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The "Scourge" was a 16-gun brig, but having been despatched to sea in a great hurry, after receiving somewhat extensive repairs at the dockyard, she had only eight long 6-pounders mounted, and, for the same reason, she was considerably short-handed, her crew amounting only to seventy men and boys, of whom quite one half were eminently "green" hands.
While we were at Bermuda it died. Scores of men went to its funeral. We managed to get a trolly and laid 'Billy' upon it. The procession was formed, and away we marched through the dockyard. Some of us were glad that we should see its face no more, others were rather sorrowful, and expressed their sorrow by wrapping around the goat their tunics. Never was a goat buried with such honours.
"Don't I, auntie?" "Don't bother me, children," growled the Captain, pretending to get in a rage. "I must be off now. I have an appointment in the Dockyard this afternoon." "You shan't go! you shan't go!" cried the two together, hanging on to him on either side. "You promised to take us somewhere or do something if we were good, and that was to be to-morrow."
Their patchwork was highly prized by many, and indeed treasured up by some of them for many years after. Officers in the British navy assisted in the good work by word and deed; in fact, Captain Young, of Deptford Dockyard, first suggested the making of patchwork as an employment on board ship. From some correspondence which passed between Mrs.
Being thanked for this also, he presented an excellent pendulum clock of his own making, to be placed over his Majesty's arms upon the principal gate of the dockyard, with a bell above the clock to strike the hours of the day, as well as to summon the men to their work; and two more dials, the one for the new town-hall, the other for the almshouses near St. Helen's Port.
Yet it seemed to some to be a perverse and stubborn thing, that though the consuls and prætors were present, Cato neither landed to meet them nor stopped his course, but sweeping along the shore in a royal galley of six banks, he never stopped till he had moored his ships in the dockyard.
But, as I was saying, the Royal George heeled over pretty nearly in the same way as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I remember when I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so many years ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob, being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, to clear the fairway for navigation.
The ship being all ready for going out of harbour, the captain makes a report to that effect to the admiral, the working boats are returned, and the new ones drawn, and hoisted in. At the same time all unserviceable stores, worn out in fitting the ship, are returned to the dockyard, including the hulk hammocks, which must be well scrubbed, dried, and made neatly up.
"It is of great advantage that the port whence the men embark be healthful,... because if they embark from an unhealthful land, many fall sick before embarking, and many die afterwards while at sea ... The port of Acapulco appears to have a good location, so that a dockyard might be fitted up there, where vessels can be built, and may there take and discharge their cargoes; for it is one of the foremost ports in the discovery of the Indies large, safe, very healthful, and with a supply of good water.
I am entirely alone here; not a soul to help me, and I am wanted in half-a-dozen places at once; so I shall really be glad of your assistance. I suppose you are prepared to commence duty at once? That's right; then be good enough to take the launch, and go to the dockyard with this order for stores, and bring them off as quickly as possible.
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