BLES required for our voyage. [A dead silence.] Some have plenty of wine, but no liquor for these cold. nights; while others have plenty of the RIGHT STUFF, but no wine! [Another dead silence; every man and boy knowing that they had been over-stocked with both. [Then, again, how am I to know my ham, my cheese, my cock, duck, or goose? [Ay! how indeed?] or my wine, porter, or liquor from my neighbour's? [Hear.] Besides, I am an enemy to invidious distinctions; and though not an officer on board has laid in a larger stock (of assurance, Jack might have added) than myself, I am a LIBERAL man! Damn all separate cupboards, say I; let us club our whole stock together;-make it a general concern; and, plase the PIGS, we'll all live like FIGHTING COCKS!" (A natural peroration as Jack's speech was delivered in the midst of pigs and poultry.)

What could the youths do but agree unanimously to such a magnanimous proposition? The motion was carried without any division of votes, or, (what was of most consequence to the orator,) any division of the rich and abundant stock; honest Jack's contribution to which, (by his private confession,) consisted of ONE bottle of GIN, and a QUARTERN loaf!

This important arrangement having been adopted, the messstewards, and servants, commenced the work of unpacking and stowing away; all the young gentlemen assisting to form the various magazines, the bustle of which, and the novelty of the scene altogether, served for the while, to divert the mind of many from the sweet recollections of home, of family, and friends.

I had to wait for the role d'equipage upwards of half an hour, while the commanding-officer was undergoing the operation of shaving. When this gentleman made his appearance, I recognised another extract from Chatham, (but one with whom I had never spoken,) in the person of Brevet Major Johnny Armstrong, an illiterate enthusiast of the evangelical school, who delivered a lecture on the use of the bayonet every morning on the poop, and preached a sermon every evening from the same place; while his wife, young enough to be his daughter, (who was a "culler of SIMPLES" of a certain description,) kept a reading shop, with a stock of green grocery, and a medicine chest within her own little cabin, "forrard," partitioned off from the galley.

The vessel was commanded by an old lieutenant of the navy, whose messmates were a surgeon, purser, and acting master. Professional distinctions, certainly of a very invidious nature, were carried so far, that a boundary line on the quarter-deck was drawn, within which the soldier officers were expected, nay ordered, to confine their perambulations. This, with other

littlenesses, but too common in those days, when the jealousy between the two services was at its height, caused much ill blood; and before the ship arrived at Barbadoes, the lieutenant was under a tacit engagement to about thirty officers to afford them honourable satisfaction for some real or fancied act of oppression or insult. Twenty-nine of these affairs were adjourned, sine die, in consequence of the unpleasant termination of the first, in which the punctilious lieutenant had the illluck to be seriously winged by a wild Irish lad, who, in his impatience to vindicate his honour, forgot to wait for the signal, and fired before his adversary could come to the "present!" for which act of forgetfulness, he was saved the risk of a farther service in the British army.

Taking leave of this floating barrack of Jack Gun and his mess, I made my way to the troop ships; and returned to my general with the most satisfactory accounts of the condition of the troops, vessels, provisions, &c.

«

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Come, all hands ahoy to the anchor,
From friends and relations we go."

NEXT morning, at nine, a gun from the commodore, fore-topsail loose, and Blue Peter at the mast-head, threw all Portsmouth into a bustle. The Point and Hard were thronged with red-coats, driving bargains with the extortionate wherrymen for a put-off; while middies and mates were driving the blue-jackets by dozens from the tippling and other houses, towards the Sally Port, groups of drunken doxies still clinging to them, with vehement protestations of love, and the most fervent prayers and supplications for-their last shilling!

I had embarked the entire of my baggage at the first dawn of day; and at twelve, I accompanied my general, in the captain's barge, on board the frigate. at which time the whole fleet was heaving short on their anchors.-At two another gun! Top-sails sheeted home!-All visiters be off!"-Adieu, adieu!

46

"Thus many part, whose parting is eternal!"

The last despatch-boat that left the frigate, gave me a cast my*

on board the Ajax, just as the clouds of evening were gather ing, where a cheerful fire, a tureen of prime soup, and a good plain dinner awaited me. The ship was already under weigh, and I did not again visit the deck, except for a few minutes: at eight bells, the surrounding gloom and darkness drove me again to seek the comforts of the elegant cabin.

We had a leading wind round St. Helen's Point. I retired, after a very agreeably spent evening, to my berth, than which nothing could be more cleanly, comfortable, or convenient. The agent occupied one cabin abaft, I the other; the surgeon, and master, took their berths below.

