BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF THE RIGHT HON. THOMAS LORD GRAVES, ADMIRAL OF THE WHITE SQUADRON

Summary

Oh let me stay and gaze my fill,

Gaze on that russet crowned hill,

Whose base the ocean laves;

Here Hawke might wish his last to breathe,

Here valour's self shall weave the wreath,

To deck the head of Graves.

Poem Anon.

To mingle bravery with prudence, and to add to the latter qualification as much spirit and activity in the hour of difficulty or danger, as shall be completely competent to the task of surmounting them, are the necessary characteristics of a great and good Officer. Few men have had more trying and urgent occasions of displaying those qualifications than the subject of the present memoirs, and none, perhaps, have had the satisfaction of passing through such trying scenes with greater real credit to themselves, although few have been so unhappy as to experience such ill fortune.

The moment of distress and danger overspreading and threatening to overwhelm a myriad beyond ourselves, becomes from that very circumstance peculiarly awful and oppressive. The miserable state of others, our companions, involved in the same fate, frequently paralyzes the efforts of the mind, and the man who in such an hour of extremity is not so far affected by the awful scene which surrounds him as to be completely enervated, merits not only the love and admiration of his companions, but their veneration of him as an hero.