The boat was manned, and a midshipman ordered to take charge of it; but when he came up, the first lieutenant recollecting that he had come off two days before with only half his boat's crew, would not trust him, and called out to me, "Here, Mr Simple, I must send you in this boat; mind you are careful that none of the men leave it; and bring off the sergeant of marines, who is on shore looking for the men who have broken their liberty." Although I could not but feel proud of the compliment, yet I did not much like going in my very best uniform, and would have run down and changed it, but the marine officer and all the people were in the boat, and I could not keep it waiting, so down the side I went, and we shoved off.

We had, besides the boat's crew, the marine officer, the purser, the gun-room steward, the captain's steward, and the purser's steward; so that we were pretty full.

It blew hard from the S.E., and there was a sea running, but as the tide was flowing into the harbour there was not much bubble.

We hoisted the foresail, flew before the wind and tide, and in a quarter of an hour we were at Mutton Cove, when the marine officer expressed his wish to land.

The landing-place was crowded with boats, and it was not without sundry exchanges of foul words and oaths, and the bow-men dashing the point of their boat-hooks into the shore-boats, to make them keep clear of us, that we forced our way to the beach.