re located in the dockyard, and
preparations were made, the next day, for heaving the frigate down. It
was the opinion of everybody that, had not our skipper been the nephew
of a very high official of the Admiralty, he would have been tried by a
court-martial, for thus attempting to overturn submarine churches and
cracking the bottom of his Majesty's beautiful frigate. As it was, we
were only ordered to be repaired with all haste, and to go home, very
much, indeed, to the satisfaction of everybody but the captain himself.

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.

A FEVER CASE, AND A POTION OF LOVE, IF NOT ALTOGETHER A LOVE-POTION--
WHAT ARE THE DOCTORS ABOUT WHEN MEN DIE DESPITE OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE, AND
ARE CURED WITHOUT IT?--RALPH KNOWETH NOT.

However, I must retrograde. It may seem surprising that I have made so
little mention of my messmates, for it would seem that, to a midshipman,
the affairs and characters of midshipmen would be paramount. To me they
were not so, for reasons that I have before stated. Besides, our berth
was like an eastern caravanserai, or the receiving-room of a pest-house.
They all died, were promoted, or went into other ships, excepting two
and myself; who returned to England. It must not be supposed that we
were without young gentlemen; sometimes we had our full complement,
sometimes half. Fresh ones came, and they died, and so on. Before I
had time to form friendships with them, or to study their characters,
they took their long sleep beneath the palisades, or were thrown
overboard in their hammocks. This was much the case with the wardroom
officers. The first lieutenant, the doctor, and the purser, were the
only original ones that returned to England with us. The mortality
among the assistant-surgeons was dreadful; they messed with us. Indeed,
I have no recollection of the names, or even the persons, of the
majority of those with whom I ate, and drank, and acted, they being so
prone to prove this a transitory world.

We were tolerably healthy till the capture of Saint Domingo; when, being
obliged to convey a regiment of French soldiers to the prisons at Port
Royal, they brought the fever in its worst form on board; and,
notwithstanding every remedial measure that the then state of science
could suggest, we never could eradicate the germs of it. The men were
sent on board of a hulk, the vessel thoroughly cleansed and fumigated,
and finally, we were ordered as far north as New Providence; but