"
These midshipmen told me so much about my captain, and the horrid
cruelties which he had practised, that I had some doubts whether I had
not better set off home again. When I asked their opinion, they said,
that if I did, I should be taken up as a deserter and hanged; that my
best plan was to beg his acceptance of a few gallons of rum, for he was
very fond of grog, and that then I might perhaps be in his good graces,
as long as the rum might last.
I am sorry to state that the midshipmen made me very tipsy that evening.
I don't recollect being put to bed, but I found myself there the next
morning, with a dreadful headache, and a very confused recollection of
what had passed. I was very much shocked at my having so soon forgotten
the injunctions of my parents, and was making vows never to be so
foolish again, when in came the midshipman who had been so kind to me
the night before. "Come, Mr Bottlegreen," he bawled out, alluding, I
suppose, to the colour of my clothes, "rouse and bitt. There's the
captain's coxswain waiting for you below. By the powers, you're in a
pretty scrape for what you did last night!"
"Did last night!" replied I, astonished. "Why, does the captain know
that I was tipsy?"
"I think you took devilish good care to let him know it when you were at
the theatre."
"At the theatre! was I at the theatre?"
"To be sure you were. You would go, do all we could to prevent you,
though you were as drunk as David's sow. Your captain was there with the
admiral's daughters.
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