Then, after receiving the best education that it was at that time possible for a lad to receive, I had entered the navy as a midshipman, at the age of fourteen, and had gone out to the Mediterranean in the old _Colossus_, two-decker, under the command of Sir Percy Fitzgerald, where, for some two and a half years, we spent our time partly in chasing the French up and down the great inland sea, and partly in blockading the port of Toulon, under Sir John Jervis.
