Evening star., 1941-05-26
Unbroken Tradition

43iS 2SSV1 oStiOil Va WIG OdOllC
cruiser Hood serves to call attention
to the distinction of its name in the
annals of the British Navy A whole
family of fighters of the sea is repre-
sented in the title which three sue
cesSive ships have borne with un-
abated honor. The Reverend Mr..
Samuel Hood, vicar of Butleigh in
Somerset and prebendary of Wells,
was the father of the admiral, first
VlScount Hood, in whom the mari
time tradition had its origin He
was midshipman at seventeen, two
centuries ago this month. With Rod
ney he sailed in the Ludlow Castle.
The two men were together re-
peatedly during the better portion
OF forty years. If they did not in
variably agree, the difficulty between
them was not want of patriotism.
A clue to the younger of the pair
is furnished by a quotation from
Mahan's Types OF Naval Officers"
where it is written: 1T is one of the
ironieS of history that the first Sir
Samuel Hood should have had just
opportunity enough to show how
great were his powers, and yet have
been denied the chance to exhibit
them under conditions to arrest the
attention of the world: nay, have
been more than once compelled to
stand by hopelessly and see occasions
lost which he would unquestionably
have converted into signal triumphs.
He was the greatest of the sewers.
It fell to Nelson, his pupil-in part at
least-to reap the harvest"
But it must not be supposed from
these expressions that Lord Hoods
career was not productive. In 1859 he
broke up the concentration OF trans
ports assembled by the French for
the projected invasion of Britain; be-
tween 1850 and 1778 he served in the
Mediterranean and off the Atlantic
coast Of North America; in 1880 he
was promoted to the rank of rear
admiral and sent to the West Indies
as second in command under Rodney.
He tried to relieve Cornwallis at
Yorktown without result, but he
saved st. kits by defeating the
Comte de Grasse in 1882. Later, he
was in charge Of the occupation of
Toulon and of Corsica. During his
last campaign he devised the plan
which eventually was put into effect
at the Battle of the Nile. BY the
time of his death, January 27, 1916,
Napoleon was a prisoner on st.
Helena.
Meanwhile, his cousin, another Sir
Samuel Hood, was earning an inde-
pendent celebrity in the actions which
led to Rodneys final victory over the
French in the Caribbean, in the in
veStiture of Toulon and, with Nelson,
at Santa Cruz and in the blockading
of Alexandria and Rosetta in Egypt.
He fought at Gibraltar, commanded
the LeWard station, lost an arm at
Rochefort, conducted the operations
against Madeira. His brother, Alex
ander, also of course, a cousin of
Lord Hood, was killed in the duel
between the Mars and the Hercule,
near the Bee du Raz, April 81, 1898.
The lineal descendant of the first
Viscount was Rear Admiral the Hon.
orable Horace Lambert Alexander
Hood, still remembered in Washing
ton from the time when he was
Naval Attache at the British Embassy
here in 1909. Commanding the third
battle cruiser squadron at the Battle
of Jutland he was lost when the In
vincible was blown to bits by a shell
from the Derflinger, May 81, 1915.
The tendency of human experience
to repeat could have had no more
striking exemplification.
But the name of Hood does not
perish. The tradition it symbolizes
continues unbroken. "Therell al
ways be an England" because there
never will be any dearth of heroes to
die that she may live.