Here he indulged himself in some vile language and scurrilous abuse of religion and its ministers. All priests were hypocritical scoundrels. If he was to be of any religion at all, he said, he should prefer being a Roman Catholic, “because, then, you know,” added he, “a man may sin as much as he likes, and rub off as he goes for a few shillings. I got my commission by religion, damn me, I found my old admiral was a psalm-singer; so, says I, ‘my old boy, I’ll give you enough of that;’ so I made the boatswain stuff me a hassock, and this I carried with me everywhere, that I might save my trousers and not hurt my knees; so then I turned to and prayed all day long, and kept the people awake singing psalms all night. I knelt down and prayed on the quarter-deck, main deck, and lower deck. I preached to the men in the tiers when they coiled the cables, and groaned loud and deep when I heard an oath. The thing took — the admiral, said I was the right sort, and he made a commander out of the greatest atheist in the ship. No sooner did I get hold of the sheepskin, than to the devil I pitched hassock and Bible.”

  How long he might have gone on with this farrago, it is difficult to say; but we were getting tired of him, so we passed the bottle till he left off narrative, and took to friendship.

  “Now I say (hiccup), you Frank, you are a devilish good fellow; but that one-eyed son of a gun, I’ll try him by a court-martial, the first time I catch him drunk; I’ll hang him at the yard-arm, and you shall be my first lieutenant and custos-rottorum, damn me. Only you come and tell me the first time he is disguised in liquor, and I’ll settle him, damn his cock eye — a saucy, Polyphemus-looking son of a — (hiccup) a Whitechapel bird-catcher.”

  Here his recollection failed him; he began to talk to himself, and to confound me with the first lieutenant.

  “I’ll teach him to write to port-admirals for leave — son of a sea cook.”

  He was now drawing to the finale, and began to sing: —

  “The cook of the huffy got drunk,

  Fell down the fore-scuttle, and

  Broke his gin bottle.”

  Here his head fell back, he tumbled off his chair, and lay motionless on the carpet.

  Having previously determined not to let him be exposed in the streets in that state, I had provided a bed for him at the inn; and ringing the bell, I ordered the waiter to carry him to it. Having seen him safely deposited, untied his neckcloth, took off his boots, and raised his head a little, we left him, and returned to the table, where we finished our evening in great comfort, but without any other instance of intoxication.

  The next morning, I waited on him. He seemed much annoyed at seeing me, supposing I meant, by my presence, to rebuke him for his intemperance; but this was not my intention. I asked him how he felt; and I regretted that the hilarity of the evening had been interrupted in so unfortunate a manner.

  “How do you mean, sir? Do you mean to insinuate that I was not sober?”

  “By no means, sir,” said I; “but are you aware, that in the midst of your delightful and entertaining conversation, you tumbled off your chair in an epileptic fit? — are you subject to these?”

  “Oh, yes, my dear fellow, indeed I am; but it is so long since I last had one, that I was in hopes they had left me. I have invalided for them four times, and just at the very periods when, if I could have remained out, my promotion was certain.”

  He then told me I might remain on shore that day, if I pleased. I gave him credit for his happy instinct in taking the hint of the fit; and as soon as I left him, he arose, went on board, and flogged two men for being drunk the night before.

  I did not fail to report all that had passed to my mess-mates, and we sailed a few days afterwards for Barbadoes. On the first Sunday of our being at sea, the captain dined in the gun-room with the officers. He soon launched out into his usual strain of lying and boasting, which always irritated our doctor, who was a sensible young Welshman. On these occasions he never failed to raise a laugh at the captain’s expense, by throwing in one or two words at the end of each anecdote; and this he did in so grave and modest a manner, that without a previous knowledge of him, any one might have supposed he was serious. The captain renewed his story of the corps of poodles to extract the fuses from the shells. “I hoped,” he said, “to see the institution of such a corps among ourselves; and if I were to be the colonel of it, I should soon have a star on my breast.”

  “That would be the dog star,” said the doctor, with extreme gaiety.

  “Thank you, doctor,” said the captain; “not bad; I owe you one.”

  We laughed; the doctor kept his countenance; and the captain looked very grave; but he continued his lies, and dragged in as usual the name of Sir Sydney Smith to support his assertions. “If you doubt me, only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he’ll talk to you about Acre for thirty-six hours on a stretch, without taking breath; his coxswain at last got so tired of it, that he nick-named him ‘Long Acre.’”

  The poor doctor did not come off scot-free; the next day, he discovered that the deck leaked over his cabin, and the water ran into his bed. He began, with a hammer and some nails, to fasten up a piece of painted canvas, by way of shelter. The captain heard the noise of the hammer, and finding it was the doctor, desired him to desist. The doctor replied, that he was only endeavouring to stop some leaks over his bed: the captain said they should not be stopped; for that a bed of leeks was a very good bed for a Welshman.

  “There, doctor: now we are quits: that’s for your dog star. I suppose you think nobody can make, a pun or a pill, in the ship, but yourself?”

  “If my pills were no better than your puns,” muttered the doctor, “we should all be in a bad way.”

