But on board the seventy-four in which Billy now swung his hammock, very
little in the manner of the men and nothing obvious in the demeanour of the
officers would have suggested to an ordinary observer that the Great Mutiny was
a recent event. In their general bearing and conduct the commissioned officers
of a warship naturally take their tone from the Commander, that is if he have
that ascendancy of character that ought to be his.
Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere, to give his full title, was a
bachelor of forty or thereabouts, a sailor of distinction even in a time
prolific of renowned seamen. Though allied to the higher nobility, his
advancement had not been altogether owing to influences connected with that
circumstance. He had seen much service, been in various engagements, always
acquitting himself as an officer mindful of the welfare of his men, but never
tolerating an infraction of discipline; thoroughly versed in the science of his
profession, and intrepid to the verge of temerity, though never injudiciously
so. For his gallantry in the West Indian waters as Flag-Lieutenant under Rodney
in that Admiral's crowning victory over De Grasse, he was made a Post-Captain.
Ashore in the garb of a civilian, scarce anyone would have taken him for a
sailor, more especially that he never garnished unprofessional talk with
nautical terms, and grave in his bearing, evinced little appreciation of mere
humor. It was not out of keeping with these traits that on a passage when
nothing demanded his paramount action, he was the most undemonstrative of men.
Any landsman observing this gentleman, not conspicuous by his stature and
wearing no pronounced insignia, emerging from his cabin to the open deck, and
noting the silent deference of the officers retiring to leeward, might have
taken him for the King's guest, a civilian aboard the King's-ship, some highly
honorable discreet envoy on his way to an important post. But in fact this
unobtrusiveness of demeanour may have proceeded from a certain unaffected
modesty of manhood sometimes accompanying a resolute nature, a modesty evinced
at all times not calling for pronounced action, and which shown in any rank of
life suggests a virtue aristocratic in kind.
As with some others engaged in various departments of the world's more heroic
activities, Captain Vere, though practical enough upon occasion, would at times
betray a certain dreaminess of mood. Standing alone on the weather-side of the
quarter-deck, one hand holding by the rigging, he would absently gaze off at the
blank sea. At the presentation to him then of some minor matter interrupting the
current of his thoughts he would show more or less irascibility; but instantly
he would control it.
In the navy he was popularly known by the appellation- Starry Vere. How such
a designation happened to fall upon one who, whatever his sterling qualities,
was without any brilliant ones was in this wise: A favorite kinsman, Lord
Denton, a free-hearted fellow, had been the first to meet and congratulate him
upon his return to England from his West Indian cruise; and but the day previous
turning over a copy of Andrew Marvell's poems, had lighted, not for the first
time however, upon the lines entitled Appleton House, the name of one of the
seats of their common ancestor, a hero in the German wars of the seventeenth
century, in which poem occur the lines,
"This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of Fairfax and the starry Vere."
And so, upon embracing his cousin fresh from Rodney's great victory wherein
he had played so gallant a part, brimming over with just family pride in the
sailor of their house, he exuberantly exclaimed, "Give ye joy, Ed; give ye joy,
my starry Vere!" This got currency, and the novel prefix serving in familiar
parlance readily to distinguish the Indomitable's Captain from another Vere his
senior, a distant relative, an officer of like rank in the navy, it remained
permanently attached to the surname.
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