FISHING 57 



St. Helena nearly three months. During that time the 

 late captain of the Bedaigneuse, and the only other cabin 

 passenger, a gentleman high in office in the East India 

 Company's Civil Service, lived entirely on shore ; while 

 I, having no money, was obliged to spend my time 

 in the best way I could, which was principally in 

 fishing at different points of the coast of this rocky island, 

 where mackerel and conger-eel abound, and upon which 

 we almost entirely subsisted — as, from the great number 

 of ships, it was impossible to get a sufficient supply 

 of fresh provisions from the shore ; and such a surfeit 

 did I receive of this piscatorial diet, that it was years 

 before I could be induced to touch either of those 

 sjDecimens of the finny tribe. 



At length H.M.S. Athenieune,^ of sixty-four guns, 

 arrived from England, to take charge of the largest 

 convoy that had ever assembled at St. Helena ; and after 

 a fine passage, without meeting with anything worth 

 recording, we arrived in the chops of the Channel. 



A pilot-boat coming alongside, I resolved to take 

 advantage of it and get on shore as quickly as I could. 

 Accordingly I attired myself in the best my wardrobe, 

 which had sadly diminished, would afford, and went 

 on deck. The captain was standing on the poop with 

 his two passengers. Going up and addressing him, I 

 said that if he could dispense with my further services, I 

 begged to be allowed to go on shore in the pilot-boat, 

 as my friends lived near the coast, and I was anxious 



■^ This ship was in the following year lost, and the captain and all 

 the crew perished, she having struck on a rock between Malta and 

 Cape Pessaro, in Sicily. 



