Great guns are no more to be used,
Disbanded we all are to be.
Oh! says the admiral, The wars are all over;
Says the captain, My heart it will break;
Oh! says the bloody first lieutenant,
What course of life shall I take?
He then began to cut such capers that I thought he was mad. For my own part, I was in high spirits and got up and roused out several more who had not heard of the good news, when unfortunately a cutter came under our stern and sent a boat on board. When the officer came on the quarter deck, our master, full of glee, went up to him and said, ‘If you have any letters, give them to us and we’ll take them in for you.’ ‘The devil you will?’ says he. ‘That would be a pretty circumbendibus, to send letters to Portsmouth viâ Jamaica. Why,’ says he, ‘you don’t laugh.’ And well he might say so, for no lame duck on change ever cut a more rueful appearance than the master, who damned his eyes, and went below to make his will, wishing bad luck to the fellow who brought the news.
We had to victual and get stores from the rest of the fleet, with a heavy swell and the ship rolling like a tub. She was the worst sea boat that ever was built, drawing less water by some feet than the other ships of her rate, but of great breadth and superior size. She had a trick of carrying away her main topmast close by the cap, by a particular jerk in pitching; and as we were informed by Mr. Yelland, the carpenter (who had been appointed to her for years before), could never be prevented; and here she played the same game, and laboured so dreadfully that it was with the utmost difficulty we could get the stores on board and another main topmast rigged, so as to be ready to join the squadron. She rolled so that the scuttle butts broke adrift, and a poor fellow got so much injured by one of them that he died soon after. She also held a bad wind, so that it was no easy task for an officer to keep her in her station; and to sum up the whole of her good qualities, on her last cruise she had nearly drowned all hands, and it was by uncommon exertion and good luck they succeeded in getting her into port, where they made her a powder ship, the only thing she was fit for.[[154]]
Before we left the fleet, one of our lieutenants was taken ill and sent home, and Lieutenant Hector Maclean came in his room—he was senior to me and appointed second. This was another hardship, but Captain Stephens told me not to mind it as he would do everything in his power to serve me. I told him that Lord Hugh Seymour, the admiral commanding on the Jamaica station, was an old friend and shipmate of my father’s, and I would thank him to mention me to him when the ship arrived, which he said I might depend on. But, unfortunately for me, Lord Hugh died before we got out, regretted by everyone, and was succeeded in the command (until the arrival of Sir J. T. Duckworth) by a man[[155]] as proud as the mighty Prester John.
We had many strange beings in our wardroom—I shall begin with the master and surgeon. Our first lieutenant gave the former the name of Pot Guts, and the surgeon the cognomen of Bottle Belly. The master saved everything he could, having a family; and for this he was considered by some as very near. Now the surgeon was one that loved good living, and used to eat very hearty and seemed to devour everything with his eyes on the table. I remember his saying to the master in a satirical manner, ‘Mr. Wills, don’t you intend to purchase a black servant for your good lady?’ ‘Why,’ says Wills, ‘I had some idea of doing so, but to tell you the truth I am fearful you would eat him on the passage.’ The surgeon had nothing further to say. While lying at Port Royal, Wills was caterer of the mess and went to Kingston to purchase dollar pigs; and going into a house he saw some people lugging a man downstairs, and on his asking what was the matter, they told him it was only a man who had died of the yellow fever. This gave him such a turn that to recover his spirits he was obliged to drink seven glasses of grog before (to use his own words) he could make his blood circulate, and for several days he was on the look-out for the black vomit.