By the time I was twenty-four, I had been nine years at sea, and, at the end of the war, was third lieutenant of a crack twenty-eight, the saucy Iris--as perfect a sloop-model, though over-sparred certainly, as ever was cased off the ways at Chatham, or careened to a north-easter. The Admiralty had learnt to build by that day, and a glorious ship she was, _made_ for going after the small fry of privateers, pirates, and slavers, that swarmed about the time. Though I had roughed it in all sorts of craft, from a first-rate to a dirty French lugger prize, and had been eastward, so as to see the sea in its pride at the Pacific, yet the feeling you have depends on the kind of ship you are in. I never knew so well what it was to be fond of a ship and the sea; and when I heard of the poor Iris, that had never been used to anything but blue water on three parts of the horizon at least, laying her bones not long after near Wicklow Head, I couldn't help a gulp in the throat. I once dreamt I had gone down in her, and risen again to the surface with the _loss of something_ in my brain; while, at the same moment, there I was, still sitting below on a locker in the wardroom, with the arms of her beautiful figure-head round me, and her mermaid's tail like the best-bower cable, with an anchor at the end of it far away out of soundings, over which I bobbed and dipped for years and years, in all weathers, like a buoy. We had no Mediterranean time of it, though, in the Iris, off the Guinea coast, from Cape Palmas to Cape Negro: looking out to windward for white squalls, and to leeward for black ones, and inshore for Spanish cattle-dealers, as we called them, had made us all as sharp as so many marlin-spikes; and our captain was a man that taught us seamanship, with a trick or two beyond. The slavers had not got to be so clever then, either, with their schooners and clippers; they built for stowage, and took the chance, so that we sent in _bale_ after bale to the West India Admiral, made money, and enjoyed ourselves now and then at the Cape de Verds. However, this kind of thing was so popular at home, as pickings after the great haul was over, that the Iris had to give up her station to a post-frigate, and be paid off. The war was over, and nobody could expect to be promoted without a friend near the blue table-cloth, although a quiet hint to a secretary's palm would work wonders, if strong enough. But most of such lucky fellows as ourselves dissipated their funds in blazing away at balls and parties, where the gold band was everything, and the ladies wore blue ribbons and anchor brooches in honour of the navy. The men spent everything in a fortnight, even to their clothes, and had little more chance of eating the king's biscuit with hopes of prize-money; I used to see knots of them, in red shirts and dirty slops, amongst the fore-mast Jacks in outwardbound ships, dropping past Greenwich, and waving their hats to the Hospital.