20 IMAN-OF-WAR 



thing I did want, and many things I did not want, that 

 afterwards conduced to the esi^ecial sport and jests of my 

 messmates. 



The ship I went on board, after taking leave of my 

 friends, was one of the worst class of two-deckers — high 

 out of the water, short, wall-sided, with a bluff bow and 

 a square stern. She was the last ship built of that class, 

 and had been recently launched from Portsmouth dock- 

 yard. The improvement in our naval architecture may 

 date from this time, when the superior models of the 

 French and S^^anish ships, taken during the late war, 

 invited the attention of the Admiralty or Navy Board 

 to their particular structure, and soon condemned such 

 vessels as I have named to serve as hospital or convict- 

 ships. 



On board of a man-of-war, then, of the fourth class, I 

 was admitted as a supernumerary midshipman, under 

 the especial charge of the captain, who bore the family 

 name of, and was closely connected with, an Irish 

 earldom.^ The ward-room officers consisted of four 

 lieutenants, a master, a doctor, a purser, and two marine 

 officers. The cockpit contained, with midshipmen, 

 master's mates, doctor's mates, and captain's clerk, in all 

 about twenty, while the crew consisted of about five 

 hundred, including Avarrant, petty officers and idlers, 

 most of them first-class seamen, having been pressed from 

 a homeward-bound East India fleet in the Downs ; and 

 no finer crew ever went to sea in a British man-of-war. 



Our captain's orders were to take charge of a fleet of 

 Indiamen, South-Seamen, &c., that had assembled at the 



' Thomas Gordcn Caulfielcl. 



