We fought him, one fine morning, at
sunset; we were unpleasantly wet on the
lower deck; in fact, we were sinking, when
H.M.S. "Oberon" came up and saved us. The
Yankee went off, playing "Yankee Doodle."

We were all tried by court-martial, and
acquitted. To be sure, we had lost a third of
our crew, and four officers; which showed
that we had made a fight, and was considered
highly satisfactory. The skipper's turn for a
flag came on. some time afterwards, when he
was a brisk young admiral of sixty-five; but
he never got a command. They were afraid
of youthful enthusiasm. When we were paid
off, I was attacked, one night, by a party of
Amazons whose husbands we had pressed,
and lost the use of a finger. I applied to the
Admiralty, in the hope of smart-money,
but got none; when I wrote again, I was
informed that their lordships "had nothing
to add to their former communication." It is
a curious circumstance that they never have
anything to "add." What does this arise
from? Is each communication perfect per se?
I consoled myself with reflecting that their
former communication had been quite dull
enough, and cold enough, without any addition.

I was now on shore, unemployed. My
relations were not much pleased with me,
for I had brought home my legs, and had not
brought home any prize-money, and was,
therefore, neither an object of personal nor
pecuniary interest. I kept applying for
employment, and after a long time, just as I was
married (Jeremiah, be firm!), came my
appointment to H.M.S. "Blunderer." Poor dear
Emily! That long, coffin-like letter, "On Her
Majesty's Service," did eclipse our honeymoon
into an eclipse that would have startled Kepler.

The "Blunderer" was one of those peculiar
vessels, a "fir thirty-two;" which class of
vessels had this odd peculiarity that they
could neither stand up under canvas, nor
sail. Fancy an umbrella that would neither
shut up, nor keep out wet, and you have a
good notion of the utility of a fir thirty-two.
The "Blunderer," sir, was made of raw fir—
gummy, sir, positively! We used to expect
to see her, leafy, in spring-time! She was as
cranky as a parasol in winter weather. Half
our time was spent in wishing we dare set the
top-gallant sails. She was as liable to capsize,
as a boy's boat on the Serpentine. One day, I
had the watch, and set the top-gallant sails in
a fresher breeze than usual. A squall came,
and the masts went over the side. The
Admiralty made me pay for them out of my
pay; and poor Emily had to sell her piano to
make up the difference.

I left the "Blunderer" a mate (she afterwards
was taken aback, in a squall, with the
mainsail on her, and went down stern
foremost), and joined a twenty-eight-gun-ship.
She was, also, a peculiar ship, belonging to
another strange class, that could neither fight
nor run away. I was made an acting-
lieutenant in her; shortly afterwards I joined
one of a really fine class of brigs. Will the
reader believe that the authorities took the
whim of putting a third mast in her, which
spoiled her—and did the same to a dozen,
before finding out their mistake!

For this is a standing principle with the
naval authorities—always "to go the entire
animal" (I am too polite to say what animal)
and to multiply a blunder in arithmetical
progression. One foolish experiment makes
many; and each bad vessel produces a whole
set of them as the fox that had lost his tail
sought for companions. Accordingly, our
beautiful eighteen-gun-brig, the "Violet," had
a third mast put into her, and was spoiled.
And the same process was gone through
with several others at a cost of nine hundred
pounds each. This process of addition, I may
say, is as sensible as it would be for a man
with two good legs to add a wooden one by
way of improving his walk!

I was paid off in the "Violet," this time,
and, though I had been an acting-lieutenant
some years, had to go back again to the rank
of mate. You see I was not a man of family,
neither had I interest in a borough. The
first lord, a civilian, wanted patronage; I had
no patrons. Off I went to sea in H. M. Brig;—
what do you suppose?—"Jowler." She was
one of a number of flat-bottomed, bad brigs,
named by the Admiralty after Lord Spencer's
hounds. There was "Rucher," and "Badger,"
and "Bang; "and the sea was turned into a
kennel. Since the days of Scylla, who

        "Chid his barking waves into attention,"

—as Milton, I think, says—the ocean had seen
nothing so canine! We were yelping and
galloping about, over the world—but by no
means too good hands at biting. But, my
luck on board the "Jowler," was better than
that of my old messmate Blocksby. He
joined one of the new ten-gun-brigs, begun in
1808—when the kennel lot began to be seen
to be useless. The Admiralty built them,
like wild-fire, as usual, and launched sixty-
four. Four foundered at sea; and two
hundred and sixty men perished; six,
turned into packets, were lost with one
hundred and sixty-eight men, beside passengers.
Poor Blocksby went down, all standing, in
command of one of the last. It was an awful
winter, that, and he never expected to come
back from Halifax. He had left all his plate
on shore at Falmouth, in order that his
family might not lose that, at all events!

Well! I got made a lieutenant, and I
commanded a revenue cutter—which put me in
the way of seeing a good deal of what went
on in the dockyards, when I was in harbour.
Sometimes, I have gone round a dockyard
with the first lord, who (of course) wanted
somebody to put him up to the differences
between the various sorts of ships, and another,
(a kind of interpreters between him and his
business!) while he was making a tour of
inspection.