But as ashore, knightly valor, tho' shorn of its blazonry, did not cease with the knights, neither on the seas, […] did the nobler qualities of such naval magnates as Don John of Austria, Doria, Van Tromp, Jean Bart, the long line of British Admirals and the American Decaturs of 1812 become obsolete with their wooden walls.
1924, Herman Melville, chapter 4, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.