Admiral Vernon and the Navy - A Memoir and Vindication; Being an Account of the Admiral's Career at Sea and in Parliament, With Sidelights on the Political Conduct of Sir Robert Walpole and His Colleagues, and a Critical Reply to Smoll... #267506

Certain historians, from Tobias Smollett downwards, have done scant justice to the subject of this memoir, and even the origin of the nickname "Old Grog" has been misrepresented. So far as the author of "Roderick Random" is concerned, possible reasons for his prejudice may be found in the present narrative. But, apart from Sir Robert Walpole and his colleagues, most of Vernon's contemporaries honoured him as an upright man and brave and able officer. Walpole, who held that "every man had his price," found in Old Grog an inconvenient exception to his cynical summary. He hated him accordingly, and his political henchmen followed suit.<br><br>Westminster Abbey contains a tribute in stone to the Admiral's character and services. In H.M.S. Vernon (the Torpedo School in Portsmouth Harbour) the Royal Navy retains a special memorial of its own.