. He
is, I am informed, son of an English baronet. He is a plain, honest
man, with easy, elegant manners, and very unlike the sputtering
commander of the Tenedos: a man who allowed us to be stripped of all
our little pocket articles: not much to the honour of his commission,
or credit of his nation. We were kept very close while on board the
Curlew, because her crew was very weak, principally decrepid old men
and boys; but then we were kindly spoken to, and respectfully and
humanely treated by lieutenant Head, and his worthy surgeon. We can
discover real gentlemen at sea as well as on shore.

We were landed in Halifax, the principal British port of North
America, and the capital of Nova Scotia, on the 29th of May, 1813. We
were soon surrounded by soldiers, and being joined by a number of our
countrymen, recently captured, we were attempted to be marshalled and
paraded in military order, so as to make as grand a show as possible,
while marching through the streets to prison. The first thing they
did was to make us stand in platoons, and then the commanding officer
stationed a soldier on the flanks of each platoon to keep us regular,
and to march and wheel according to rule. The word was then given to
_march_, when we all ran up together just as we were when the
strutting captain Parker reviewed us on the deck of the Tenedos. We
were then commanded to _halt_. As we have no such word of command on
board of an American privateer, some crowded on, while a few stopped.
The young officer tried again, and made us stand all in a row. Some of
the crew told their comrades that when the captain sung out "_halt_,"
he meant "_avast_," and that then they should all stop. When we were
all in order again, the scarlet-coated young gentleman, with a golden
swab on his left shoulder, gave a second time the word of command,
"_march_;" by which word we all understood he meant, "_to heave a
head_," when we got into the like confusion again, when he cried out
in a swearing passion, "_halt_," on which some stopped short, and some
walked on, when the whole squad burst out a laughing. I know not what
would have been the consequence of his ridiculous passion had not a
navy officer, standing by, observed to him, that they were not
soldiers but sailors, who knew nothing about military marching, or
military words of command, when the young man told us to march on in
our own way; upon which our sailors stuck their fists in their
pockets, and scrabble