CONCLUSION. 311 



Fore-top, his age then being 37 years. The same authority 

 also corroborates a sort of narrative of Hy. Peglar, con- 

 tained in one of these papers, apparently drawn up by him- 

 self, and showing that he entered H.M. Navy in Nov. 1825, 

 and continued to serve in it almost without interruption ; 

 it is without date, and ends with the words "now in the 

 1 Terror.' " 



Three of these manuscripts have each word written back- 

 wards, frequently ending in a capital letter, and as the 

 spelling is very incorrect, they were most puzzling ; they 

 are devoid of any special interest. Upon the parchment 

 certificate are still legible the names of the six ships — ' Magni- 

 ficent,' ' Rattlesnake,' ' Talavera,' ' Gannet,' ' Ocean,' and 

 'Wanderer' — in which Peglar served previous to joining 

 the ' Terror ;' it does not appear to have ever been filled 

 up for this latter ship, and probably the office work of filling 

 up the seamen's certificates was left to be performed upon 

 the long passage home. This circumstance, coupled with 

 the fact that poor Peglar (who seems to have been a poet 

 in a very humble way) found amusement in writing a sort of 

 parody on a sea-song in April, 1847, a fter an absence of two 

 years from England, lets in a gleam of light upon their 

 habits, and affords some grounds for the belief that, up to 

 that date at least, they were both cheerful and confident : 

 it is an unlooked-for confirmation of Graham Gore's "All 

 well!" in May, 1847. 



A year later, and the possessor of the pocket-book — whom 

 I presume to be Peglar — prepares himself for the long (and, 

 as it proved, the fatal) march ; discarding his seaman's attire, 1 

 he dressed himself in his best suit of shore-going clothes, the 

 clothes reserved to be worn on the day of landing once more 

 in England ; he took with him the pocket-book already men- 

 tioned, with its trivial contents of songs and stories, 2 perhaps 



1 See p. 236. 2 See List of Relics in Appendix No. I., p. 320. 



