The _St. George_ was commissioned at Portsmouth, and was transferred to Devonport early in 1861. She was then one of the noblest and most imposing-looking ships of the service, having the year before been thoroughly overhauled and converted from a one hundred and twenty gun ship to one of ninety guns. As a three-decker sailing ship she was considered one of the finest fighting vessels afloat, and her conversion to a steamship of the line had been attended with the most successful results. She was selected by Prince Albert for his son, the youthful Prince Alfred, who joined her as a midshipman a few months after Wauchope--on the 16th January 1861--as she lay in Plymouth Sound, under orders for a cruise to the British North American Stations and the West India Islands. The greater part of the year seems to have been spent in and about Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, which became a centre for cruises in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Canadian ports. We have it on the authority of several of those who were midshipmen with the Prince, that they were a jovial, happy company, all on the most friendly {33} terms with one another. The Prince, who was very fond of 'Andy,' as he was always called, showed him particular friendship, and the affection which as boys and shipmates they formed then continued more or less in later years. The Prince came back to England in the month of August to spend a short holiday with his parents at Balmoral, but rejoined his ship, which was lying at Halifax, in October. His return was welcomed by his mates and by the citizens of that town; and the Governor, the Earl of Mulgrave, entertained His Royal Highness and the officers of the _St. George_ at a state dinner on the eve of their departure for a cruise to Bermuda. Among the sunny islands of the South the ship and her crew were everywhere received with the utmost enthusiasm, the black and white population alike vying with each other in their demonstrations of loyalty; but the sudden death of the Prince Consort at the end of December compelled the return home for a time of Prince Alfred, who left his ship at Halifax on receipt of the sad news, with every expression of sympathy from his brother officers. In the spring of 1862 Wauchope's ship paid another visit to the West India Islands, taking up her station for some weeks with other six ships of the line at Bermuda, where the young 'middies' were entertained to a continued round of amusements and excursions.