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- engagements, always acquitting himself as an officer mindful of the
welfare of his men, but never tolerating an infraction of discipline;
thoroughly versed in the science of his profession, and intrepid to the
verge of temerity, though never injudiciously so. For his gallantry in
the West Indian waters as flag-lieutenant under Rodney in that admiral’s
crowning victory over De Grasse, he was made a post-captain.
Ashore in the garb of a civilian, scarce anyone would have taken him for
a sailor, more especially that he never garnished unprofessional talk
with nautical terms, and grave in his bearing, evinced little
appreciation of mere humour. It was not out of keeping with these traits
that on a passage when nothing demanded his paramount action, he was the
most undemonstrative of men. Any landsman observing this gentleman, not
conspicuous by his stature and wearing no pronounced insignia, emerging
from his retreat to the open deck, and noting the silent deference of
the officers retiring to leeward, might have taken him for the King’s
guest, a civilian aboard the King’s ship, some highly honourable
discreet envoy on his way to an important post. But, in fact, this
unobtrusiveness of demeanour may have proceeded from a certain
unaffected modesty of manhood sometimes accompanying a resolute nature,
a modesty evinced at all times not calling for pronounced action, and
which shown in any rank of life suggests a virtue aristocratic in kind.
As with some others engaged in various departments of the world’s more
heroic activities, Captain Vere, though practical enough upon occasion,
would at times betray a certain dreaminess of mood. Standing alone on
the weather-side of the greater deck, one hand holding by the rigging,
he would absently gaze off at the black sea. At the presentation to him
then of some minor matter interrupting the current of his thoughts, he
would show more or less irascibility; but instantly he would control it.
In the Navy he was popularly known by the appellation--Starry Vere. How
such a designation happened to fall upon one who, whatever his sturdy
qualities, was without any brilliant ones, was in this wise: a favourite
kinsman, Lord Denton, a free-handed fellow, had been the first to meet
and congratulate him upon his return to England from the West Indian
cruise; and but the day previous turning over a copy of Andrew Marvell’s
poems had lighted, not for the first time however, upon the lines
entitled ‘Appelton House,’ the name of one of the seats of their common
ancestor, a hero in the German wars of the seventeenth century, in which
poem occur the lines,
‘This ’tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax and the starry Vere.’
And so, upon embracing his cousin fresh from Rodney’s victory, wherein
he had played so gallant a part, brimming over with just family pride in
the sailor of their house, he exuberantly exclaimed, ‘Give ye joy, Ed;
give ye joy, my starry Vere!’ This got currency, and the novel prefix
serving in familiar parlance readily to distinguish the _Indomitable’s_
captain from another Vere, his senior, a distant relative, an officer of
like rank in the Navy, it remained permanently attached to the surname.
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