myself as I ought, I shall soon be a lieutenant; and a lieutenant in his
majesty's navy is as good a gentleman as any in England, and has a right
(tell my sister Kitty) to hand the first woman in Lon'on out of her
carriage, if he pleases, and if she pleases.

"Now we talk of ladies, and as please God we shall soon be in action,
and may not have another opportunity of writing to you this great while,
for there is talk of our sailing southward with the fleet to bring the
French and Spaniards to action, I think it best to send you all the news
I have in this letter. But pray bid Kate, with my love, mind this, that
not a word of the following is to take wind for her life, on account of
my not knowing if it might be agreeable, or how it might affect my good
captain, and others that shall be nameless. You must know then that when
we were at ----, where we were stationed six weeks and two days, waiting
for the winds, and one cause or other, we used to employ ourselves, I
and my captain, taking soundings (which I can't more particularly
explain the nature of to you, especially in a letter); for he always
took me out to attend him in preference to any other; and after he had
completed his soundings, and had no farther use for me in that job, I
asked him leave to go near the same place in the evening to fish, which
my good captain consented to (as he always does to what (duty done) can
gratify me), provided I was in my ship by ten. Now you must know that
there are convents in this country (which you have often heard of,
Kitty, no doubt), being damnable places, where young _Catholic_ women
are shut up unmarried, often, it is to be reasonably supposed, against
their wills. And there is a convent in one of the suburbs which has a
high back wall to the garden of it that comes down near the strand; and
it was under this wall we two used to sound, and that afterwards I used
to be fishing. And one evening, when I was not thinking of any such
thing, there comes over the wall a huge nosegay of flowers, with a stone