Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but me departed.
Thus in the stilly night,
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad memory brings the light
Of other days around me.—Moore.
When I was on board the Boreas and Conqueror with my father I had nothing to do with the midshipmen, as I lived in the gunroom of the former and wardroom of the latter. But in this ship I took my degrees (not as a doctor of Oxford, thank God!) but as a midshipman in the cockpit of H.M. ship Panther, with some of the best fellows that ever graced the British navy. I joined her early in 1782 fitting in Portsmouth Harbour, commanded by Captain Thomas Piercy of glorious memory. I had eleven shillings given me by some friends in Gosport, and I thought my fortune was made.