at six o'clock to dinner."

I repaired on board with a pilot and brought the vessel into Hamoaze. At
the appointed time I waited on the admiral. The dinner I thought passed
off heavily. There were no ladies to embellish the table, and after coffee
I went on board. Next morning I waited on the commissioner, Fanshaw, who
received me very graciously, as I was known to several of his family. As
the vessel was to be docked and fresh coppered, we were hulked, and I took
lodgings on shore, where the commissioner did me the honour of calling on
me and requested me to dine with him the following day. The dinner party
consisted of another brother officer, his own family, who were very
amiable, and myself. During the fortnight I remained here, as I was well
acquainted with several families, I contrived to pass my time very
agreeably.

I expected every hour orders to fit foreign, but, oh! reader, judge of my
mortification when the admiral informed me I was to go back from whence I
came in a few days, and take with me a heavy-laden convoy. My mind had
been filled with Italian skies and burnished golden sunsets, ladies with
tender black eyes, Sicilian coral necklaces, tunny-fish and tusks. I was
to give up all these and to return to that never-to-be-forgotten,
good-for-nothing rotten flotilla, to see Dover pier, the lighthouse, and
the steeple of Boulogne, to cross and re-cross from one to the other to
provoke an appetite. If I had had interest enough I would have changed the
Board of Admiralty for having sent me to Plymouth on a fool's errand. My
thoughts were bitter and seven fathoms deep. Again I cruised, like an
armadillo on a grassplat, there and back again. After our usual time we
again disturbed the mud, and most likely a number of fish, by letting go
our anchors in the Downs, I little thought for the last time. How blind is
man to future events, and fortunate it is he is so!

On the ninth day His Majesty's brig was again dividing the water and
making it fly to the right and left in delicate wavy curls. We wished
Boulogne, Bonaparte, and his flotilla burnt to a cinder during this
cruise; we were generally at anchor off that detested place, and took
nothing, for there was nothing to take. On Sunday we were usually firing
at the flotilla as they anchored outside the pier, but so close to it that
I fear our shot made little impression. At this time they were erecting a
column on the heights, on which, we understood from the fis