me a ticket for a play, which was to be acted in the town, and in the evening, several boys were committed to my care to accompany me to the theatre. Thus, for a brief interval, I was restored to favour; but, whenever fickle fortune deigned to smile upon me, some untoward circumstance was sure to happen, and nip the fair promise in its bud. I had scarcely got the stick of office into my hands, before I cut so many capers with it, that I soon capered myself back to the dignity and full rank of fifer; was deprived of my staff of office; and, of what I considered even much worse-my liberty. My name was again exhibited to public gaze at the drawbridge-gate, for seven long days, during which I was obliged to kick my heels along the ramparts, contenting myself with contemplating the distant prospect. One day I effaced my name from the list of the confined, unobserved by the sentinel; but in this I was detected by the sergeant, for which I had the felicity of attending drill three times a day with my musket reversed, and my coat turned inside out; and, in this manner, for several hours each day, I was obliged to comply with the mandates of a little bandy-legged drill-sergeant, who did not fail to enforce his authority and dignity in a manner by no means agreeable to my feelings, especially to those of my back. This I could bear well enough; indeed I was obliged to bear it; but my turned coat seemed to hang upon me like some badge of ignominy, and I imagined that every eye was upon me. Had I been a depraved and callous-hearted youth, this method of disgracing me would have only served to harden me in vice; and I cannot deny that at this treatment I felt the seeds of disobedience rankling in my heart, and had almost resolved within my mind, that the next time I was doomed to wear this garb of infamy, it should be for a crime worthy of such disgrace. I found my disposition soured, and the spark of revenge kindling in my bosom; and I am persuaded that this method of disgracing youth, instead of eradicating vice, serves only to nurture those rancorous feelings which irritation, arising from a sense of degradation, is sure to excite, and which, in the young mind, might, by a more judicious and conciliatory treatment, be

either totally repressed in their birth, or at least easily extinguished.

Our regiment being now ordered to prepare for embarkation for Portsmouth, my garb of disgrace was thrown off, and I embarked as sprightly as any, having been disgraced in this way for a misdemeanor that would scarcely have disgraced a school-boy. We reached our old barracks at Portsmouth, without any other occurrence save a little casting-up of accounts, and a few distorted faces from sea-sickness.

CHAPTER IV.

sink

WE had not been long at Portsmouth, when the headquarters of the regiment were ordered to embark on board of the Surat Castle, East Indiaman, a fifteen-hundred-ton ship, then lying off Spithead, and the remainder of the corps on board of other ships at the same place. Our destination was the Cape of Good Hope. The Surat Castle, in which I was doomed to sail, was most dreadfully crowded; men literally slept upon one another, and in the olorp deck the standing beds were three tiers high, besides those slinging. Added to this, the seeds of a pestilential disease had already been sown. An immense number of Lascars, who had been picked up in every of poverty, and most of whom had been living in England in a state of the most abject want and wretchedness, had been shipped on board this vessel. Many of these poor creatures had been deprived of their toes and fingers by the inclemency of the winter, and others had accumulated diseases from filth, many of them having subsisted for a considerable time upon what they picked up in the streets. The pestilential smell between decks was beyond the power of description; and it was truly appalling to see these poor wretches, with tremendous and frightful sores, and covered with vermin from head to foot, many of them unable to assist themselves, left to die unaided, unfriended, and without one who could perform the last sad office.

The moment the breath was out of their bodies, they were, like dogs, thrown overboard, as food for sharks. To alleviate their sufferings by personal aid was impossible, for we had scarcely men enough to work the ship. These circumstances were, I suppose, reported to the proper authority; but, whether this was the case or not, in three or four days we weighed anchor, with about sixty other ships for all parts of the world. The splendid sight but little accorded with the aching hearts, lacerated bodies, and wounded minds of the poor creatures below. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when the signal was fired to weigh. Immediately every sail was wavering in the wind, and in a quarter of an hour after we stood out from land, each proud bark dipping her majestic head in the silvery deep, and manœuvreing her sails in seeming competition to catch the favouring breeze.

