The prisoners were in the meantime sent
on board the flag ship, with the charge of robbery strongly preferred
against them; indeed, _flagrante delicto_ was proved. In vain they
protested that they were not the slayers, but only went in search of
what others had killed: the admiral, who was a kind-hearted man, said,
that that was a very good story, but desired them "not to tell lies
to old rogues," and ordered them all under arrest: at the same time
giving directions for a most rigid scrutiny into the larder of the
other gun-boat, with a view, if possible, to discover the remains of
the calf. This we had foreseen would happen, so we put it into one
of the sailor's bags, and sank it with a lead-line in three fathoms
water, where it lay till the inspection was over, when we dressed it,
and made an excellent dinner, drinking success to His Majesty's arms
by land and sea.
Whether I had been intemperate in food or libation I know not, but
I was attacked with the Walcheren fever, and was sent home in a
line-of-battle ship; and, perhaps, as Pangloss says, it was all for
the best; for I knew I could not have left off my inveterate habits,
and it would have been very inconvenient to me, and distressing to my
friends, to have ended my brilliant career, and stopped these memoirs,
at the beginning of the second and most interesting volume, by hanging
the Author up, like a scarecrow, under the superintendence of the
rascally provost-marshal, merely for catering on the land of a
Walcheren farmer.
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