LUCKY FRIDAY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2350, 5 January 1915, Page 7

LUCKY FRIDAY

SOME WONDERFUL INSTANCES. If the British Navy has a "lucky day" it should be e. Friday (says the "Westminster Gazette" of Friday, November 13). It was on Friday, July 29, 1588. that the Spanish Armada was destroyed. True, it was also a Friday, November 29, 1652, when Van Tromp sailed the Channel with a broom at his masthead to indicate that he had swept the English from the seas, but luck has ti habit of turning, and, according to the most reliable chronologies, Friday, June 13. 1653, was the decisive day in the battle off the North Foreland when Bix of Van Tromp's ships were taken and eleven were sunk. It was on Fri-day,-April 20, 1657, that Blake won his greatest victory, in the harbour of Santa Cruz; on Friday, July 30, 1779, that the American fleet was totally destroyed off the shores of New England; on Friday, April 12, 1782, that Rodney defeated the French, taking the French admiral prisoner, and on Friday, September 13, of the same yeßr, that the British totally defeated the fleets of France and Spain in tllo Bay of GibraiTwas also on Friday, July 16, 1779, that the great siege of bibraltar began, to end in the total overthrow of the hostile armaments. "rafaJgar, indeed, was fought on a Monday, but at least (t was on the previous Friday that the French admiral made the fatal decision to come out and g»;e L ha i ttl ?: Nelson would have been the last to dispute the "luckiness" of Friday, for ho was born on that day, created 1 a viscount on that day, and it was on Fnjlay, May 20.' 1803, that he assumed chiet- command in the Mediterranean. . Whether the "luck" still holds remains to be seen, but the Heligoland Bight action suggests that it does, and til© fall of Tsingtau, which took placQ apparently last Friday, seems to indicate tnat the luck is shared by the *<> rce3 of our Allies, <