d for Cadiz and Lisbon
in October, for the purpose of receiving any remittances in bullion
to England, which the British merchants might have ready on our
arrival. We had light winds and fine weather after making the coast
of Portugal. On one remarkably fine day, when the ship was
stealing through the water under the influence of a gentle breeze,
the people were all below at their dinners, and scarcely a person
left on deck but officers, of whom the captain was one. Two little
ship-boys had been induced, by the fineness of the weather, to run
up from below the moment they had dined, and were at play on the
spare anchor to leeward, which overhangs the side of the ship. One
of them fell overboard, which was seen from the quarter-deck, and
the order was given to luff the ship into the wind. In an instant
the officers were over the side; but it was the captain who,
grasping a rope firmly with one hand, let himself down to the
water's edge, and catching hold of the poor boy's jacket as he
floated past, he saved his life in as little time as I have taken
to mention it. There was not a rope touched, or a sail altered in
doing this, and the people below knew not of the accident until
they came on deck when their dinner was over.

"In every instance when a life was in danger, he was instant to
peril his own for its preservation; and I could fill pages, if it
were necessary to notice any but those which I was so fortunate as
to witness."

After the _Winchelsea_ had been paid off in 1789, Captain Pellew was
appointed to the _Salisbury_, 50, bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral
Milbanke, on the Newfoundland station; in which he served till 1791. His
brother Israel became the first lieutenant, and was promoted from her.
While in this ship, he was one day required to decide on the case of a
seaman belonging to a merchant vessel in the harbour, who came on board
to complain that his captain had punished him for a theft. Finding that
the captain had acted illegally, though the man had really deserved a
far more severe punishment, he said to the complainant, "You have done
quite right in coming here: your captain had no business to punish you
as he has done, and that he may learn to be more cautious in future, we
order him to be fined--a shilling!" The man turned to leave the cabin,
much disappointed at the award; but how wa