Mrs.Dutton entered the house, to attend to some of her domestic concerns, while the rear-admiral took the arm of Mildred, and they walked, together, to the verge of the cliffs.
A fairer moonlight picture seldom offered itself to a seaman's eye, than that which now lay before the sight of Admiral Bluewater and Mildred.
Beneath them rode the fleet; sixteen sail of different rigs, eleven of which, however, were two-decked ships of the largest size then known in naval warfare; and all of which were in that perfect order, that an active and intelligent commander knows how to procure, even from the dilatory and indifferent.

If Admiral Bluewater was conspicuous in man[oe]uvring a fleet, and in rendering every vessel of a line that extended a league, efficient, and that too, in her right place, Sir Gervaise Oakes had the reputation of being one of the best seamen, in the ordinary sense of the word, in England.

No vessel under his command, ever had a lubberly look; and no ship that had any sailing in her, failed to have it brought out of her.

The vice-admiral was familiar with that all-important fact--one that members equally of Congress and of Parliament are so apt to forgot, or rather not to know at all--that the efficiency of a whole fleet, as a fleet, is necessarily brought down to the level of its worst ships.

Of little avail is it, that four or five vessels of a squadron sail fast, and work well, if the eight or ten that remain, behave badly, and are dull.