smouth, and filled with every
description of vessel from the flag-ship of England's immortal hero,
Nelson, which is here moored in the centre, a monument of past glory,
to the small craft of the trader, and the more humble ferry-boat of the
incessant applicant, who plys the passenger with his eternal note of
"Common Hard, your honour."

One of my companions on board the Medina was an old man of war's man,
whose visage, something of the colour and hardness of dried salmon,
sufficiently indicated that the possessor had weathered many a trying
gale, and was familiar with all the vicissitudes of the mighty deep.
With the habitual roughness of ~182~~his manners was combined a
singular degree of intelligence, and he evinced a disposition to be
communicative, of which I found it very agreeable to avail myself. On
approaching the harbour, my attention was arrested by the sight of a
number of boats rowed by men arrayed in a grotesque uniform of speckled
jackets, whose freights, to judge from appearances, must have been of
no common weight, as the rowers seemed compelled to use a degree of
exertion little inferior to that employed by galley-slaves. I inquired
of my nautical Mentor who these men were, and in what description of
service they were occupied. "Them, master," replied he, releasing
the quid from his mouth, and looking with his weather-eye unutterable
things; "they are the _Portsmouth Greys_." My countenance spoke plainly
enough that this reply had by no means made me _au fait_ to the subject
of my question, and my informant accordingly proceeded--"Shiver my
timbers, mate, they are as rum a set, them boat's crews, as ever pulled
an oar--chaps as the public keeps out of their own pocket for the public
good; and it's been but just a slip, as one may say, between the cup
and the lip, as has saved a good many on 'em from being run up to the
yard-arm. Some on 'em forgot to return things as they _found_ rather too
easy, and some, instead of writing their own name, _by mistake_ wrote
somebody's else's; so government sent 'em here, at its own charge, to
finish their _edication_. You see the _floating academy_ as is kept
a purpose for 'em," said he, pointing to the receiving-hulk for the
convicts at this station, which was lying in the harbour: "them as is
rowing in the boats," added the talkative seaman, "has been a getting
stones, and ballast, and such like, for the repairs of the harbour; they
does all the rough and dirty jobs