his work as a fighting-man ceased. Stop — we are wrong ; on one occasion the old sea-lion was brought to bay. He attended the coronation of William IV., liko a loyal messmate, in full Admiral's uniform, with his orders, and tho gold medal which had been awarded him after Lissa, on his breast. He walked away from tho ceremony, and afc a narrow street-corner in Westminster was hailed by a leading rough in the crowd with, "By , that's Jem Gordon. He flogged mo in the Active ; and now, mates, let's settle him." The Admiral put his back to the wall, and looked the fellow in the face. " I don't remember you," said he ; bufc if I flogged you in tho Active, you rascal, you deserved ifc. Como on!" Whereupon the crowd checked and suppressed his antagonist, and the Admiral stumped back to his hotel in peace. Even with a wooden leg, he must have been a very formidable man in those days ; for lie stood six feet three inches, and had been all his life famous for j feats of strength and activity. He could heave the lead further than any man in his best crews, and, before his accident, had been known to leap in and out of six empty water-hogsheads placed iv lino on deck. For the last sixteen years he had been living, full of years and honours, afc Greenwich, and now he lies buried amongst his comrades, and lias loffc tlie grand heritage of an unsullied name to his numerous grandchildren. Heaven keep England from any such war as thai in which James A. Gordon earned his good-service pension of £300 u-year, and his Grand Cross of tho Bath; but, if England is ever fated to endure tho like again, Heaven send her such captains aa James A. Gordon and bis peers.