Note 3 — Chapter XI · THE WAR TILL THE END OF 1797

We may stop for a moment to look at this list of accidents. Whenever an accident happens to the navy to-day there is an outcry over the decay of seamanship, and profuse assertions that such things did not occur in the good old days are made. Yet we see that, when Bridport started on his tardy pursuit of Morard de Galle, two collisions and one grounding took place in his fleet. Between the 10th December 1796 and the 12th February 1797 there were six accidents, two of them total losses in the fleet of Jervis—nine accidents in about eight weeks among the best forces we had. The losses of Villaret-Joyeuse in his disastrous winter cruise in 1794 were hardly greater. The grounding of the St. George was attributed to the Portuguese pilot. But the presence of a pilot does not remove the responsibility of the captain and his officers. Lisbon was as familiar to us as any English port. Would a navigating officer now need a pilot when entering or leaving Lisbon? And was the pilot responsible for blundering into the frigate?