A man knocks
up his cabins forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs
guns into the portholes, and calls le quartier du bord ou existaient ces
chambres, Lacedaemon. Lacedaemon! There is a province, O Prince, in your
royal father's dominions, a fruitful parent of heroes in its time, which
would have given a much better nickname to your quartier du bord: you
should have called it Gascony.
"Sooner than strike we'll all ex-pi-er
On board of the Bell-e Pou-le."
Such fanfaronading is very well on the part of Tom Dibdin, but a person
of your Royal Highness's "pious and severe dignity" should have been
above it. If you entertained an idea that war was imminent, would it not
have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when
you found the war rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what
you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Lacedaemonianism! There is
no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he WOULD have done:
however, to do your Royal Highness's nation justice, they brag and fight
too.
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