hteen-pound
shot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on by the chains
and carried him off. After this he commanded a ship at Camperdown,
and another at Copenhagen, and being a good fighter as well as a man
of science, was chosen for Governor of New South Wales. He hadn't
been forty-eight hours in the colony, I'm told, before the music
began, and it ended with his being clapped into irons by the military
and stuck in prison for two years to cool his heels. At last they
took him out, put him on board a ship of war and played farewell to
him on a brass band: and, by George, Sir, if he didn't fight with the
captain of the ship all the way home, making claim that as senior in
the service he ought to command her! By this time, as you may guess,
there was nothing to be done with the fellow but make him an Admiral;
and so they did; and as Admiral of the Blue he died in the year
'seventeen, only a couple of weeks ahead of my poor grandfather, that
would have set it down to the finger of Providence if he'd only lived
to hear the news.

Well, now, the time that Bligh came down to Helford was a few months
before he sailed for Australia, and that will be a hundred years ago
next summer: and I guess the reason of his coming was that the folks
at the Admiralty couldn't stand him in London, the weather just then
being sultry. So they pulled out a map and said, "This Helford looks
a nice cool far-away place; let the man go down and take soundings
and chart the place"; for Bligh, you must know, had been a pupil of
Captain Cook's, and at work of this kind there was no man cleverer in
the Navy.

To do him justice, Bligh never complained of work. So off he packed
and started from London by coach in the early days of June; and with
him there travelled down a friend of his, a retired naval officer by
the name of Sharl, that was bound for Falmouth to take passage in the
Lisbon packet; but whether on business or a pleasure trip is more
than I can tell you.

So far as I know, nothing went wrong with them until they came to
Torpoint Ferry: and there, on the Cornish side of the water, stood
the Highflyer coach, the inside of it crammed full of parcels
belonging to our Vicar's wife, Mrs. Polwhele, that always visited
Plymouth once a year for a week's shopping. Having all these parcels
to bring home, Mrs. Polwhele had crossed over by a waterman's boat
two hours before, packed the coach as full as it would hold, and
stepped into