My constant state of activity of body and mind, in the performance of my duties for several days past, had scarcely allowed me time or room for thought; but now, when left to my reflections, they crowded on me with such force as to deprive me of that repose which my late busy state of excitement ren dered so necessary. A hurried retrospect of the last eighteen months, called up associations at once delightful and distressing. "Shall I ever see HER again?" was the involuntary question of my waking dream, Who the beloved being was, to whom the question applied, I leave to my reader's imagina-. tion.

After a restless night, my first broken slumbers were rudely interrupted by the noise of washing, scrubbing and swabbing decks; every thump of the water-bucket seemed to pierce my brain, already burning and bewildered, from pain, want of sleep,. and nervous restlessness. Eight o'clock was our appointed hour for breakfast; and although I would have given one month's pay for one hour's sleep, and which I seemed fully prepared to enjoy, when enjoyment was no longer allowable, 1 was fain to turn out a little after seven, and get through the ceremony of my morning toilet. My cocked-hat, my coat, and other shoregoing articles were all laid up; and with the aid of the general's English groom, who was my valet for the while, I got out my sea garments, a well lined pelisse jacket, and seal-skin cap. On making my appearance on the quarter-deck, I saluted the colours and the commander in due form; and our party took our monotonous walk, fore and aft, from seven bells till eight, when a basin of strong coffee braced up my nerves, and relieved my aching head.

As the day advanced, and the fog appeared a little dissi pated, the fleet presented an intercsting object. The sixty-four under courses led the van, the frigates under topsails flanked its rear; all the ships were well up in their stations. The Isle of Wight, distant about two leagues on our weather beam, seemed wrapt in a shroud of snow, through which the steeples of Nighton and Shanklin peeped out, as if to mark the place

A

of sepulchre. We were stealing gently and silently through the water, amidst a softly descending and light fall of snow, at the rate of not more than five knots. A gloom hung over the surface of the mighty deep, which suited the soul's sadness of many a poor exile, that day borne on its treacherous bosom.

Noon did not improve the dreary scene; and the day passed with no other enjoyments than those which our blazing stove and well furnished table afforded.

Before I turned in for the night I took a quarter of an hour's walk on deck; and felt delighted at the sight of a thousand twinkling stars; and not less so to hear the master give the word, "round in the weather braces!" By ten o'clock we were running nine knots by the log, with every prospect of the wind holding. It was then a clear north-easter, and plenty, but not too much, of it. The vessel began to kick, as the seamen term it; and becoming a little qualmish, I laid myself down, and felt not how the world went until seven next morning, when even the diurnal knockings and scrubbings over my head had not the power to disturb my long, refreshing sleep.

I started on deck too see how the land lay. St. Alban's head was dipped in the distance; and our whole fleet collected in a cluster, like "Mother Carey and her chickens," were staggering down channel under every stitch of canvass they could set, with a steady nine-knot breeze. Hills and head-lands appeared like phantoms, and as quickly retired. With the last look I threw on the Lizard, I bestowed a blessing and a sigh on the land we had left.

CHAPTER XIX:

"There's matter in these sighs-these profound heaves, you must translate."

As soon as we got into blue water, and my head became a little righted, my eyes being no longer tantalized by the sight of that shore which it was probable I might never see again, I devoted some hours each day to reading. Besides the usual number of nautical books, our commander boasted of a tolerable little library of amusing works.

It is somewhere said that no man ought to undertake a long voyage without having Roderick Random to while away the heavy hours. The captain had not limited himself to that one production of the coarse but ever-entertaining Smollett, but had provided himself with many works of that and of other popular authors.

Fielding's Tom Jones, by its evident wear and tear, was proved to have been a general favourite; and here it was that I first found time or taste to read that inimitably well-wrought story of the generous but erring Jones, and his lovely Sophia; some of the scenes in which reminded me of my own follies.

Besides these standard works, which, as faithful sketches of human nature in every age, will never be entirely out of fashion, the bookcase was furnished with Annual Registers, Magazines, and other periodicals of the time.

During my porings over a volume of the former for 1794, I fell upon a paragraph which caused such a sudden perturbation in my whole appearance, as to excite the curiosity of the surgeon, who was present. I read the article over and over again, during which my agitation rather increased than diminished. "What can be the matter?" demanded the man of medicine; to which I could only reply, with a sigh, "O! 'tis a long story; I'll tell it to you to-night; meanwhile I'll take a glass of wine and a walk." Fortified with this cordial, I took a turn on deck; and on my return once more read the startling paragraph, as follows:

"Gibraltar-October. Accounts have lately been received here that the noted Irish highwayman Cusack, who was taken on board L'Espiègle French privateer this time twelve months, after an action of two hours, by H. M. S. Scorpion, and whose escape last December from the prison-ship in this Bay, when