A 'cranky little vessel': The story of HM steam vessel Lightning Part 3: Events, dear boy, events!

摘要

Britain's upper crust 1960s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, is said to have responded to a journalist who asked what he thought might blow any government's policy off course with the words 'Events, dear boy, events!' clearly meaning any unforeseen circumstance. Whether or not SuperMac actually uttered the words is debatable, but their veracity has been attested to many times, not least in recent turbulent months in the UK. But 'twas ever so, and this third part in the Lightning story takes us back to unexpected events in the early months of 1827 which had a major influence on the story of our little vessel and of the navy in general.