I found the gun-boat service very hard.  We were stationed off Batz, and obliged to be constantly on the alert; but when Flushing surrendered we had more leisure, and we employed it in procuring some articles for our table, to which we had been too long strangers.  Our money had been expended in the purchase of champagne and claret, in which articles we were no economists, consequently few florins could be spared for the purchase of poultry and butcher meat; but then these articles were to be procured, by the same means which had given us the island of Walcheren, namely powder and shot.  The country people were very churlish, and not at all inclined to barter; and as we had nothing to give in exchange, we avoided useless discussion.  Turkeys, by us short-sighted mortals, were often mistaken for pheasants; cocks and hens, for partridges; tame ducks and geese for wild; in short, such was our hurry and confusion—­leaping ditches, climbing dykes, and fording swamps—­that Buffon himself would never have known the difference between a goose and a peacock.  Our game-bags were as capacious as our consciences, and our aim as good as our appetites.

The peasants shut all their poultry up in their barns, and very liberally bestowed all their curses upon us.  Thus all our supplies were cut off, and foraging became at least a source of difficulty, if not of danger.  I went on shore with our party, put a bullet into my fowling-piece, and, as I thought, shot a deer; but on more minute inspection, it proved to be a four months’ calf.  This was an accident that might have happened to any man.  The carcass was too heavy to carry home, so we cut it in halves, not fore and aft down the backbone, as your stupid butchers do, but made a short cut across the loins, a far more compendious and portable method than the other.  We marched off with the hind legs, loins, and kidney, having first of all buried the head and shoulders in the field, determined to call and take it away the following night.

We were partly seen, and severely scrutinized in our action by a neighbouring gun-boat, whose crew were no doubt as hungry as ourselves; they got hold of one of our men, who, like a fool, let the cat out of the bag, when a pint of grog got into it.  The fellow hinted where the other half lay, and these unprincipled rascals went after it, fully resolved to appropriate it to themselves; but they were outwitted, as they deserved to be for their roguery.  The farmer to whom the calf belonged had got a hint of what was done, and finding that we had buried one half of the calf, procured a party of soldiers ready to take possession of us when we should come to fetch it away; accordingly, the party who went from the other gun-boat after dark, having found out the spot, were very busy disinterring their prey, when they were surprised, taken prisoners, and marched away to the British camp, leaving the dead body behind.