I returned on board about eight o’clock, where Murphy had gone before me, and prepared a reception far from agreeable.  Instead of being welcomed to my berth, I was received with coldness, and I returned to the quarter-deck, where I walked till I was weary, and then leaned against a gun.  From this temporary alleviation, I was roused by a voice of thunder, “Lean off that gun.”  I started up, touched my hat, and continued my solitary walk, looking now and then at the second lieutenant, who had thus gruffly addressed me.  I felt a dejection of spirits, a sense of destitution and misery, which I cannot describe.  I had done no wrong, yet I was suffering as if I had committed a crime.  I had been aggrieved, and had vindicated myself as well as I could.  I thought I was among devils, and not men; my thoughts turned homeward.  I remembered my poor mother in her agony of grief, on the sofa; and my unfeeling heart then found that it needed the soothings of affection.  I could have wept, but I knew not where to go; for I could not be seen to cry on board of ship.  My pride began to be humbled.  I felt the misery of dependence, although not wanting pecuniary resources; and would have given up all my prospects to have been once more seated quietly at home.

The first lieutenant came on board soon after, and I heard him relating my adventure to the second lieutenant.  The tide now evidently turned in my favour.  I was invited down to the gun-room, and having given satisfactory answers to all the questions put to me, Flyblock was sent for, and I was once more placed under his protection.  The patronage of the first lieutenant, I flattered myself would have ensured me at least common civility for a short time.

I had now more leisure to contemplate my new residence and new associates, who, having returned from the duty of the dock-yard, were all assembled in the berth, seated round the table on the lockers, which paid “the double debt” of seats and receptacles; but in order to obtain a sitting, it was requisite either to climb over the backs of the company, or submit to “high pressure” from the last comer.  Such close contact, even with our best friends, is never desirable; but in warm weather, in a close, confined air, with a manifest scarcity of clean linen, it became particularly inconvenient.  The population here very far exceeded the limits usually allotted to human beings in any situation of life, except in a slave ship.  The midshipmen, of whom there were eight full-grown, and four youngsters, were without either jackets or waistcoats; some of them had their shirt-sleeves rolled up, either to prevent the reception or to conceal the absorption of dirt in the region of the wristbands.  The repast on the table consisted of a can or large black-jack of small beer, and a japan bread-basket full of sea-biscuit.  To compensate for this simple fare, and at the same time to cool the close atmosphere of the berth, the table was covered with a large green cloth with a