der a fighting
admiral," I responded saucily, "for, as for our captain----"

He stopped me at this point in a manner which terrified me, hurling a
string of curses at my head sufficient to have sunk me through the
deck.

"Hold your impertinent tongue!" he said in conclusion. "I would have
you know better than to pass remarks on your officers in my hearing. I
have had men put in irons for less. Follow me this minute to the
purser, and remember you are on board of one of his Majesty's ships,
and not a dirty herring smack."

By which I saw that, however this gentleman secretly despised his
commanding officer, he was too honourable to encourage the tattle of
his inferiors. In this no doubt he showed his breeding; for it was his
boast that he was sprung from one of the most ancient families in
Wales, where the gentry, he was wont to say, are of older lineage than
those of any other country in the world.

The purser proved to be a Scotchman, against which nation I had taken
a strong prejudice, on account of the wicked and unnatural support
given by them to the Chevalier in his bloody invasion of this kingdom,
and which prejudice has since been further confirmed in me by the late
mean and notorious conduct of Lord Bute. However, I found Mr.
Sanders, the purser, to be a respectable, religious man, having as
little love for Papists and Jacobites as I had myself. He received me
without much civility, but if he showed me no great favour neither did
he do me any injury, and in his accounts he cheated the crew as little
as any purser I ever heard of.

But not to linger over these matters, the only thing that befell me
during our voyage to the Nore was an extraordinary painful sickness
and retching, the anguish of which I could not have believed possible
to be borne, and which many times made me wish I had never quitted my
father's house. During the continuance of this malady I was rendered
quite unable to do my duty, to Mr. Sanders's no small discontent, and
was left to the sole companionship of an Irishman, one Michael
Sullivan, who became much attached to me, and soothed my sufferings by
every means in his power. He was a corporal of the Marines, and had
been three times promoted to be sergeant for his bravery in action,
and three times degraded again for drunkenness. Among his comrades he
was known as Irish Mick: and here I observed a peculiarity which I
have found amongst others of that nation; for though he would
continu