When scarcely ten years old, I joined H.M. ship _Renown_ (74) in Torbay, bearing the flag (blue at the mizen) of one of the most amiable men in the service, Sir John Borlase Warren, Bt, K.B., who had commanded a squadron of dashing frigates during all the early part of the war, and had taken and destroyed several French ships, and finished his glorious flying squad career by capturing most of those, which, under the command of Monsieur Bompart, had been sent with troops to assist the Irish during the rebellion of 1798, thereby saving the blood of thousands in Ireland, if not Ireland itself. A better or braver officer than the late Admiral Sir J. B. Warren never lived; he was that perfect model of a gentleman that every one might take as a pattern. I had the melancholy honour of following him to his grave, and wept over it tears of unfeigned sorrow. But to commence my peregrinations. I still recollect the delight that a letter from my father gave me when at school, informing me I was to leave Latin and Greek, which classical knowledge was all blown overboard and forgotten the first gale of wind at sea; and after spending a short time at Little Missenden Abbey (which then belonged to my father) with my mother and two sisters,[B] I proceeded to Portsmouth, thence to find a passage to join the before-mentioned ship in Torbay. I bore the parting with my kind, dear, excellent mother and sisters pretty well, because my father accompanied me to Portsmouth to see me safely launched into a new world; but when he took leave, I thought my heart would burst with grief. Time, however, reconciles us to everything, and the gaiety and thoughtlessness of youth, added to the cocked hat, dirk, spy-glass, etc., of a nautical fit out, assisted wonderfully to dry my tears, and, in a manner, reconciled me to a new scene of life. Captain Pickmore, who at that period commanded the _Royal William_, at Spithead, very kindly sent me on board the _Montague_ (74) with all my baggage, in the admiral’s tender, to join my ship to the westward. The first night on board was not the most pleasant; the noises unusual to a novice--sleeping in a hammock for the first time--its tarry smell--the wet cables for a bed carpet, and a somersault or two from my lubberly manner of getting into it, made me draw comparisons between sleeping on beds of down ashore, and my new abode, by no means very favourable to the latter. The second day after quitting Portsmouth brought us to Torbay, where the channel fleet of thirty-six sail of the line, under Lord Bridport, was lying at anchor. I was soon transferred to my own ship, and introduced to my new messmates.