I have been so very ill in that Stygian boiling Bay of Biscay, that I would willingly have given something to boot with my commission for a “Burgamy pear” or a “Brown Burer.” Nature, I thought, could not stand it! I knew there was nothing in me to comply with those violent requisitions! It began to blow hard just as we made the Scilly Isles, and the winds and waves overcame me in the murky chops of the Channel. But I will not keep you or myself longer upon these disagreeable topics, and so will quit them.
I do not suppose that I shall be able to send you this until we arrive at Gibraltar, but I will add to it from time to time.
Oh, how I long to be roving over those Spanish mountains, and to be relieved from this constant see-saw.
The coast which we see is very romantic. We are about eighteen miles from it, and are under strict orders not to land at any port we may put into, without express permission. So I think it most likely that officers will not be allowed to go on shore at Gibraltar.
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Tuesday, April 30.
Land thirty miles distant.
Since I last sat down we have made about 100 miles. On Sunday we were hailed by the Prince, the ship in which are our other three comrades—Captain Lefebure (our commandant), Nicholas, and Hoste. They told us on board the Prince that the Toulon fleet was out, and being too strong for Sir John Orde, he had put in to Gibraltar, and that they expected we should put in to Lisbon—a slender protection!!
We were more than half inclined to credit this, as we believe that Sir John Orde has not more than five sail, and the French might be reinforced from Ferrol.
Our convoy is, we think, very inadequate, because the loss of this little army would be a sad damper to England, particularly from the nature and quantity of stores, and the six Royal Engineers attached to it!!!—only the “Queen,” the “Dragon,” and a “Bomb.”
A breeze springing up last night had been preceded by the appearance of a shoal of porpoises, which took a westerly direction, and whose novel gambols and beastly black appearances amused us much.