be celebrated, my French midshipman friend came on board officially and
said, 'Sir, the first of the month is the feast of the King; you must
fire the gun.' 'All right,' said we. Accordingly, we loaded our guns in
the morning, preparatory to saluting at noon. It was raining heavily all
the forenoon, so we had not removed what is called the tompions (to my
unprofessional reader I may say that the tompion is a very large piece
of wood made to fit into the muzzle, for the purpose of preventing wet
from penetrating). To this tompion is, or used to be, attached a large
piece of wadding, what for I never rightly understood.

Now it seems that those whose duty it was to attend to it had neglected
to take these things out of the guns.

On the first gun being fired from the French ship we began our salute.
The French ships were close alongside of us, one on either side. The
gunner who fires stands with the hand-glass to mark the time between
each discharge. On this occasion he began his orders thus: 'Fire, port;'
then suddenly recollecting that the tompions were not removed he added,
'Tompions are in, sir.' No one moved. The gunner could not leave his
work of marking time. Again he gave the order, 'Fire, starboard,'
repeating, 'Tompions are in, sir,' and so on till half the broadside had
been fired before the tompions had been taken out. It is difficult to
describe the consternation on board the French vessels, whose decks were
crowded with strangers (French merchants, &c.), invited from the shore
to do honour to their King's fête. These horrid tompions and their
adjuncts went flying on to their decks, from which every one scampered
in confusion. It was lucky our guns did not burst.

This was a most awkward dilemma for all of us. I was sent on board to
apologise. The French captain, with the courtesy of his nation, took the