Often have I seen a set of geese-dancers compelled to make a hurried flight before the hot poker of some irate housekeeper disturbed in her culinary operations, and much in the same way did we four aspirants for naval honours beat a precipitate retreat from the deck of the Torbay as, with a stamp of his foot, our future captain ordered us to be gone and instantly to get cut down and reduced into ordinary proportions by the Plymouth tailors. As may be supposed, the operation was almost beyond the skill of even the most experienced master of the shears, and we were all of us compelled, much to our dismay, to furnish ourselves for the most part with new suits. On our return on board, however, we were complimented on our appearance; and as our tailor agreed to receive payment from our first instalment of prize-money, we were perfectly content with the arrangement. After spending a few months in channel cruising--the Torbay being ordered to lay as guard-ship at Plymouth--such a life not suiting my fancy, I quitted her and joined his Majesty's sloop of war Falcon, captain Cuthbert Baines, fitting out for the West India station. As in those days I kept no regular journal, I have only a few scattered notes written in an old log-book to guide me in my account of the events of that period of my career. A few are still vivid in my memory as when they first occurred, but many have escaped me altogether, or appear like the fleeting phantoms of a dream of which it is impossible to describe the details. I must therefore be allowed to pass rapidly over that early portion of my naval life and go on to the time when I had passed my examination for a lieutenant's commission and trod the quarter-deck as a master's mate. On the Falcon's leaving Portsmouth we touched at Falmouth or our way down channel, when I had the opportunity of taking leave of my family-- with some of them, alas! it was an eternal farewell. This is one of the seaman's severest trials; he knows from sad experience that of the many smiling faces he sees collected round the domestic hearth some will too surely be missing on his return, wanderers, like himself, far, far away, or gone to their final resting-place. We made a stay of a few days at Madeira, and without any occurrence worthy of note reached English Harbour, Antigua, October 21st, 1771, where we found lying several ships of war under the flag of Rear-Admiral Mann.