te required care, and I
made the most of it. They would have carried me on board again, but
I begged to be taken to the hotel. The surgeon of the regiment doing
duty there attended me, and I requested him to make my case as bad
as possible. The captain came to see me--I appeared very ill--his
compassion was like that of the Inquisitor of the Holy Office,
who cures his victim in order to enable him to go through further
torments. His time of sailing arrived, and I was reported to be too
ill to be removed. Determined to have me, he prolonged his stay. I
got better; the surgeon's report was more favourable; but I was still
unwilling to go on board. The captain sent me an affectionate message,
to say that if I did not come, he would send a file of marines to
bring me: he even came himself and threatened me; when, finding there
were no witnesses in the room, I plainly told him that if he persisted
in having me on board, it would be to his own destruction, for that I
was fully determined to bring him to a court-martial for drunkenness
and unofficerlike conduct, the moment we joined the admiral. I told
him of the state in which I had found him. I recapitulated his
blasphemies, and his lubberly conduct in losing the two men; he stared
and endeavoured to explain; I was peremptory, and he whined and gave
in, seeing he was in my power.

"Well then, my dear fellow," said Jacky, "since you are so very
ill--sorry as I shall be to lose you--I must consent to your staying
behind. I shall find it difficult to replace you; but as the comfort
and happiness of my officers is my first object on all occasions, I
will prefer annoying myself to annoying you." So saying, he held out
his hand to me, which I shook with a hearty good-will, sincerely
hoping that we might never meet again, either in this world or the
next.

He was afterwards brought to a court-martial, for repeated acts of
drunkenness and cruelty, and was finally dismissed the service.

In giving this detail of Captain G----'s peculiarities, let it not be
imagined, that even at that period such characters were common in the
service. I have already said, that he was an unique. Impressment
and the want of officers at the early part of the war, gave him an
opportunity of becoming a lieutenant; he took the weak side of the
admiral to obtain his next step, and obtained the command of a sloop,
from repeated solicitation at the Admiralty, and by urging his
claims of long servitude. The