duration; and, having landed our despatches,
were ordered to cruise between Cape Tiburon and the Virgin Islands.

By this time I had pretty well settled down into my proper place, had
ceased to be the butt of the other midshipmen; and, having a real liking
for my duties, had learned to perform them pretty satisfactorily. Mr
Reid, the first lieutenant, had expressed the opinion that I "shaped
well." But, even before our arrival at Jamaica, I had made the
unwelcome discovery that the _Hermione_ was by no means likely to prove
a comfortable ship. The vessel herself there was no fault whatever to
find with; she was a noble frigate of thirty-two guns, very fast, and a
splendid sea-boat. But the skipper--Captain Pigot--was a regular
tartar. He was a tall, powerful man, and would have been handsome but
for his somewhat bloated features. Even to his officers he was
arrogant, overbearing, and discourteous to an almost unbearable degree;
to the men he was simply an unmitigated tyrant. There was certainly
some excuse for severity of discipline and occasional loss of temper,
had it gone no further than that, for our crew was, as a whole, the
worst I have ever had the misfortune to be associated with, several of
them being foreigners, and of the remainder a good sprinkling were men
who had been _sentenced_ by the magistrates _to serve the King_.
Possibly in other and more patient hands they might have developed into
a good smart body of men, and such it was doubtless the skipper's hope
and intention to make them. But he most unfortunately went the wrong
way to work. Punishment was his doctrine; the "cat" was his sovereign
remedy for all evils. He flogged almost daily, even for the most
trivial offences, and our "black list" was probably the longest in the
navy for a ship of our size. As might be expected, with a captain of
this kind, we poor unfortunate mids were constantly in trouble, and the
greater part of our time was spent at the mast-heads.

One afternoon--it was on the 22nd of March, 1797--being off Zaccheo, the
lookout aloft reported that a brig and several smaller vessels were at
anchor inshore between that island and the larger one of Porto Rico.
The first lieutenant thereupon at once went aloft with his telescope,
where he made a thorough examination of the strangers and their
position; having completed which to his satisfaction, he returned to the
deck and made his report to Captain Pigot. The ship's head wa