During the passage of the Royal Sovereign bringing home 400 prisoners, she was caught in a heavy gale near the Grand Banks, but Captain Spence, her commander, was a good seaman, and made a safe arrival at Boston. CHAPTER XXIV. During my youth the house now occupied by Miss Perkins, the daughter of the late John Perkins, was owned and occupied by George Drew, who has already been noticed. He built the hotel which stood on the corner of Middle street, and besides conducting a stable on that street, was largely engaged in the management of the Boston line of stages. Among other children he had a son, John Glover Drew, who was one of my playmates and schoolmates. John Glover was afflicted at times with a singular infirmity which like paralysis of the vocal organs would for the space of fifteen minutes disable him from uttering a word. I remember once his receiving a flogging for not answering a question put to him by the teacher the first time an attack occurred in school. I had a classmate at Harvard who for a time was affected in the same way, but in both cases the infirmity finally disappeared. George Drew had a brother, Thomas, known as Dr. Drew, though I never knew of his practicing medicine, who for many years rendered important service in the educational field in Plymouth. Besides teaching a private school, he was in conjunction with Benjamin Drew, a teacher in the school in town square, and, when what was called the town school was established in 1827, and a school house built in that year for its accommodation in School street, opposite the rear land of the Davis building lot, he was selected as its teacher. He was also town clerk from 1818 to 1840, succeeding Deacon Ephraim Spooner in that office. He had a son, Thomas, three years older than myself, one of the old boys in the High school when I entered it in 1832. Tom was a bright fellow, and for many years performed valuable service as a journalist in the offices of the Worcester _Spy_ and the Boston _Herald_. While William H. Lord was the teacher of the High school, a gentleman, by the way, very popular with the boys, and one who always enjoyed a joke, it was the custom at the opening of the school in the morning for the scholars to rise in turn and repeat a verse of scripture. On the morning after it became known that the teacher was engaged to Miss Persis Kendall, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Kendall, Tom rose in his place and said, “Salute Persis, the beloved of the Lord.”