IE m iliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiu nil in h I A SAILOR'S LIFE : ' ' - M ' i — .j*-LN5 . A SAILORS LIFE UNDER FOUR SOVEREIGNS BY- ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET THE HON. SIR HENRY KEPPEL G.C.B., D.C.L. VOL. I. ILontion MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMII.I.AN COMPANY 1899 .-ill right i yaerind / ' o V UaAasX. J 0is2_^ ^/ia^uy rupfuJLr CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE i 809-1822 I CHAPTER II The 7 weed, 1824. ..... 26 CHAPTER III The Tweed ..... +6 CHAPTER IV The Tweed ..... 55 CHAPTER V The Tweed . 66 CHAPTER VI England .92 A Sailor's Life CHAPTER VII PAGE The Galatea 101 CHAPTER VIII IJ The Magicienne 9 CHAPTER IX The Magicienne . .127 CHAPTER X • • 1 The Magicienne . • ^7 CHAPTER XI The Magicienne 153 CHAPTER XII England 160 CHAPTER XIII The Childers Brig 165 CHAPTER XIV The Childers Brig 1 74 CHAPTER XV The Carlist Question 184 Contents xi CHAPTER XVI PAGE The Carlist War 192 CHAPTER XVII The Childers Brig 198 CHAPTER XVIII The Childers—West Coast of Africa .... 202 CHAPTER XIX Cape Coast Castle 217 CHAPTER XX The Childers Brig 226 CHAPTER XXI A Rendezvous of Cruisers . .231 CHAPTER XXII England 246 CHAPTER XXIII Shore Time 251 CHAPTER XXIV Dido Corvette 255. xii A Sailor's Life CHAPTER XXV — PACE Dido China ........ 269 CHAPTER XXVI — Diao China ........ 277 CHAPTER XXVII — Dido Straits of" Malacca ...... 282 CHAPTER XXVIII — . Dido . Borneo . .292 CHAPTER XXIX Dido— . Borneo . .311 CHAPTER XXX — Dido China ........ 322 CHAPTER XXXI — . Dido Calcutta . -331 ILLUSTRATIONS SUBJECT ARTIST "There was life in the 'small y. W. Houghton thing"' Frontispiece A Successful Operation » 11 3 Pio Mingo E. Caldwell 6 Sir Francis Burdett From an engraving 8 Sir Francis Burdctt's Carriage J. W. Houghton 9 A Compliment to Sir Francis io Nelson's Chair 11 Royal Naval College The Attack The Defence During the Examinatio Meeting the Captain Ship Mates . Consolation Meet Lord Cochrane Arrested Vera Cruz . Holkham View from Reduit A Colossal Tortoise Sir Lowry Cole . The Device of Jonas Coaker XIV A Sailor's Life SUBJECT A Sailor's Life under Four Sovereigns CHAPTER I 1809-1822 The baptismal certificate announces my birth at 1809. une Earl's Court, Kensington, on June 14, 1809. J H- It was only in 1820 I learnt from my sister, Mary, that three weeks after birth I was deposited in my father's footpan to be interred in a garden at the back of the house, not being entitled to a berth in consecrated ground. That mattered little, as before the final screwing down the old nurse discovered there was life in the " small thing." I was christened at Kensington. Henry, Lord Holland, became responsible for my sins, a similar kind act having been conferred by Charles James Fox elder brother after which I was upon my ; removed to join the others at Ouidenham. I to 181 Later on recollect the nurse trying frighten 5. " us by saying Boney was coming," and how glad we children were when we heard of the defeat of that hero at Waterloo as I then ; accomplished, believed, by my brother George, an Ensign in the 14th Foot ! My dear mother died at Holkham in 18 17. 1S17. At the beginning of 1 8 1 8 my younger brother vol. 1 B A Sailor's Life CHAP. I 1818. Tom and I were sent to a school at Needham Market, kept by the Rev. James Wood, a short, muscular man, wearing knee-breeches and powdered hair. nice wife and children the latter A ; played with us smaller boys. His brother, a merchant at Lisbon, used to send cases of oranges, which were stowed in the upper shelf of a large cupboard. When in the humour, the master chucked them to us from a ladder singly, giving lessons in catching. From Portugal we had two schgolfellows, Francisco Nunes Sweezer Vizeu and Alvaro Lopes Pereira. They were kind to me, the smallest boy, and I have never forgotten them. While there, a young man named Long, who was training for Holy Orders, came occasionally to read with Mr. Wood. He gave me a brass gun mounted - on wheels, and a promise of sixpence if I would fire it off during school-time. At my end of the table I arranged, with books, a screened battery, with the rear and under open ; then, pretence of drying my slate at the fire, heated a wire, which was applied according to instructions. The ex- was loud books plosion ; all flew in directions ; the gun bounded over my head and lost itself behind a row of books, where it remained until next