of misery--he had no consolation except turning his quid and tying his
pigtail.

But everything changes in this world, and among other changes was that
of the station of the frigate, which was ordered foreign. Sir Hercules
took leave of his lady, who retired to Tunbridge Wells. My father took
leave of my mother, who retired to Woolwich. She had saved some money in
service, and my father handed over to her all the pay which he received,
when the ship's company were paid previous to the sailing of the ship.
It is but justice to observe that the moment he was out of soundings and
away from the influence of her ladyship, Sir Hercules reinstated my
father, and gave him back his rating as coxswain. My father was indeed
the smartest and best seaman in the ship; he could do his work from stem
to stern--mouse a stay, pudding an anchor, and pass a gammoning, as well
as he could work a Turk's head, cover a manrope, or point a lashing for
the cabin table. Besides which, he had seen service, having fought under
Rodney, and served at the siege of Gibraltar.

But I must return to my mother, who, when she first went to Woolwich,
which she did in a transport that was ordered round, took lodgings in
the outskirts of the town; and not wishing to acknowledge that she had
married a common sailor, as she supposed my father still to be,
asserted that she was the wife of a captain of a merchant vessel, which
had been taken up as a transport to convey troops to the West Indies. On
this supposition, being received into a society above her real station,
she was compelled to spend more money than she could afford, and her
finances rapidly wasted away. In the meantime I was born--a fine baby,
but with nothing to look up to but a penniless mother, an absent (if
existing) father, the workhouse, and the sky.