Sordid his garb, but in his looks were seen
A youthful vigour, and autumnal green.
‘Can you,’ says he, ‘with all the antiquity you smatter, find out who I allude to?’ ‘Charon, sir,’ says I. ‘Right,’ says he, ‘I’m the man; but I am not going on the Styx to-day. The Channel shall be my cruising ground this morning’; and off he started with some ladies in company. On his return he came up to the station, foaming with rage, requesting me to inform him the name of the cutter in the offing, that he might report her commander to the admiralty for daring to fire at him. Now the fact was this. The cutter had fired at some boats to bring them to, as the fishermen had frequently smuggled goods on board; and Mr. Whistler having boarded one of them to get fish, the commander of the cutter fired several muskets at his boat, thinking him a smuggler also, which made the parson pull to land as fast as possible. It was out of my power to give him the name, as I had not her number. ‘Well, then,’ says he, ‘the first time I can lay hold of him I’ll christen him in the Bourne stream, by giving him a good ducking.’
The beginning of December 1814 the admiralty directed me to pay off the station without loss of time, and the next day I received a letter from the navy board to the same purpose, and further directing me to clear the station of the stores under my charge, and to sell all unserviceable articles. Now all this was very well, and they concluded by saying,
We are your Affectionate Friends[[164]]——
(Signed by three commissioners);
but on the margin of their letter was a postscript as follows:—
‘You are to discharge your midshipman and men on the receipt of this letter; and yourself, as soon as these instructions have been complied with.’
So by this I was to do everything myself, which was very kind, in the dead of winter, three miles from Hastings, and a long way from the spring where we had our water, and nothing to be had in the neighbourhood; and upon a hill, said to be 650 feet above the level of the sea—so that if a snowstorm came on I might remain there alone and starve and be damned for what some people cared. However, I got a merchant at Hastings to send his wagons out and take the stores to his warehouse, until a vessel was sent to receive them; and after selling the coals and fire stack, I paid off the station on the 7th of December 1814.