To me the short time I spent on board of her is a dreadful dream. We were bound for the Mediterranean, to touch at Malta and Gibraltar, and then join the blockading squadron before Genoa. What might have been my fate, to what excess passionate indignation might have carried me, revolted as I was by tyranny and injustice, I know not, when an accident, happily for me, rescued me from all temptation. We lost our mizzen-mast, in a storm, in the Bay of Biscay, and a dreadful blow on the head, from the spanker-boom, felled me to the deck, with a fracture of the skull. From that moment I know of nothing till the time when I lay in my cot, beside a port-hole of the maindeck, gazing at the bright blue waters that flashed and rippled beside me, or straining my strength to rest on my elbow, when I caught sight of the glorious city of Genoa, with its grand mountain background, about three miles from where I lay. Whether from a due deference to the imposing strength of the vast fortress, or that the line of duty prescribed our action, I cannot say, but the British squadron almost exclusively confined its operations to the act of blockade. Extending far across the bay, the English ensign was seen floating from many a taper mast, while boats of every shape and size plied incessantly from ship to ship, their course marked out at night by the meteorlike light that glittered in them; not, indeed, that the eye often turned in that direction, all the absorbing interest of the scene lying inshore. Genoa was, at that time, surrounded by an immense Austrian force, under the command of General Melas, who, occupying all the valleys and deep passes of the Apennines, were imperceptible during the day; but no sooner had night closed in, than a tremendous cannonade began, the balls describing great semicircles in the air ere they fell to scatter death and ruin on the devoted city. The spectacle was grand beyond description, for while the distance at which we lay dulled and subdued the sound of the artillery to a hollow booming, like far-off thunder, the whole sky was streaked by the course of the shot, and, at intervals, lighted up by the splendour of a great fire, as the red shot fell into and ignited some large building or other. As, night after night, the cannonade increased in power and intensity, and the terrible effects showed themselves in flames which burst out from different quarters of the city, I used to long for morning, to see if the tricolour still floated on the walls; and when my eye caught the well-known ensign, I could have wept with joy as I beheld it. High up, too, on the cliffs of the rugged Apennines, from many a craggy eminence, where perhaps a solitary gun was stationed, I could see the beloved flag of France, the emblem of liberty and glory!