d intoxication must no longer hope to be
forgiven.

The next day everything was prepared for sea, and no leave was permitted
to the officers. Stock of every kind was brought on board, and the large
boats hoisted and secured. On the morning after, at daylight, a signal
from the flag-ship in harbour was made for us to unmoor; our orders had
come down to cruise in the Bay of Biscay. The captain came on board, the
anchor weighed, and we ran through the Needles with a fine N.E. breeze.
I admired the scenery of the Isle of Wight, looked with admiration at
Alum Bay, was astonished at the Needle rocks, and then felt so very ill
that I went down below. What occurred for the next six days I cannot
tell. I thought that I should die every moment, and lay in my hammock or
on the chests for the whole of that time, incapable of eating, drinking,
or walking about. O'Brien came to me on the seventh morning, and said,
that if I did not exert myself I never should get well; that he was very
fond of me and had taken me under his protection, and, to prove his
regard, he would do for me what he would not take the trouble to do for
any other youngster in the ship, which was, to give me a good basting,
which was a sovereign remedy for sea-sickness. He suited the action to
the word, and drubbed me on the ribs without mercy, until I thought the
breath was out of my body, and then he took out a rope's end and
thrashed me until I obeyed his orders to go on deck immediately. Before
he came to me, I could never have believed it possible that I could have
obeyed him; but somehow or other I did contrive to crawl up the ladder
to the main-deck, where I sat down on the shot-racks and cried bitterly.
What would I have given to have been at home again! It was not my fault
that I was the greatest fool in the family, yet how was I punished for
it! If this was kindness from O'Brien, what had I to expect from those
who were not partial to me? But, by degrees, I recovered myself, and
certainly felt a great deal better, and that night I slept very soundly.
The next morning O'Brien came to me again. "It's a nasty slow fever,
that sea-sickness, my Peter, and we must drive it out of you;" and then
he commenced a repetition of yesterday's remedy until I was almost a
jelly. Whether the fear of being thrashed drove away my sea-sickness, or
whatever might be the real cause of it, I do not know, but this is
certain, that I felt no more of it after the second beating, an