part with them. We were a flagship, you know--old
Kempenfelt carrying his blue at the mizzen--and our poop lanterns were
so large that the men used to get inside them to clean them. She was
rather a top-heavy sort of ship, in my opinion, her upper works were so
high--why, we measured sixty-six feet from the keelson up to the
taffrail; but still, with proper attention, there was nothing to fear on
that score.

"Well, it was on the twenty-ninth of August, '82--that's just fourteen
years and about six weeks ago--that we were lying at Spithead, in
company with Lord Howe's fleet of between twenty and thirty sail of the
line: there was the 'Victory,' 'Barfleur,' 'Ocean,' and 'Union,' all
three-deckers, I recollect, close to us. We were in good repair, not at
all leaky, and were to have sailed in two days to join the fleet in the
Mediterranean. We had been paid, in consequence of our being about to
sail foreign; and we had been paid in golden guineas. I think that,
could all the money be collected together, from the pockets of the
seamen, the women, and the Jews, who went down in the ship, it would be
a very pretty fortune even for a duke's daughter."

Here Ben shoved the ale to Turner, who drank a little and proceeded,
while Ben took a swig and passed it round.

"Well, you see, messmates, the first lieutenant had been washing the
decks on the morning before, and the carpenter had been ordered to let
the water in, when it was found that the water-cock, which was about
three feet below the water-line, was out of order, and it was necessary
that it should be repaired. The foreman came off from the dockyard, and
stated that it was necessary that the ship should be careened over to
port sufficiently to raise the mouth of the pipe--which went through the
ship's timbers below--clean out of the water, that they might work at
it; so, between seven and eight o'clock on that morning, the whole of
the larboard guns were run out as far as they could be, and of course
the larboard lower deck ports were open; the starboard guns were also
run in amidships, and secured by the tackles; the shifting over of this
great weight of metal brought the larboard lower deck port-cills just
level with the water; the men were then able to get at the mouth of the
pipe to the water-cock on the starboard side, as it was clean out of
water, and for about an hour they were working away hard at it.

"It was about nine o'clock, we had just finished our break