On arriving at Portsmouth, I had gone to the Blue Posts, an inn of old renown, recommended by my brother Harry, who was then a midshipman, and who had lately sailed for the East India station. It was an inn more patronised by midshipmen and young lieutenants than by post-captains and admirals. I had there expected to meet Captain Hassall, the commander of the Barbara, but was told that, as he was the master of a merchantman, he was more likely to have gone to the Keppel’s Head, at Portsea. Thither I repaired, and found a note from him telling me to come off at once, and saying that he had had to return on board in a hurry, as he found that several of his men had no protection, and were very likely to be pressed, one man having already been taken by a press-gang, and that he was certain to inform against the others. Thus it was that I came to embark at the Common Hard at Portsea, and had to beat down the harbour.
“Do you think as how you’d know your ship when you sees her, sir?” asked old Bob, with a twinkle in his one eye, for he had discovered my very limited amount of nautical knowledge, I suspect. “It will be a tough job to find her, you see, among so many.”
Now I had been on board very often as she lay alongside the quay in the Thames. I had seen all her cargo stowed, knew every bale and package and case; I had attended to the fitting-up of my own cabin, and was indeed intimately acquainted with every part of her interior. But her outside—that was a very different matter, I began to suspect. I saw floating on the sea, far out in the distance, the misty outlines of a hundred or more big ships; indeed, the whole space between Portsmouth and the little fishing village of Ryde seemed covered with shipping, and my heart sank within me at the thought of having to pick out the Barbara among them.
The evening was drawing on, and the weather did not look pleasant; still I must make the attempt. The convoy was expected to sail immediately, and the interests of my employers, Garrard, Janrin and Company, would be sacrificed should the sailing of the ship be delayed by my neglect. These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind and made me reply boldly, “We must go on, at all events. Time enough to find her out when we get there.”
We were at that time near the mouth of the harbour, with Haslar Hospital seen over a low sandbank, and some odd-looking sea-marks on one side, and Southsea beach and the fortifications of Portsmouth, with a church tower and the houses of the town beyond. A line of redoubts and Southsea Castle appeared, extending farther southward, while the smooth chalk-formed heights of Portsdown rose in the distance. As a person suddenly deprived of sight recollects with especial clearness the last objects he has beheld, so this scene was indelibly impressed on my mind, as it was the last near view I was destined to have of old England for many a long day. For the same reason I took a greater interest in old Bob and his boy Jerry than I might otherwise have done. They formed the last human link of the chain which connected me with my native land. Bob had agreed to take my letters back, announcing my safe arrival on board—that is to say, should I ever get there. My firm reply, added to the promise of another five shillings for the trouble he might have, raised me again in his opinion, and he became very communicative.
We tacked close to a buoy off Southsea beach. “Ay, sir, there was a pretty blaze just here not many years ago,” he remarked. “Now I mind it was in ’95—that’s the year my poor girl Betty died—the mother of Jerry there. You’ve heard talk of the Boyne—a fine ship she was, of ninety-eight guns. While she, with the rest of the fleet, was at anchor at Spithead, one morning a fire broke out in the admiral’s cabin, and though officers and men did their best to extinguish it, somehow or other it got the upper hand of them all; but the boats from the other ships took most of them off, though some ten poor fellows perished, they say. One bad part of the business was, that the guns were all loaded and shotted, and as the fire got to them they went off, some of the shots reaching Stokes Bay, out there beyond Haslar, and others falling among the shipping. Two poor fellows aboard the Queen Charlotte were killed, and another wounded, though she and the other ships got under way to escape mischief. At about half-past one she burnt from her cables, and came slowly drifting in here till she took the ground. She burnt on till near six in the morning, when the fire reached the magazine, and up she blew with an awful explosion. We knew well enough that the moment would come, and it was a curious feeling we had waiting for it. Up went the blazing masts and beams and planks, and came scattering down far and wide, hissing into the water; and when we looked again after all was over, not a timber was to be seen.”
Bob also pointed out the spot where nearly a century before the Edgar had blown up, and every soul in her had perished, and also where the Royal George and the brave Admiral Kempenfeldt, with eight hundred men, had gone down several years before the destruction of the Boyne. “Ay, sir, to my mind it’s sad to think that the sea should swallow up so many fine fellows as she does every year, and yet we couldn’t very well do without her, so I suppose it’s all right. Mind your head-sheets, Jerry, or she’ll not come about in this bobble,” he observed, as we were about to tack round the buoy.
Having kept well to the eastward, we were now laying up to windward of the fleet. There were line-of-battle ships, and frigates, and corvettes, and huge Indiamen as big-looking as many line-of-battle ships, and large transports, and numberless merchantmen—ships and barques, and brigs and schooners; but as to what the Barbara was like I had not an idea. I fixed on one of the largest of the Indiamen, but when I told old Bob the tonnage of the Barbara he laughed, and said she wasn’t half the size of the ship I pointed out.
It was getting darkish and coming on to blow pretty fresh, and how to find my ship among the hundred or more at anchor I could not possibly tell.
“Well, I thought from your look and the way you hailed me that you was a sea-faring gentleman, and on course you’d ha’ known your own ship,” said old Bob, with a wink of his one eye. “Howsomever, we can beat about among the fleet till it’s dark, and then back to Portsmouth; and then, do ye see, sir, we can come out to-morrow morning by daylight and try again. Maybe we shall have better luck. The convoy is sure not to sail in the night, and the tide won’t serve till ten o’clock at earliest.”