half. The master tore open his waistcoat to ascertain where he was shot, and then seized his cane ; for some minutes I 3 ^ - 1 ' -' / 4 A Sailor's Life chap. 1818. dodged under the table and over the stools, but caught it at last. I was unable to sit, and so went to bed. My father had in his possession a letter from the Rev. James Wood, stating that I had fired a gun at " him, and that Mr. Thomas" had thrown a slate at his head divested of its frame ! The following half, as the warm weather approached, I succeeded in finding where the master kept his hair- powder, and with it mixed some finely pounded sugar. On coming into school, the flies soon found him, and as he got warm his head became black instead of white. This little game exceeded my expectations, as, irritated beyond endurance, he dismissed us from school. Among our playfellows was a Norfolk neighbour, Edward Gurdon, who sang well and • tried to teach me ! 1 8 19. Our sister Sophia, who married Sir James Macdonald, lived not far from Needham. They drove over to take us to the launch of a ship at Aldborough. On the return journey, I in the gig, driven by the coachman following the phaeton, ran foul of a fish-cart, and broke the shaft. I was pitched on to the back of the horse, slipped down the trace, and found my way to the phaeton. The coachman had been taking his tea too strong. At the back of the schoolhouse was a gable-end, up which a pear-tree had long before been trained. The trunk stood some six feet from the wall ; a pathway which led to the stables ran parallel, on the outer side of which were pointed rails. On top of these, thin planks placed edgeways, up which jasmine was trained. One afternoon a ball with which we had been playing lodged in the upper part of the gable-end. c< " i When George III. was King 5 l8l I succeeded in reaching the ball, when the branch 9- gave way, and I descended with it in one hand and the ball in the other the that ; only things partially checked my fall were the planks. I came down impaled on the spiked rails ! A messenger was to but there were despatched Ouidenham ; plenty of us : nobody came. We looked forward to our Christmas holidays. My father kept a pack of beagles, much to our delight as well as that of our neighbours, the Surtees and Partridges, both large families and sporting, who, with many others, made our meets very cheery. Hares there were in plenty. We boys had clever ponies. Mine, Pio Mingo, was peculiar-looking— with black mane and tail showed white, spots, bushy ; a good deal of the white of her eye. The like of her might have been found at Astley's. Both ponies were undeniably clever at finding their way across ditches and through fences, and generally much nearer the hounds than pleased old Capes, the huntsman. Most of the hounds, while running, preferred the furrows to the open plough, as did Mingo, much to the grief of poor little Dancer, Rattler, and others. But Mingo's great dislike was a hat, which my elder brothers knew only too well. One Friday morning, after a continued frost, horses and hounds for were brought out an airing, and paraded in front of the house. Fancying that I knew the whereabouts of my brothers, I mounted Mingo in the stable, and was sneaking along so as to get near the protection of led horses. At that moment, through a villa garden gate, appeared my Waterloo brother. He took off his hat as if to give Mingo a feed of corn. I gripped A Sailor's Life CHAP. 1 819. both mane and crupper, but the rattle of the whip inside the hat was too much. Instead of a somersault in the air, my left foot caught in the stirrup. Away dashed Mingo, in among the horses, with me in tow. Inside the house old Henley pulled down the window-blinds, that my sisters might not see the end. The confusion was led expected great ; Pio Mingo. horses got loose. I was eventually picked up sense- less on a heap of straw and pheasant food under a tree. There was the deep cut of a horse's tooth across the seat of the saddle—a saddle which had been given my brother George by the Princess Charlotte, and on which we boys had learned to ride. On the Monday following I was again in the saddle, with a stiffish leg and a few bruises, but none the worse. Most Norfolk butlers took pride in their breed of game-fowl, and old Henley considered his second to none. The best cocks went periodicallv to New- The Cokes and the Keppels 7 market, their performances watched with interest only 1819.