We found two or three other frigates
lying there, and several sloops-of-war and corvettes and brigs.

We had not been there long before our captain received invitations from
the residents in the neighbourhood, who had known him as a lieutenant
and commander, and were accustomed to make much of him. He was
acquainted with most of the captains of the other ships, and they were
constantly dining on shore in each other's company. They had all been
invited to dinner at the house of a baronet some miles out of
Portsmouth, and their boats were ordered to be in waiting for them at
about half-an-hour after midnight. All the commanders and most of the
post-captains were young men, full of life and spirits, two or three of
them noted for their harum-scarum qualities.

I had been sent to bring off Lord Robert, and a midshipman was in each
of the other boats belonging to the different ships. We waited and
waited for our respective captains, sitting in the stern-sheets wrapped
in our thick cloaks, afraid to go ashore lest our men should take the
opportunity of slipping off into one of the public-houses on the Common
Hard, standing temptingly open.

At last we heard the voices of a party of revellers coming along, and I
recognised among them that of my captain, who seemed to be in an
especially jovial mood.

In those days there stood on the Hard a sentry-box, furnished with a
seat inside, on which the sentry was accustomed to sit down to rest his
legs between his turns.

Presently I heard Lord Robert sing out--

"Hillo! where's the sentry?"

He and the other captains then gathered round the box. The sentry was
fast asleep. They shouted to him. He made no reply. There was a good
deal of laughing and talking. Then they called several of the men, and
in another minute they brought the sentry-box, with the sentry in it
still fast asleep--or rather dead drunk--down to the boats. Securing
two together, the sentry-box was placed across them, and, the order
being given, we shoved off. Instead, however, of returning to our
ships, we made our way across the harbour to the Gosport side, when the
sentry-box was safely landed, and placed with the sentry, his head
fortunately uppermost, and his musket by his side, on the beach.

We then left him, the boats casting off from each other amidst shouts of
laughter, and we pulled back to the _Jason_. The captain didn't say
much, for the best of reasons, he was not very well able to