Our first lieutenant had an inveterate hatred to the Barfleur (the flagship) for the following reason. The signal was made for all midshipmen, and I had just returned in the long boat from Spithead, where we had been fishing, and was then going to relieve the deck, it being my watch, when Lieutenant Yetts ordered me to answer the signal. On my asking him leave to go below and get ready, as I was certain they would turn me back if I went in the dress I had on, ‘Mr. Gardner, will you dictate to me?’ was his reply; ‘Go as you are, sir.’ When I got on board the Barfleur, Lieutenant Ross (who I knew very well) was commanding officer. The moment he saw me he came up, and with eyes of a dog fish, asked who I was and where I came from. I could hardly help laughing at the question. However, I explained to him the reason, but all to no purpose, as he sent me into my boat saying, ‘Tell your officer that I made the signal for a midshipman, and not for a fisherman, and he ought to have known better from the length of time he had been in the service.’ On my delivering this insolent message to Lieutenant Yetts, it put him in a great rage and he swore, damn his brains, but he’d remember Master Ross for his kindness, the first opportunity. This Ross was a satirist, or would be thought so, because he wrote some poem in doggerel rhymes of scurrilous merit, abusing some of the officers of the guard-ships and many of the respectable people of Gosport. He also wrote a play which was damned and hissed off the stage, and some other pieces of the same description. Soon after this it came to our turn to have the guard, and late in the first watch, Lieutenant Yetts sent for me and gave orders that I should go in the cutter and row guard, and if possible get alongside the Barfleur. Away I went round the guard-ships, and left the Barfleur for the last. On rowing ahead I let the boat drop down with the tide and actually got alongside her accommodation ladder without being hailed. It is the duty of a lieutenant to row guard, so I did not think myself justified in boarding her, which I could have done; but remained some time alongside. At last one of the midshipmen (Mr. Holmes) hailed from the gangway, ‘What boat is that?’ upon which I called out as loud as I could hollo, ‘Guard boat!’ and that I had been alongside a considerable time without being hailed—to his great astonishment, as he informed me afterwards. On my telling this to Mr. Yetts, he rubbed his hands and swore that everyone should know how the damned brutes were caught napping.