young sir, by making love to my
daughter? you are a mere boy.' (I was twenty and did not relish his
remark.) 'What means have you got?'

After the old gentleman's steam had gone down a little I replied,
'Really, general, I hardly know how to answer you. Your daughter and I
are very good friends, the place is most detestably dull, there is
nothing to do, and if we amuse ourselves with a little love-making,
surely there can be no great harm.' This rejoinder of mine made things
worse; I thought the old boy would have had a fit. At last he said, 'The
mail steamer leaves for England to-morrow; you shall go home by her, I
order you to do so!' I replied that I should please myself, and that I
was not under his orders. The general went away uttering threats. After
he was gone I thought seriously over the matter. I calculated that my
income of 120_l._ a year would scarcely suffice to keep a wife, and I
decided to renounce my dream of love. I went to pay a farewell visit to
my young lady, but found that she was locked up, so away I went and soon
forgot all about it. Shortly afterwards I heard that the governor's
daughter married the man whose leg I had lamed for his impertinence to
me.

My last adventure while employed in the suppression of the slave trade
is perhaps worth describing.

By international law it was ruled that a vessel on her way to Africa, if
fitted out in a certain manner, whereby it was evident that she was
employed in the nefarious traffic of slavery, was liable to capture and
condemnation by the mixed tribunals, or in other words became the lawful
prize of her captors.

While cruising off Pernambuco we boarded a Portuguese vessel bound to
Africa, so evidently fitted out for the purpose of slave trade that my
captain took possession of her, and sent me to convey her to the Cape
of Good Hope for adjudication. It was the usual thing to send the
captain of a vessel so captured as a prisoner on board his ship, so that
he might be interrogated at the trial. In this case the master and three
of his crew were sent. The prize crew consisted of myself and six men.
Now the captain was an exceedingly gentlemanlike man, a good sailor, and
a first-rate navigator.

At first I treated him as a prisoner, but by degrees he insinuated
himself into my good graces to such an extent that after a while I
invited him to mess with me, in fact, made a friend of him, little
thinking of the serpent I was nourishing.

For several d