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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: that sense, not so much of humour, as of what is grimmest and
driest in pleasantry, which inspired his address before the
fight at Camperdown. He had just overtaken the Dutch fleet
under Admiral de Winter. "Gentlemen," says he, "you see a
severe winter approaching; I have only to advise you to keep
up a good fire." Somewhat of this same spirit of adamantine
drollery must have supported him in the days of the mutiny at
the Nore, when he lay off the Texel with his own flagship, the
VENERABLE, and only one other vessel, and kept up active
signals, as though he had a powerful fleet in the offing, to
intimidate the Dutch.
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