32 Recollections of a Valetudinarian. 



being either killed or wounded, I cannot say that I looked forward with 

 any particular delight to a rencontre with the French fleet, although I 

 hope I should have behaved as well as others of my age and size. How- 

 ever, fortunately for me, I was not put to the trial. , In the morning, 

 Flushing capitulated, and our commander-in- chief, Lord Chatham, was 

 obliged to get up before noon (which was rather an exertion with him) 

 to receive the French general's sword. Some few days afterwards, we 

 went up the Scheldt to look at the French fleet. I suppose it was for 

 nothing else, as we did nothing more. The redoubtable Fort Lillo was 

 between us, whose heavy train of battering cannon, level with the river, 

 would most likely have blown us out of the water unless the army had 

 made a powerful attack in the rear, which they did not. Perhaps it was 

 all for the best; but if I recollect rightly, the people at home were not 

 very well satisfied with our proceedings. 



On our return to Flushing, we were chiefly occupied in destroying 

 the public works in the dock-yard, and in a very short time (so great is 

 man's ingenuity in mischief) we converted one of the finest arsenals in 

 Europe into a desert, and carried away with us as a trophy a large 

 portion of fever and disease. Such is war : we left misery and desola- 

 tion behind us, and returned home with the remnant of an army of 

 pallid spectres, who looked more like the ghosts of their buried com- 

 panions than the living remains of a British army. 



It is not my intention, however, to stir up the old grievance of the 

 Walcheren expedition ; too many persons have reason to regret it for 

 me to be required to dwell upon so disagreeable a subject at so distant a 

 period. As an Englishman, I had much rather forget it; therefore I 

 will not remind the reader what might have been done, but was not. 

 Politics are too grave for me ; I was too young for them then, and I am 

 too old for them now. I will only say, as far as I was personally con- 

 cerned, that for a beginner it was rather an unfortunate debut, and I 

 will leave all recollections of Flushing to the few survivors, whose anni- 

 versary agues and chronic rheumatisms will, I dare say, prove sufficient 

 remembrancers, while I call to mind my feelings of delight on returning 

 home from this my first expedition such as it was. 



I should think there could not be a vainer animal in the whole crea- 

 tion than the young midshipman on his return home from his first 

 voyage. The utter contempt in which he holds his former amusements, 

 his assumption of the honours of maturity, his awkward attempts to 

 sink the boy in his horror of the nursery and side table, with the assist- 

 ance of his dirk and cocked hat, all tend to make him a little man before 

 his time. I really had grown an inch or two from change of climate 

 and manner of life, but nothing in proportion to the elevation I took 

 upon myself. I swore at my kind-hearted old nurse, who would per- 

 sist in considering me a child, whenever she proposed combing my hair; 

 talked large of my late engagement with the enemy ; and romped with 

 the maid-servants. In short, I was become a complete scamp, turned 

 the house almost upside down, and so disturbed the whole family, that 

 they were quite delighted to get rid of me, when I was obliged to join 

 my ship again, which was fitting out at Chatham. 



Any sorrow that I might perhaps have felt at leaving my home a second 

 time was quite forgotten in the contemplation of the magnificent prepara- 

 tions made for that event. The size of my chest and the extent of my ward- 

 robe were never-failing sources of my admiration and my father's animad- 



