Accordingly in the evening we repaired to the pier and embarked at two P.M. My fellow-passengers were--Lord Charles Fitzroy; another officer, his friend; and a very pretty Frenchwoman. We had hardly made any offing, when the breeze falling, left us at the mercy of a long swell--the surface as smooth as a mirror. The rolling was terrible, and the poor Frenchwoman, dreadfully sick, cursing the ship, cursing England, and cursing herself for venturing on the sea. Early[27] the following morning we reached Dover, where, to the unspeakable horror of our poor friend, she was informed that she could not leave the vessel until her passport had been sent to London to be verified. O England! what naughty things did not she say of you then! A coach, starting within an hour after our landing, was very convenient, and in company of an officer of the 13th Light Dragoons, I took my seat for London, and here I am. CHAPTER XXIV. Two months I rusticated in Berkshire, and then, my leave of absence having nearly expired, set off in the beginning of November, taking with me my wife, whose determination not to be again separated, united to an eager curiosity to see Paris, overcame all the difficulties I threw in the way of such a winter campaign, and rendered her deaf to all my representations of hardships and privations which she would inevitably have to bear and put up with. My journal of this second residence was hurried, meagre, and very irregularly kept. She kept likewise a few memoranda, so that from the two, and what memory and collating will supply, I am enabled to complete this journal to the return of my troop to Canterbury in February 1816.