The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy Volume 11 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...Bluewater is not. You do not know yourself, Sir Jarvy, if you think it so easy a matter to run away." "I 've spoiled you, Dick, by praising your foolish manoeuvring so much before your face, and that's the whole truth of the matter. No--my mind is made up; and I believe you know me well enough to feel sure, when that is the case, even a council of war could not move it. I lead out, in the first two-decked ship that lifts her anchor, and you follow in the last. You understand my plan, and will see it executed, as you see everything executed, in the face of the enemy." Admiral Bluewater smiled, and not altogether without irony in his manner; though he managed, at the same time, to get the leg that had been lowest for the last five minutes, raised by an ingenuity peculiar to himself, several inches above its fellow. "Nature never made you for a conspirator, Oakes," he said, as soon as this change was effected to his mind; "for you carry a top-light in your breast that even the blind can see " "What crotchet is uppermost in your mind, now, Dick? Aren't the orders plain enough to suit you?" "I confess it--as well as the motive for giving them just in this form." "Iet 's have it, at once. I prefer a full broadside to your minute-guns. What is my motive?" ' Simply that you, Sir Jarvy, say to a certain Sir Gervaise Oakes, Bart., Vice-Admiral of the Red, and Member for Bowldero, in your own mind, 'Now, if I can just leave that fellow, Dick Bluewater, behind me, with four or five ships, he'll never desert me, when in front of the enemy, whatever he might do with King George; and so I 'll make sure of him by placing the question in such a light that it shall be one of friendship, ...