“The dreaded major-domo turned out to be a smart young sailor of four or five-and-twenty, with an arch smile, a bright, merry eye and a most knowing nod, by no means insensible to female objurgation or indifferent to female charms. The women of the house, particularly the pretty ones, soon perceived their power, and as the Admirable Crichton of His Majesty’s ship the _Mermaiden_ had amongst his other accomplishments the address completely to govern his master, all was soon in the smoothest track possible.... Under his wise direction and discreet patronage a peace was patched up between the Admiral and his rebellious handmaids. “Soothed, guided and humoured by his trusty adherent, and influenced perhaps by the force of example and the effect of the land breeze which he had never breathed so long before, our worthy veteran soon began to show symptoms of a man of this world. He took to gardening and farming, for which Bill Jones had also a taste, set free his prisoners in the _basse-cour_ to the unutterable glorification and crowing of cock and hen and gabbling of goose and turkey, and enlarged his own walk from pacing backwards and forwards in the dining-room, followed by his old shipmates, a Newfoundland dog and a tame goat, into a stroll round his own grounds, to the great delight of those faithful attendants. “... Amongst the country people he soon became popular. They liked the testy little gentleman, who dispensed his beer and grog so bountifully, and talked to them so freely. He would have his own way to be sure, but then he paid for it; besides, he entered into their tastes and amusements, promoted May-games, revels and other country sports, patronized dancing dogs and monkeys and bespoke plays in barns. Above all he had an exceeding partiality for vagrants, strollers, gipsies and such like persons, listened to their tales with a delightful simplicity of belief, pitied them, relieved them, fought their battles at the bench and the vestry, and got into two or three scrapes with constables and magistrates by the activity of his protection. “Only one counterfeit sailor with a sham wooden leg he found out at a question and, by aid of Bill Jones, ducked in the horse-pond for an impostor, till the unlucky wretch, a thorough landlubber, was nearly drowned, an adventure which turned out the luckiest of his life, he having carried his case to an attorney, who forced the Admiral to pay fifty pounds for the exploit.