Three months later I was again censured, but this time because I had tried to assert my command. We were lying at the time in Kavarna Bay, and the ship’s crew had leave to go on shore by detachments. In the evening two boats were sent to bring them on board, a cutter for the officers, and a barge for the Bluejackets. A Lieutenant ordered me to take into the cutter some of the men. I paid for extra painting of the boat, and wanting to keep her neat and clean, begged that the men might go off in the barge, but was told peremptorily to obey orders. While we were pulling out to the ship, about two and a half miles off, some of the men became noisy, and the Lieutenant ordered me to keep them quiet. I replied to the effect it was useless to talk to drunken men, and when we got on board was reported for hesitating to obey orders. The Commander lectured me severely, predicting I should come to the gallows; nevertheless, I suppose he was generally satisfied with me, for a few days before we left the Bosphorus again, I got, at the age of sixteen, my first independent command. Some links in an adjunct to our chain cable, technically called a “Blake stopper,” had become strained, and I was ordered to take it to the Turkish dockyard at Constantinople, to have them put into a furnace and straightened. This involved absence from the ship for a couple of days, and with the difficulties of language required some tact, but was successfully carried out. I was possibly chosen for this outing because, before we left England, I had already had some practice in handling a boat, and in the winter of 1852–53 Captain Michell commended me warmly, for him a very unusual act. His daughter, who was staying with him on board the _Queen_, then lying just inside the breakwater which shelters Plymouth Sound, was expecting her son, eight years old, now a distinguished Judge, Sir George Farwell, for a visit. When I left the ship for Mount Wise there was a fresh westerly wind blowing, which before we started to return had increased considerably, and no shore boat ventured to put out to the Sound. We pulled the cutter out to Redding Point, under shelter of Mount Edgcumbe, and then, having close-reefed the sail, stood out till we were under lee of the ship, which was lying head to wind, and got the future Judge up the stern ladder in safety. Indeed, I became so fond of being away in boats, and thus escaping lessons under the Naval Instructor, that he felt bound, as I see by my letters, to get me relieved for a short time, to ensure my passing the two-yearly examination, which I did in due course two years after entering the Service, and thus was enabled to have my jacket adorned with the Midshipman’s white patch.