262 



POSTSCRIPT. 



AN oral or traditional account of any 

 circumstance more properly belonging to 

 history is always subject to error in an au- 

 tobiography written after the lapse of half 

 a century. And it is more than probable 

 that an impression, however erroneously re- 

 ceived at the time, would be grafted on 

 others of a similar nature with which it was 

 directly connected. 



In the first volume of this work it is 

 stated* that three courts-martial were to 

 have been held on three of the principal 

 officers of the Fleet, on its return to Spit- 



* Chapter v., page 167. 



