Note 26 — Chapter XVI · THE ILLNESS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

The Agincourt, an ironclad of 6,000 tons, was run aground on the Pearl Rock, off Gibraltar, on the 2nd of July. The accident occurred in broad daylight. The court-martial blamed the captain, staff commander, and one of the lieutenants, but public opinion condemned Vice-Admiral Wellesley, whose signals had, it was said, caused the disaster. Mr. Goschen and the Lords of the Admiralty decided that the Admiral was to blame for ordering an unsafe course to be steered, and compelled him to strike his flag. The Megæra was a transport ship which had been sent to sea with her bottom honeycombed with rotten plates. On the 19th of June the captain had to beach her to save her crew. Yet the Admiralty officials had reported her quite seaworthy when her bottom was, as one of her officers said, “as full of holes as an old tea-kettle.”