66

Such firing, such signals, such tacking and running across each other now prevailed, that our captain resolved to run from it; and the evening had scarcely spread her sombre curtains over the western ocean, and the golden. clouds begun to change their brilliant robes of day for those of murky night, when our crew up helm," and stole away from the motley fleet, plying every sail, and scudding through the blue waters like some aerial car or phantom-ship, smoothly gliding over the silvery deep. In three or four hours we had entirely lost sight of our convoy. We were running at the rate of eleven knots an hour, and, as it seemed, into the very jaws of danger. The clouds began to assume a pitchy and awful darkness, the distant thunder rolled angrily, and the vivid lightning's flash struck each watching eye dim, and, for a moment, hid the rolling and gigantic wave from the sight of fear. The wind whistled terrifically, and the shattered sails fanned the flying clouds. All was consternation; every eye betrayed fear. Sail was taken in, masts lowered and yards stayed-preparations which bespoke no good tidings to the inquiring and terrified landsman. seated in the poop, alone, holding by a hen-coop, and viewing the mountainous and angry billows, with my hand partly covering my eyes to protect them against the lightning. It was a moment of the most poignant sorrow to

1 was

me; my heart still lingered on the white cliffs of Albion, nor could I wean it from the sorrowful reflection that I was, perhaps, leaving that dear and beloved country for ever. During this struggle of my feelings, our vessel shipped a tremendous sea over her poop, and then angrily shook her head, and seemed resolved to buffet the raging elements with all her might and main. The ship was shortly after this "hove to," and lay comparatively quiet; and, in about a couple of hours, the wind slackened, and we again stood on our way, the masts cracking under her three topsails and fore storm-staysail. However, she rode much easier, and the storm still continued to abate. I was dreadfully wet and cold, and my teeth chattered most wofully; so I made towards the gun-deck, some portion of which was allotted for the soldiers. There the heat was suffocating, and the stench intolerable. The scene in the olorp-deck was truly distressing: soldiers, their wives and children, all lying together in a state of the most dreadful sea-sickness, groaning in concert, and calling for a drop of water to cool their parched tongues. I screwed myself up behind a butt, and soon fell into that stupor which sea-sickness will create. In this state I continued until morning; and, when awoke, I found that the hurricane had returned with redoubled fury, and that we were standing towards land. The captain came a-head to look out, and, after some consideration, he at last told the officer to stand out to sea. The following morning was ushered in by the sun's bright beams diffusing their lustre on the dejected features of frightened and helpless mortals. The dark clouds of sad despair were in mercy driven from our minds, and the bright beams of munificent love from above took their place. The before down-cast eye was seen to sparkle with delight, and the haggard cheek of despondency resumed its wonted serenity. The tempestuous bosom of the main was now smooth as a mirror, and all seemed grateful and cheerful, directing the eye of hope towards the far-distant haven to which we were bound.

A great number of the fleet were the next morning to be seen emerging from their shelter, or hiding-places, from the terrific hurricane of the day before; but our captain was resolved to be alone; so the same night he crowded sail, and, by the following morning's dawn, we were so

much a-head that not a sail was visible, save one solitary sloop, that seemed bending her way towards England.

Some three weeks after this, we were again visited by a most dreadful storm, that far exceeded the former one, and from which we suffered much external injury, our maintop-mast, and other smaller masts, being carried away. But the interior of our poor bark exhibited a scene of far greater desolation. We were then far from land, and a pestilential disease was raging among us in all its terrific forms. Naught could be seen but the pallid cheek of disease, or the sunken eye of despair. The sea-gulls soared over the ship, and huge sharks hovered around it, watching for their prey. These creatures are sure indications of ships having some pestilential disease on board, and they have been known to follow a vessel so circumstanced to the most distant climes, to countries far from their native element. To add to our distresses, some ten barrels of ship's paint, or colour, got loose from their lashings, and rolled from side to side, and from head to stern, carrying every thing before them by their enormous weight. From our inability to stop them in their destructive progress, they one and all were staved in, and the gun-deck soon became one mass of colours, in which lay the dead and the dying, both white and black.

It would be difficult for the reader to picture to himself a set of men more deplorably situated than we now were; but our distresses were not yet at their height: for, as though our miseries still required aggravation, the scurvy broke out among us in a most frightful manner. Scarcely a single individual on board escaped this melancholy disorder, and the swoln legs, and gums protruding beyond the lips, attested the malignancy of the visitation. The dying were burying the dead, and the features of all on board wore the garb of mourning.

Every assistance and attention that humanity or generosity could dictate, was freely and liberally bestowed by the officers on board, who cheerfully gave up their fresh meats and many other comforts, for the benefit of the distressed; but the pestilence baffled the aid of medicine and the skill of the medical attendants. My poor legs were as big as drums; my gums swoln to an enormous size;