e employed in the work to the level
of his face. Suddenly, when in this condition, a signal passed along the
line, that the Dutch fleet, already refitted, was bearing down to renew
the engagement. A thrill like that of an electric shock passed through
the frame of the exhausted sailor; his fatigue at once left him; and,
vigorous and strong as when the action first began, he found himself
able, as before, to run out against his two comrades the one side of a
four-and-twenty pounder. The instance is a curious one of the influence
of that "spirit" which, according to the Wise King, enables a man to
"sustain his infirmity."

It may be well not to inquire too curiously regarding the mode in which
this effective sailor quitted the navy. The country had borrowed his
services without consulting his will; and he, I suspect, reclaimed them
on his own behalf without first asking leave. I have been told by my
mother that he found the navy very intolerable;--the mutiny at the Nore
had not yet meliorated the service to the common sailor. Among other
hardships, he had been oftener than once under not only very harsh, but
also very incompetent officers; and on one occasion, after toiling on
the foreyard in a violent night-squall, with some of the best seamen
aboard, in fruitless attempts to furl up the sail, he had to descend,
cap in hand, at the risk of a flogging, and humbly implore the
boy-lieutenant in charge that he should order the vessel's head to be
laid in a certain direction. Luckily for him, the advice was taken by
the young gentleman, and in a few minutes the sail was furled. He left
his ship one fine morning, attired in his best, and having on his head a
three-cornered hat, with tufts of lace at the corners, which I well
remember, from the circumstance that it had long after to perform an
important part in certain boyish masquerades at Christmas and the New
Year; and as he had taken effective precautions for being reported
missing in the evening, he got clear off.

Of some of the after-events of his life I retain such mere fragmentary
recollections, dissociated from date and locality, as might be most
readily seized on by the imagination of a child. At one time, when
engaged in one of his Indian voyages, he was stationed during the night,
accompanied by but a single comrade, in a small open boat, near one of
the minor mouths of the Ganges; and he had just fallen asleep on the
beams, when he was suddenly awakened by a viol