EMBASSY TO CHINA. 
CHAPTER I. 
DEPARTURE FROM PORTSMOUTH. 
At three o’clock of the afternoon of February 8th, 1816, I embarked 
with His Excellency Lord Amherst, on board H. M. S. Alceste, then 
lying at Spithead. Getting under weigh at eight o’clock the fol- 
lowing morning, in company with H. M. S. Lyra, Capt. B. Hall, 
and General Hewitt, Capt. Campbell, we steered with a fine breeze 
through the Needles. In passing the shores of the Isle of Wight, 
my imagination dwelt painfully on its white cliffs and verdant slopes, 
which but three days before I had visited with friends who gave 
the best value to my existence, and from whom I was separating, 
perhaps for ever. But the painful feelings excited by such reflec- 
tions, too intense, indeed, for long continuance, were quickly 
destroyed by my share of the bodily suffering which attacked, in 
succession, the greater number of those, who then, for the first time, 
felt the motion of a ship at sea. Scarcely had we cleared the western 
extremity of the island, when an intolerable giddiness, languor, and 
sickness, drove me to my cot, and had but slightly mitigated, when 
the mountains of Madeira were descried from the ship. 
Early in the morning of the 18th February, going upon deck, I 
saw this interesting island bearing S. S. W., distant about six leagues. 
