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That very afternoon he went to Gravesend in the tilt-boat, from whence he took place in the tide-coach for Rochester; next morning got on board the "Thunder," for which he was appointed, then lying in the harbour at Chatham; and the same day was mustered by the clerk of the checque.
Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell, more fit for duty than the others, put their backs into it right heartily while the sailors droned to the cadence of the pump a sentimental ditty which ran on for any number of verses and began in this wise: "As, lately I traveled toward Gravesend, I heard a fair Damosel a Sea-man commend: And as in a Tilt-boat we passed along, In praise of brave Sea-men she sung this new Song, Come Tradesman or Marchant, whoever he be, There's none but a Sea-man shall marry with me!"
On the eve of the fatal thirtieth of January they had been taken captives in a tilt-boat on the Thames, in which they were endeavouring to escape down the river.
Then away they went, three wherries full, and Master Gyles behind them in a brisk sixpenny tilt-boat, resplendent in new ash-colored hose, a cloak of black velvet fringed with gold, and a brand-new periwig curled and frizzed like a brush-heap in a gale of wind. How they had worked for the last few days!
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