was placed under arrest, and carried away to be
further examined by the town major, and dealt with as might seem
expedient, while we pulled back to our ship. There were many among the
crowd who believed that Pat Donovan, of her Majesty's 3---th regiment,
had been spirited across Portsmouth harbour by a couple of witches
riding on broomsticks, though where they were to be found was more than
one could say. We heard afterwards that a dozen old women had been
seized and accused of the crime, and that had it not been for the
interference of certain naval officers, whose names were not mentioned,
they would have been subjected to the ordeal of being ducked in the
harbour, or tossed in a blanket. It was reported that our captain had
seen what he took to be a sentry-box floating across the harbour on the
night in question, and he could swear that no such agency as was
reported had been employed. Whatever the educated might have believed,
the lower classes were still forcibly impressed with the idea that the
sentry-box and sentry had been carried across by witches; but on board
ship the real state of the case was soon known, and the men, who kept
the secret, chuckled over the credulity of their friends on shore.

Portsmouth had become very dull, I was told, since the war was over, and
we certainly at times found a difficulty in knowing how to pass our
time. Our captain occasionally posted up to London, but, having no
business there, received a hint from the Admiralty that he must remain
on board his ship, and therefore had to post down again as fast as he
could. He consoled himself by spending nearly all the day on shore,
generally at the houses of people in the neighbourhood. He had one
evening gone to dine at a house situated some way in the country, on the
Gosport side, and he had ordered his boat to be waiting for him at the
nearest landing-place to it, punctually at ten o'clock. As he had a
picked crew, not likely to desert, no midshipman went in the boat. As
it happened, the doctor, the second lieutenant, and the lieutenant of
marines had been invited to spend the evening close to Gosport, and I
was ordered to go and bring them off at half-past ten, not far from the
place where the captain had intended to embark. When I got in I found
his boat still there. The men had been talking and laughing, and had
evidently managed to get some liquor on board. They did not see me, and
as I was afraid that they might send