A NAVAL ECCENTRIC.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 6, 23 August 1911, Page 3

A NAVAL ECCENTRIC.

CAUSED ALL HIS CREW TO BLACK THEIR EYES. Thtßsea service h’as provided nlany droll characters, whose exploits Have been handed down to posterity, and whose names are even now by-words in the navy, but it. is doubtful il the weird eccentricities' of Captain the Hon. Win. Montague have over been surpassed. The officer in question, says “The Globe,” served in the Royal Navy during the middle of the 18th century, and on one occasion, during a visit to Lisbon, he became one night embroiled in an affray with some people ashore. In the course of the scuffle he received a remarkably good specimen of what is comnidnly called a black eye, and the next day, not wishing to draw undue attention to his own injury, he causcd' v 'bach member of the boat’s crew to black their eyes with burnt cork. Those pulling, the oars on the starboard side blackened their right eyes, and those pulling on the port their left, and the coxswain both, so the effect caused by the strange boat’s crew with their blackened eyes can easily be imagined.

COMM AM DEft OIRCUM YEN TE i). On another occasion, in 1755, Captain Montague asked permission from the Commander- in-Ciiiet at Portsmouth to proceed to London. At the time the state of affairs was so seri- | ous that the ,Admiral did not think it fit to grant the necessary permission, but not wishing to appear harsh, told the gallant captain that he could not grant him leave to go farther from his ship than his barge could carry him. Montague, not to be outdone, immediately went ashore, where lie ordered a truck, on' which he intended , to place his boat, which was then to | bo drawn to London by horses. ile . was going to stock it with sufficient provisions for the throe days’ journey to the Metropolis, and on the way up the boat’s crow were to imitate the action of rowing. The Admiral, however, soon heard of this, and realising that ho had been circumvented, immediately gave Captain Montague leave to proceed to London in any manner he thought fit. “LAZY” DUTCHMEN. About this time' also a Dutch ship of -J.OO tons became a wreck in Portsmouth harbour. Montague, going ashore in Ids barge, saw several ol the drowned sailors lying on the beach, and at once ordered his -boat’s craw to put all the hands of tTffi

corpses in tlieir pockets. He then ! went on to n certain tavern, where lie , loind everyone condoling; with the i .Dutch captain, hut Montague immediately said that the Dutch seamen , were a luhherjy lot, for they would j not pull their hands out of their pne- ; ketr to save their lives. To hack up I his assertion, he offered to hrt anyone si:< dozen of wine that if any of tin' bodies had been washed ashore 1 their hands would ho found in their J pockets. The foreigner, rather annoyed, took the hot, and an attendant was sent down to the beach, and returned with the information that all the dead had their hands in their trousers packets. “There,” said Montague, “did I not tell you that they

were too lazy in save their lives;' The Dutch captain was so ashamed tiiat he would not show Ins face for several days, until at last the English captain told him of the trick he h:iu played.