On the 5th October we sailed for England, touching at Lisbon on our way, and after a stormy passage of three weeks anchored in Plymouth Sound, from which place we were sent to the Motherbank to perform three weeks’ quarantine. On the 20th of November we moved to Spithead, where I landed my most agreeable and pleasant passengers with very great regret. I had had them on board for more than three months, so that my cabin felt quite a desert without their society.
After being detained at Portsmouth a few days, we proceeded to the Downs, and on the 14th December between six and seven hundred of His Majesty’s 37th and 56th Regiments were sent on board, with orders from Admiral Foley for me to land them at Goree, or the Brill, or Helveot Sluys; but owing to the winds and tide we were unable to fetch either. I therefore anchored off Schevelling, and communicated with our ambassador, Lord Clancarty, at the Hague, who desired the troops to be landed at the village of Schevelling. His excellency wishing to see me at the Hague, I went there to wait upon his lordship.
The little I was enabled to see of Dutchland, gave me a favourable opinion of the cleanliness of its people; and the neat pretty cottages from the beach to the city struck me as being particularly picturesque. Schevelling itself is nothing but a fishing place amongst sand hills; but the town of the Hague was neat, and in summer must be a pleasant place. But as the severe winter of 1813 was just commencing, I was obliged to hurry off from the coast as fast as possible, for fear of being caught upon a lee shore.
On our passage back to the Downs, the two branch pilots very nearly ran the ship upon the Galloper Sands in a fog, which obliged us to anchor off the light for a tide. The next day, however, we arrived safely in the Downs, and from thence we were sent to Sheerness to be docked and refitted.
CHAPTER XV.
1814—Sent to Bermuda—Operations in the Chesapeake—The River Patuxent—Expedition to Washington—Town of Rappahannock—River Rappahannock—Wedding Party—Commodore Robert Barrie, &c., &c.
The ship having undergone the necessary repairs, which was very heavy work during the severe winter of 1813, towards the end of March we sailed for Spithead, where we embarked three hundred and fifty marines, and proceeded, in company with the Tonnant (80), Regulus (44), and Melpomene (38), en flute to Bermuda, at which place we arrived after a passage of eight weeks.
Nothing particular occurred on our voyage out, except my having the measles very badly, which, not knowing what ailed me, I had driven inwardly by cold bathing.