THE OLD ANGLO-SAXON PLUCK.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11525, 15 May 1899, Page 1

THE OLD ANGLO-SAXON PLUCK.

An American pap°r, the San Francisco Call, attributes to Mr J. F. Horr, the United States Marshal, who conducted the sale of the Spanish prizes taken daring the late war, a story which is at bust good enough to be true. "It was late in May," Mr Horr is reported to have ?aid, when the British cruiser Talbot sUamed out of Havana harbour on her way to the Bahamas), which are owned by England. When the Talbot was about sixty or seventy miles on her way one of those little American converted tug-boats mounting two onepounders arid one three pounder came puffing out from the shore directly towards the Talbot, which was going at good speed. The .little tug blazed away with a blank shot across . the bows of the Talbot, but she paid no attention to it, refusing to comply with the naval signal to halt. Then the tug coming uearer every moment, let fly with a shell ; it was a pretty line shot and struck about 200 ft ahead of the Englishman's bows. '1 hen the Talbot stopped her engines. As the tug, trailing a big American flag astern, came nearer, the officers on the Talbot, which was still moving on her momentum, saw a young fellow on the deck just back of the smokestack. He ttbb probably an ensign with the first command he had ever had, but he was game. With a big megaphone up -to his mouth he shouted : ' What ship is that?' All about him" on deck was ammunition piled up, and a sailor stiipped to the waist stood ready by the three-ponnder The Captain of the Talbot, who bad been enjoying himself under an electric fan, for it was very hot, directed the officer of the deck to answer, ' Her Majesty's ship Talbot.' ' I thought it was the Vizcaya,' yelled back the disappointed young American. This was actually witnessed by an Englishman aboard the Talbot. When, he related it to me he added, ' Would he tackle a boat the size of this V Why, the Yankee Navy is full of fight I The Taibot is a vessel of some 6800 tons." The story seems rather " tall," but feats as daring as that contemplated by the young American Were done by Englishmen in Nelson 'fi days, and about a score of years ago the commander of a British, gunboat, the Torth, during an AngloSpanish '* difficulty" — happily settled without bloodshed — proposed to lay his little vessel alongside a big Spanish ironclad, the Mendez Nunez, and carry her by bonrding. In view of this the Anglo-Saxon irom the other side of the Atlantic does not seem so improbable after all.