On our return into port, I requested permission to go to England in order to pass my examination as lieutenant, having nearly completed my servitude as a midshipman. I was asked to remain out, and take my chance for promotion in the flag-ship; but more reasons than I chose to give induced me to prefer an examination at a sea-port in England, and I obtained my discharge and came home. The reader will no doubt give me credit for having written some dozen of letters to Eugenia: youth, beauty, and transient possession had still preserved my attachment to her unabated. Emily I had heard of, and still loved with a purer flame. She was my sun; Eugenia my moon; and the fair favourites of the western hemisphere, so many twinkling stars of the first, second, and third magnitude. I loved them all more or less; but all, their charms vanished, when the beauteous Emily shone in my breast with refulgent light. I had received letters from my father, who wished me to come home, that he might present me to some of the great men of the nation, and secure my promotion to the highest ranks of the service. This advice was good, and, as it suited my views, I followed it. I parted with my captain on the best terms, took leave of all my mess-mates and the officers in the same friendly manner; and last, not least, went round to the ladies, kissing, hugging, crying, and swearing love and eternal attachment. Nothing I declared, should keep me from Halifax, as soon as I had passed; nothing prevent my marrying one, as soon as I was a lieutenant; a second was to have the connubial knot tied when I was a commander; and a third, as soon as I was made a captain. Oh, how like was I to Don Galaor! Oh, how unlike the constant Amadis de Gaul! But, reader, you must take me as I was, not as I ought to have been. After a passage of six weeks, I arrived at Plymouth, and had exactly completed my six years' servitude. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Examine him closely, goodman Dry; spare him not. Ask him impossible questions. Let us thwart him, let us thwart him. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Soon after my arrival at Plymouth, notice was given by a general order, issued from the flag-ship, that a passing day for the examination of midshipmen, as touching their qualifications for the rank of lieutenant, would be held on board the _Salvador del Mundo_, in Hamoaze. I lost no time in acquainting my father with this, and telling him that I felt quite prepared, and meant to offer myself. Accordingly, on the day appointed, your humble servant, with some fourteen or fifteen other youthful aspirants, assembled on board the flag-ship. Each was dressed out in his Number One suit, in most exact and unquizzable uniform, with a large bundle of log-books under our arms. We were all huddled together in a small screened canvas cabin, like so many sheep ready for slaughter.