But St. Vincent was not content with mere repression.  Outwardly, and indeed inwardly, unshaken, he yet unwearyingly so ordered the fleet as to avoid occasions of outbreak.  With the imposing moral control exerted by his unflinching steadiness, little trouble was to be apprehended from single ships; ignorant of what might be hoped from sympathizers elsewhere, but sure of the extreme penalty in case of failure, the movements lacked cohesion and were easily nipped.  Concerted action only was to be feared, and careful measures were taken to remove opportunities.  Captains were forbidden to entertain one another at dinner,—­the reason, necessarily unavowed, being that the boats from various ships thus assembling gave facilities for transmitting messages and forming plans; and when ships arrived from England they underwent a moral quarantine, no intercourse with them being permitted until sanctioned by the admiral.  When the captain reported to him, his boat, while waiting, was shoved off out of earshot.  It is said that on one occasion a seaman in such a boat managed to call to one looking out of a port of the flag-ship, “I say, there, what have you fellows been doing out here, while we have been fighting for your beef and pork?” To which the other replied, “You’d best say nothing at all about that out here, for if old Jarvie hears ye he’ll have ye dingle-dangle at the yardarm at eight o’clock to-morrow morning.”

The severe strain of this prolonged watchfulness told on even his iron hardihood, and it would almost appear that some of the rough practical jokes told of this period must represent reaction from the tension under which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him.  Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause.  Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service.  Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for “all chaplains,” the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship’s fun.  “A few days after it blew great guns from west-southwest, which is directly into the Bay of Cadiz.  The inshore squadron lay six miles from the flag-ship, directly to leeward, and up went the signal for all chaplains.  It was a hard pull for the rowers, and no luxury for the sitters.  When they reached the quarter-deck of the Ville de Paris, literally drenched with salt-water, the admiral presented them to ‘Bishop Morgan,’ as he called the chaplain of the flag-ship, and desired that they would go down into the ward-room and hold a conclave.”  One who has had a pull of that kind, as most officers have in their day, can understand that the humor was less appreciable to the victims than to the author.