now not, but
I was attacked with the Walcheren fever, and was sent home in a
line-of-battle ship; and, perhaps, as Pangloss says, it was all for
the best; for I knew I could not have left off my inveterate habits,
and it would have been very inconvenient to me, and distressing to my
friends, to have ended my brilliant career, and stopped these memoirs,
at the beginning of the second and most interesting volume, by hanging
the Author up, like a scarecrow, under the superintendence of the
rascally provost-marshal, merely for catering on the land of a
Walcheren farmer. Moreover, the Dutch were unworthy of liberty, as
their actions proved, to begrudge a few fowls, or a fillet of veal,
to the very men who came to rescue them from bondage;--and then their
water, too, who ever drank such stuff? for my part, I never tasted it
when I could get anything better. As to their nasty swamps and fogs,
quite good enough for such croaking fellows as they are, what could
induce an Englishman to live among them, except the pleasure of
killing Frenchmen, or shooting game? Deprive us of these pursuits,
which the surrender of Flushing effectually did, and Walcheren, with
its ophthalmia and its agues, was no longer a place for a gentleman.
Besides, I plainly saw that if there ever had been any intention of
advancing to Antwerp, the time was now gone by; and as the French were
laughing at us, and I never liked to be made a butt of, particularly
by such chaps as these, I left the scene of our sorrows and disgraces
without regret.

The farewell of Voltaire came into my mind. "_Adieu, Canaux, Canardes,
et Canaille_," which might be rendered into English thus:--"Good-bye,
Dykes, Ducks, and Dutchmen." So I returned to my father's house to be
nursed by my sister, and to astonish the neighbours with the history
of our wonderful achievements.

Chapter XII

First came great Neptune, with his three-forkt mace,
That rules the seas, and makes them rise or fall:
His dewy locks did drop with brine apace
Under his diademe-imperiall:
And by his side his queene with coronall,
Fair Amphitrite

* * * * *

These marched farre afore the other crew.

SPENSER.

I remained no longer at home than sufficed to restore my strength,
after the serious attack of fever and ague which I had brought with
me from Walcheren. Although my father received me kindly, he had not
forgotten (at least I thought so) my f