  The captain then directed the carpenter not to allow any nails to the doctor, or the use of any of his tools; he even told the poor surgeon that he did not know how to make a pill, and that “he was as useless as the Navy Board.” He accused him of ignorance in other parts of his profession; and, ordering all the sick men on deck, rope-ended them to increase their circulation, and put a little life into them.

  Many a poor sick creature have I seen receive a most unmerciful beating. My wonder was that the men did not throw him overboard; and I do really believe that if it had not been for respect and love to the officers, they would have done so. No sooner had we got into blue water, as he called it — that is out of soundings — than he began his pranks, which never ceased till we reached Carlisle Bay. Officers and men were all treated alike, and there was no redress, for no one among us dared to bring him to a court-martial. His constant maxim was— “Keep sailors at work, and you keep the devil out of their minds — all hands all day-watch, and watch all night.”

  “No man,” said Jacky (the name we gave him) “eats the bread of idleness on board of my ship: work keeps the scurvy out of their bones, the lazy rascals.”

  The officers and men, for the first three weeks, never had a watch below during the day. They were harassed and worn to death, and the most mutinous and discontented spirit prevailed throughout the ship. One of the best seamen said, in the captain’s hearing, that, “since the ship had been at sea, he had only had three watches below.”

  “And if I had known it,” said the captain, “you should not have had that;” and turning the hands up, he gave him four dozen.

  Whenever he flogged the men, which he was constantly doing, he never failed to upbraid them with ingratitude, and the indulgences which they received from him.

  “By God, there is no man-of-war in the service that has so much indulgence. All you have to do, is to keep the ship clean, square the yards, hoist in your provisions, eat them, hoist your grog in, drink it, and strike the empty casks over the side; but heaven itself would not please such a set of damned fat, discontented rascals.”

  His language to the officers was beyond anything I ever could have supposed would have proceeded from the mouth of a human being. The master, one day, incurred his displeasure, and he very flippantly told the poor man to go to hell.

  “I hope, sir,” said the master, “I have as good a chance of going to heaven as yourself.”

  “You go to heaven!” said the captain, “you go to heaven! Let me catch you there, and I will come and kick you out.”

  This was, indeed, showing how far he would have carried his tyranny if he could. But our feelings are relieved from any violent shock at this apparent blasphemy, when we recollect that the poor man was an atheist; and that his idea of heaven was that of a little parlour at the Star and Garter, with a good fire, plenty of grog, and pipes of tobacco.

  He kept no table, nor did he ever drink any wine except when he dined with us; but got drunk every night, more or less, on the ship’s spirits, in his own cabin. He was always most violent in the evening. Our only revenge was laughing at his monstrous lies on Sunday, when he dined with us. One night, his servant came and told the midshipman of the watch, that the captain was lying dead drunk on the deck, in his cabin. This was communicated to me, and I determined to make the best use of it. I ran down to the cabin, taking with me the midshipman of the watch, the quarter-master, and two other steady men; and having laid the water-drinker in his bed, I noted down the date, with all the particulars, together with the names of the witnesses, to be used as soon as we fell in with the admiral.

  The next day, I think he had some suspicion of what I had done, and it had nearly been fatal to me. It was blowing a fresh trade-wind, and the vessel rolling very deep, when he ordered the booms to be cast loose and re-stowed. This was nothing short of murder and madness; but, in spite of every remonstrance, he persisted, and the consequences were terrible. The lashings were no sooner cast off, than a spare top-mast fell and killed one of the men. This was enough to have completed our mischief for the day; but the devil had not done with us yet. The booms were secured, and the men were ordered to rattle the rigging down, which, as the vessel continued to roll heavily, was still more dangerous, and, if possible, more useless than the former operation. He was warned of it, but in vain; and the men had not been aloft more than ten minutes, when one of them fell overboard. Why I should again have put my life in jeopardy, particularly after the warning of the last voyage, I know not. I was perhaps vain of what I could do in the water. I knew my powers; and in the hope of saving this unfortunate victim to the folly and cruelty of the captain, I plunged after him into the sea, feeling, at the same time, that I was almost committing an act of suicide. I caught hold of him, and for a time supported him; and, had the commonest diligence and seamanship been shown, I should have saved him. But the captain, it appeared, when he found I was overboard, was resolved to get rid of me, in order to save himself: he made use of every difficulty to prevent the boat coming to me. The poor man was exhausted: I kept myself disengaged from him, when swimming round him; supported him occasionally whenever he was sinking; but, finding at last that he was irrecoverably gone — for though I had a firm hold of him, he was going lower and lower — and, looking up, perceiving I was so deep that the water was dark over my head, I clapped my knees on his shoulders, and, giving myself a little impetus from the resistance, rose to the surface. So much was I exhausted, that I could not have floated half a minute more, when the boat came and picked me up.

  The delay in heaving the ship to, I attributed to the scene I had witnessed the night before; and in this I was confirmed by the testimony of the officers. Having lost two men by his unseamanlike conduct, he would have added the deliberate murder of a third, to save himself from the punishment which he knew awaited him. He continued the same tyrannical conduct, and I had resolved, the moment we fell in with the admiral, to write for a court-martial on this man, let the consequences be what they might; I thought I should serve my country and the navy by ridding it of such a monster.

