I put on my dirk, that they might know I was an officer, as
well as for my protection. About dusk we rowed on shore, and landed on
the Gosport side: the men were all armed with cutlasses, and wore pea
jackets, which are very short great-coats made of what they call
Flushing. We did not stop to look at any of the grog-shops in the town,
as it was too early, but walked out about three miles in the suburbs,
and went to a house, the door of which was locked, but we forced it open
in a minute, and hastened to enter the passage, where we found the
landlady standing to defend the entrance. The passage was long and
narrow, and she was a very tall corpulent woman, so that her body nearly
filled it up, and in her hands she held a long spit pointed at us, with
which she kept us at bay. The officers, who were the foremost, did not
like to attack a woman, and she made such drives at them with her spit,
that had they not retreated, some of them would soon have been ready for
roasting. The sailors laughed and stood outside, leaving the officers to
settle the business how they could. At last, the landlady called out to
her husband, "Be they all out, Jem?" "Yes," replied the husband, "they
be all safe gone." "Well, then," replied she, "I'll soon have all these
gone too;" and with these words she made such a rush forward upon us
with her spit, that had we not fallen back and tumbled one over another,
she certainly would have run it through the second lieutenant, who
commanded the party.
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