ments, I recovered strength every day, and, in a short
time, my health and vigour were perfectly re-established.

When I got up at first, and was just able to crawl about the deck with
a staff in my hand, I met Doctor Mackshane, who passed by me with a
disdainful look, and did not vouchsafe to honour me with one word. After
him came Crampley, who, strutting up to me with a fierce countenance,
pronounced, "Here's fine discipline on-board, when such lazy, skulking
sons of bitches as you are allowed, on pretence of sickness, to lollop
at your ease, while your betters are kept to hard duty!" The sight and
behaviour of this malicious scoundrel enraged me so much that I could
scarce refrain from laying my cudgel across his pate; but when I
considered my present feebleness, and the enemies I had in the ship,
who wanted only a pretence to ruin me, I restrained my passion, and
contented myself with telling him, I had not forgot his insolence
and malice, and that I hoped we should meet one day on shore. At this
declaration he grinned, shook his fist, and swore he longed for nothing
more than such an opportunity. Meanwhile our ship was ordered to be
heaved down, victualled, and watered, for her return to England; and our
captain, for some reason or other, not thinking it convenient for him
to revisit his native country at this time, exchanged with a gentleman,
who, on the other hand, wished for nothing so much as to be safe without
the tropic: all his care and tenderness of himself being insufficient to
preserve his complexion from the injuries of the sun and weather.

Our tyrant having left the ship, and carried his favourite Mackshane
along with him, to my inexpressible satisfaction, our new commander came
on board in a ten-oared barge, overshadowed with a vast umbrella, and
appeared in everything the reverse of Oakum, being a tall, thin young
man, dressed in this manner: a white hat, garnished with a red feather,
adorned his head, from whence his hair flowed upon his shoulders,
in ringlets tied behind with a ribbon. His coat, consisting of
pink-coloured silk, lined with white, by the elegance of the cut retired
backward, as it were, to discover a white satin waistcoat embroidered
with gold, unbuttoned at the upper part to display a brooch set with
garnets, that glittered in the breast of his shirt, which was of the
finest cambric, edged with right Mechlin: the knees of his crimson
velvet breeches scarce descended so low as to m