The guns of H.M.S. Rodney and her sister ships have
now playe an important part in more than one battle fought a long way ou of sight or hearing of the sea. (Incideptally, there is a certain grim ness now in remembering the arguments of fifteen years ago abo the uselessness of battleships in war.) It so happens that ear this week I passed one of the few places where the procedure w reversed and a squadron of horse captured a ship of war at se This happened at Watchet—a port older than Bristol—in the Ci War, or, if you like, the Great Rebellion. "The tide" (one of th great tides of the Bristol Channel) "being at Ebb, and the passage fo Horse made thereby commodious," Captain Popham's troop (of t
parliamentary cause) rode into the water and, their horses breast dee came near enough to "ply with Carbine Shot" a ship manned sailors of the King's party in Wales. They " plyed the Welsh gent so thickly" that these latter, to save their lives, "Surrendered the Ship and Themselves."
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