GOES TO SEA 13 



greatness of life, his visits to Mrs. Buckner (soon a 

 widow) at Windsor, where he had a pony kept for 

 him and visited at Lord Melville's and Lord Har- 

 court's and the Leveson-Gowers, he began to have 

 ' bumptious notions,' and his head was ' somewhat 

 turned with fine people ' ; as to some extent it 

 remained throughout his innocent and honourable 

 hfe. 



In this frame of mind the boy was appointed to Goes to 

 the Conqueror, Captain Davie, humorously known ^^^' 

 as Gentle Johnnie. The captain had earned this 

 name by his style of discipHne, which would have 

 figured well in the pages of Marryat : ' Put the 

 prisoner's head in a bag and give him another 

 dozen ! ' survives as a specimen of his commands ; 

 and the men were often punished twice or thrice 

 in a week. On board the ship of this disciplinarian, 

 Charles and his father were carried in a billy-boat 

 from Sheerness in December 1816 : Charles with an 

 outfit suitable to his pretensions, a twenty-guinea 

 sextant and 120 dollars in silver, which were ordered 

 into the care of the gunner. ' The old clerks and 

 mates,' he writes^ ' used to laugh and jeer me for 

 joining the ship in a billy-boat, and when they 

 f oimd I was from Kent, vowed I was an old Kentish 

 smuggler. This to my pride, you will believe, was 

 not a little offensive.' 



The Conqueror carried the flag of Vice- Admiral At St. 

 Plampin, commanding at the Cape and St. Helena ; 



