clippers: they built for stowage, and took the chance, so that we sent in _bale_ after bale to the West India admiral, made money, and enjoyed ourselves now and then at the Cape de Verdes. However, this kind of thing was so popular at home, as pickings after the great haul was over, that the _Iris_ had to give up her station to a post-frigate, and be paid-off. The war was over, and nobody could expect to be promoted without a friend near the blue table-cloth, although a quiet hint to a secretary's palm would work wonders, if strong enough. But most of such lucky fellows as ourselves dissipated their funds in blazing away at balls and parties, where the gold band was everything, and the ladies wore blue ribbons and anchor brooches in honour of the navy. The men spent everything in a fortnight, even to their clothes, and had little further chance of eating the king's biscuit with hopes of prize-money; I used to see knots of them, in red shirts and dirty slops, amongst the foremast Jacks in outward-bound ships, dropping past Greenwich, and waving their hats to the Hospital. You knew them at once by one of them giving the song for the topsail-halliards, instead of the merchantmen's bull's chorus; indeed, I could always pick off the dashing men-o'-war's-men, by face and eye alone, out from among the others, who looked as sober and solitary, with their serious faces and way of going about a thing, as if everyone of them was the whole crew. I once read a bit of poetry called the 'Ancient Mariner,' to old Jacobs, who by-the-by is something of a breed betwixt the two kinds, and his remark was: 'That old chap warn't used to hoisting altogether with a run, your honour! By his looks I'd say he was bred where there was few in a watch, and the watch-tackle laid out pretty often for an eke to drag down the fore-tack.' "As I was riding down to Croydon in Surrey, where my mother and sister had gone to live, I fell in with a sample of the hard shifts the men-o'-war's-men were put to in getting across from harbour to some merchant port, when all their money was chucked away. It was at a little town called Bromley, where I brought to by the door of a tavern and had a pail for the horse, with a bottle of cider for myself at the open window, the afternoon being hot. There was a crowd of townspeople at the other end of the street, country bumpkins and boys--women looking out at the windows, dogs barking, and children shouting--the whole concern bearing down upon us. "'What's all this?' said I to the ostler. "'Don't know, sir,' said he, scratching his head; ''tis very hodd, sir! That corner _is_ rather a sharp turn for the coach, sir, and she do sometimes run over a child there, or somethink. But 'tain't her time yet! Nothink else hever 'appens 'ere, sir.'