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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 

 4 bumptious notions,' and his head was * somewhat 

 turned with fine people ' ; as to some extent it 

 remained throughout his innocent and honourable 

 life. 



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

 the Conqueror, Captain Davie, humorously known se 

 as Gentle Johnnie. The captain had earned this 

 name by his style of discipline, 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 

 found 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 ; 



