He suspended on this occasion all the usual strait-laced etiquettes of the quarter-deck discipline, and permitted the harassed soldiers to lie down and read between the guns, or wherever they pleased.

His great delight was to coddle them up, and recompense them, as far as he could, for the severe privations they had undergone during the retreat, and nothing entertained him so much as seeing the relish with which these hungry campaigners partook of his hospitality.

On the day after the battle of Corunna, when these gentlemen came on board, he ordered a cock to be driven into a hogshead of prime old sherry; and his satisfaction was perfect, when his steward, with a rueful countenance, communicated to him, on arriving at Spithead, that "his very best cask of wine had been drunk dry on the passage by the soldier officers!".