Note 1310 — THE COMMONWEALTH 1649-1660

Add. MSS., 9304, f. 129. The Sapphire seems to have been the crack cruiser of her time. The contrast between that which, with all its faults, was a strong administration, morally stimulating to officers and men, and the enervating Stewart régime is illustrated in the life and death—if the expression be permitted—of this ship, and exemplified in the grim entry in the burial register of St Nicholas, Deptford, under date of 26th Aug. 1670, ‘Capt. John Pearse and Lieut. Logan shot to death for loosing ye Saphier cowardly.’