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I was not cruel by nature; I loved the deep investigation of hidden things; and this day's action gave me a very clear insight into the anatomy of the human frame, which I had seen cut in two by shot, lacerated by splinters, carved out with knives, and separated with saws! Soon after the action, we were ordered to Spithead, with duplicate despatches.
This service occupied his ship until the 4th of May, when she arrived off the Lizard, and, having sent part of his convoy into Falmouth, he anchored at Guernsey on the following day. He left Guernsey on the 15th of May, having six transports with French prisoners on board, and arrived at Spithead on the 17th.
As she was now full indeed, so crowded that no more men could be stowed on board she got under way with the first of the ebb, and dropped down the stream, bound for Spithead. As Bill, with most of the pressed men, was kept below during this his first trip to sea, he gained but little nautical experience.
A week after we joined her, all things being ready and her preparation for sea being complete, the Active cast off the hawsers mooring her to the bollards on the jetty; and then, disdaining the assistance of any of the harbour tugs, the commodore sent the men aloft to make sail, and took her out to Spithead under her canvas alone, conning the ship himself from his station aft.
The Cleopatra, commanded by the late excellent Sir Charles V. Penrose, was at Spithead when the mutiny took place; but the good disposition of his crew enabled him with admirable address to escape, and she joined Sir Edward's squadron at Falmouth.
DORA. "Dear me! how very sudden; what an awful scene it must have been, so many poor creatures hurried, with scarcely a moment's warning or time to cry for mercy, into the presence of their Creator! Were the bodies all washed ashore? Oh! what a mourning and lamentation there must have been at Spithead, when the fatal truth was borne to their sorrowing friends."
On the 9th of March, 1793, his Britannic Majesty's gun-brig "Scourge" weighed, and stood out to sea from the anchorage at Spithead, under single-reefed topsails, her commander having received orders to cruise for a month in the chops of the Channel.
As we lay at Spithead, one day Hagger came to me and said: "Will, I don't like the look of things, there's something going to happen. The men complain that the provisions are bad, and we don't get fresh meat and vegetables from shore as we ought, and there's no leave given, and flogging goes on just as it did before, and that our present captain is as severe as the last.
Upon arriving at my destination I called at the George Hotel, where Captain Vavassour usually put up, with the intention of reporting myself to him, but, learning that he was on board the frigate, I at once proceeded to the harbour and, engaging a wherry, transported myself and my belongings to Spithead, where the Europa lay at anchor.
The two rushes of the torpedo boats, supported by the swift cruisers, had not taken place. Not a hostile vessel had entered either Spithead or the Solent, and the British cruisers, which he had been ordered to spare, had got away untouched. It was perfectly evident that some disaster had befallen the expedition, and that the Leger had been involved in it.
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