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Updated: June 20, 2025
Mr Phillott agreed with O'Brien: he ordered the bowmen to lay in their oars and keep the guns pointed ready to fire at the word given, and desiring the other men to pull their best. Every nerve, every muscle was brought into play by our anxious and intrepid seamen.
I must do Mr Phillott the justice to say that he bore no malice on this occasion, but treated us as before, which is saying a great deal in his favour, when it is considered what power a first lieutenant has of annoying and punishing his inferiors.
"I will save you the trouble; Captain Kearney is now coming up, and I will report it myself." This O'Brien did, upon the captain's putting his foot on the quarter-deck. "Well," observed the captain to Mr Phillott, "what is it you complain of?" "Mr O'Brien's language, sir. Am I to be addressed on the quarter-deck in that manner?"
This was the case with Mr Phillott, who prided himself upon his slang, and who was at one time "hail fellow, well met" with the seamen, talking to them, and being answered as familiarly as if they were equals, and at another, knocking the very same men down with a handspike if he were displeased.
He said, that he had known so many occasions in which their rashness and foolhardiness had spoilt an expedition; he therefore appointed Mr Phillott, the first lieutenant, to the launch; O'Brien to the yawl; the master to the first, and Mr Chucks, the boatswain, to the second cutter.
Mr Phillott, under these circumstances, decided that it would be useless to risk more lives, and that the wounded should be taken out of the brig, and the boats should pull away from the ship. He desired me to get the wounded men into the cutter which he sent alongside, and then to follow the other boats.
As Mr Phillott wished to hear the end of the captain's story, he would not contradict him about the wine, by stating what he knew to be the case, that the captain had sent it on board at Barbadoes; and the captain proceeded. "Well, I gave up my cabin to the old lady, and hung up my cot in the gun-room during the passage home. We were becalmed abreast of Ceuta for two days.
The men in the boats tittered; and Mr Phillott, who was in the launch next to us, turned round to see what was the matter; O'Brien was sitting in the stern-sheets of the launch with the first lieutenant, and I leaned over and told them. "By the powers!
"Very well, Mr Phillott," replied the captain, turning round to sleep; "let me know if you lose any more." Some time elapsed, and the first lieutenant reported that "they were all out of sight." "Very well, then," said the captain; "call me when you see them again."
Mr Phillott turned very red, for he never had come in contact in this way with O'Brien. All the other officers had submitted quietly to his unpleasant manner of speaking to them. "Very well, Mr O'Brien; I shall hold you answerable for this language," replied he, "and shall most certainly report your conduct to the captain."
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