  Several of the officers were under arrest, and notwithstanding the heat of their cabins in that warm climate, were kept constantly confined to them with a sentinel at the door. In consequence of this cruel treatment, one of the officers became deranged. We made Barbadoes, and running round Needham’s Point into Carlisle Bay, we saw to our mortification that neither the admiral nor any ship of war was, there, consequently our captain was commanding officer in the port. Upon this, he became remarkably amiable, supposing, if the evil day was put off, it would be dispensed with altogether; he treated me with particular attention; hoped we should have some fun ashore; as the admiral was not come in, we should wait for him; tired of kicking about at sea, he should take all his duds with him, and bring himself to an anchor on shore, and not come afloat again till we saluted his flag.

  Neither the first lieutenant nor myself believed one word of this; indeed, we always acted upon the exact reverse of what he said; and it was well we did so in this instance. After we had anchored, he went ashore, and in about an hour returned, and stated that the admiral was not expected till next month; that he should, therefore, go and take up his quarters at Jemmy Cavan’s, and not trouble the ship any more until the admiral arrived; he then left us, taking his trunk and all his dirty linen — dirty enough it was.

  Some of the officers unfortunately believed that we were to remain, and followed the captain’s example, by sending their linen on shore to be washed. Skysail was firm, and so was I; the lieutenant cocked his eye, and said, “Messmate, depend on it there is something in the wind. I have sent one shirt on shore to be washed; and when that comes off, I will send another; if I lose that, it is no great matter.”

  That night, at ten o’clock, Captain Jacky came on board, bringing his trunk and dirty linen, turned the hands up, up anchor, and ran out of Carlisle Bay and went to sea, leaving most of the officers’ linen on shore. This was one of his tricks. He had received his orders when he landed in the morning; they were waiting for him, and his coming on board for his things was only a ruse to throw us off our guard, and I suppose compel us, by the loss of our clothes, to be as dirty in appearance as he was himself; “but he always liked to make his officers comfortable.”

  We arrived at Nassau, in New Providence, without any remarkable incident, although the service continued to be carried on in the same disagreeable manner as ever. I continued, however, to get leave to go on shore; and finding no prospect of bringing the captain to justice, determined to quit the ship if possible. This was effected by accident, otherwise I should have been much puzzled to have got clear of her. I fell between the boat and the wharf as I landed, and by the sudden jerk ruptured a small blood-vessel in my chest; it was of no great importance in itself, but in that climate required care, and I made the most of it. They would have carried me on board again, but I begged to be taken to the hotel. The surgeon of the regiment doing duty there attended me, and I requested him to make my case as bad as possible. The captain came to see me — I appeared very ill — his compassion was like that of the inquisitor of the Holy Office, who cures his victim in order to enable him to go through further torments. His time of sailing arrived, and I was reported to be too ill to be removed. Determined to have me, he prolonged his stay. I got better; the surgeon’s report was more favourable; but I was still unwilling to go on board. The captain sent me an affectionate message, to say that if I did not come, he would send a file of marines to bring me: he even came himself and threatened me; when, finding there were no witnesses in the room, I plainly told him that if he persisted in having me on board, it would be to his own destruction, for that I was fully determined to bring him to a court-martial for drunkenness and unofficerlike conduct, the moment we joined the admiral. I told him of the state in which I had found him. I recapitulated his blasphemies, and his lubberly conduct in losing the two men; he stared and endeavoured to explain; I was peremptory, and he whined and gave in, seeing he was in my power.

  “Well then, my dear fellow,” said Jacky, “since you are so very ill — sorry as I shall be to lose you — I must consent to your staying behind. I shall find it difficult to replace you; but as the comfort and happiness of my officers is my first object on all occasions, I will prefer annoying myself to annoying you.” So saying, he held out his hand to me, which I shook with a hearty good-will, sincerely hoping that we might never meet again, either, in this world or the next.

  He was afterwards brought to a court-martial, for repeated acts of drunkenness and cruelty, and was finally dismissed the service.

  In giving this detail of Captain G— ‘s peculiarities, let it not be imagined that even at that period such characters were common in the service. I have already said that he was singular. Impressment and the want of officers at the early part of the war, gave him an opportunity of becoming a lieutenant; he took the weak side of the admiral to obtain his next step, and obtained the command of a sloop, from repeated solicitation at the Admiralty, and by urging his claims of long servitude. The service had received serious injury by admitting men on the quarter-deck from before the mast; it occasioned there being two classes of officers in the navy — namely, those who had rank and connections, and those who had entered by the “hawseholes,” as they were described. The first were favoured when young, and did not acquire a competent knowledge of their duty; the second, with few exceptions, as they advanced in their grades, proved, from want of education, more and more unfit for their stations. These defects have now been remedied; and, as all young men who enter the service must have a regular education, and consequently be the sons of gentlemen, a level has been produced which, to a certain degree, precludes favouritism, and perfectly bars the entrance to such men as Captain G — .