Note 1 — Chapter XVIII · “COMPARED WITH DEFEATING ME, DEFEATING BUONAPARTE IS A MERE TRIFLE.”

“In after-life he [‘my father’] described the ‘Hydra’ as a hell upon the waters, and the brutal flogging of the sailors for the most trivial offences as something too horrible for contemplation. ‘Often,’ he used to say, ‘have I wondered that men, who were treated as if they had neither hearts nor souls, should yet, in the hour of danger and of duty, forget their wrongs and indignities, act like true heroes, and pour out their heart’s blood with sublime unselfishness for a country that treated them so detestably.’—Charles Mackay, “Forty Years’ Recollections,” i. p. 13.