tain will
think better about this arrest of yours, particularly as the two men at
the wheel positively contradict the quarter-master, and affirm that the
helm was put hard a-starboard, and not hard a-port. It appears to us
that it was of little consequence, when the ship was first discovered,
how the helm was put. The fault was evidently on the part of those who
so awfully suffered for it. By-the-by, there has been a change among
the lords of the Admiralty--there are two new junior ones."

"Begging your pardon, doctor, what the devil is a change among the
junior lords of the Admiralty to a half-starved, imprisoned,
blackened-eyed, ragged reefer?"

Much more than I was aware of.

"Now," said I to the purser, "if you wish to do me a real kindness,
change me some of my Spanish for English money, and let the first
bumboat that comes alongside be ready to go ashore in ballast, for I
shall certainly clear it."

My request was immediately complied with; and my friends, for the
present, took their leave.

Those blessed bearers of the good things of this life, the bum-boats,
were not yet permitted alongside. Every five minutes, I sent master
Bill up to see. Great are the miseries of a midshipman's berth, when
the crockery is all broken, and the grog all drunk, and the salt junk
all eaten. But great, exceedingly great, are the pleasures of the same
berth, when, after a long cruise, on coming into port, the first boat of
soft tack is on the table, the first leg of mutton is in the boiler, and
the first pound of fresh butter is before the watering mouths of the
expectants. Aldermen of London, you feed much--epicures of the
West-end, you feed delicately; but neither of you know what real
luxuries are. Go to sea for six months upon midshipman allowance, eked
out by midshipmen's improvidence: and, on your return, the greasy
bumboat, first beating against the ship's sides, will afford you a
practical lesson upon the art of papillary enjoyment.

It is, I must confess, very unromantic, and not at all like the hero of
three volumes, to confess that, for a time, my impulses of anger had
given way to the gnawings of hunger; and I thought, for a time, less of
Joshua Daunton than of the first succulent cut into a leg of Southdown
mutton.

The blessed _avatar_ at length took place. The bumboat and the frigate
lovingly rubbed sides, and, like an angel descending from heaven, I saw
Bill coming down the after-hatchway, his face