Towards midnight some of the watchers began to get tired of looking out for the lights, and the more prudent went down below when the watch was called at eight bells; but many of them were far too much excited to go to sleep, so they kept on deck until the morning dawned, and the grey fog lifted and showed them the white cliffs. They believed that the hour of freedom was at hand; and although the "iron grasp" was light upon them, many of the lads determined never to let it close round them again. Unlike the marine, they were intelligent fellows, who having once felt what the tyranny of a man-of-war was like, knew too much to place themselves within its cruel power a second time; and although "continuous and general service men," many of them were, soon after the Stinger was paid off, ploughing the seas in merchant-ships bound for America or the colonies. It was this anticipation which excited them, and kept them on deck through that night. They remembered Clare's punishment, Dunstable's death, and the other atrocities which had been perpetrated on board by cruel men in command, and all their subsequent good treatment by Captain Woodward did not prevent them from thinking bitterly of their slavery, particularly as a tyrant had followed up his too brief term of strict but just command. The Stinger steamed up the Channel, and in due time arrived at Spithead, where she saluted the admiral's flag, and having discharged her powder, entered Portsmouth harbour, preparatory to being paid off, and by five o'clock on Saturday evening was made fast to the wharf, upon which swarmed a crowd of relations and friends, ready to fall upon the crew, and, if not prevented by the police, to carry them off piecemeal. Major Barron had landed when the ship was at Spithead, and upon the Stinger arriving alongside the wharf was waiting with a carriage ready to take his family to the George Hotel. Great was the sensation when the mob beheld a lady led on shore by Captain Tortle, followed by a French bonne carrying a pretty blue-eyed baby; but when Cops made her appearance in the arms of Mr. Thompson--and that charming young lady kissed her hand to the crowd--all the mothers present, and there were not a few, cried "Bless her little heart?" and the spinsters, and other females, looked at the innocent face, thought of their own childhood, and, bad as some of them were, said, "Pretty darling, aint she lovely?" the acting-boatswain by his looks almost resenting any encomiums passed by the latter speakers.