Many days elapsed before we reached Gibraltar:  the winds were light, and the weather fine; but as we had discovered that the fishing-boats had wine, we took care to supply our cellar without any trouble from the excise; and, from our equitable mode of barter, I had no reason to think that his Majesty King George lost any of his deserved popularity by our conduct.  When we reached Gibraltar, I had still a couple of good kegs wherewith to regale my messmates; though I was sorry to find the frigate and the rest of her prizes had got in before us.  Murphy, indeed, did not arrive till the day after me.

I was on the quarter-deck when he came in; and, to my astonishment, he reported that he had been chased by a French privateer, and had beat her off after a four hours’ action—­that his rigging had suffered a good deal, but that he had not a man hurt.  I let him run on till the evening.  Many believed him; but some doubted.  At dinner, in the gun-room, his arrogance knew no bounds; and, when half drunk, my three men were magnified into a well-manned brig, as full of men and guns as she could stuff!

Sick of all this nonsense, I then simply related the story as it had occurred, and sent for the quarter-master, who was with me, and who confirmed all my statement.  From that moment he was a mark of contempt in the ship.  Every lie was a Murphy, and every Murphy a liar.  He dared not resent this scorn of ours; and found himself so uncomfortable, that he offered no objection to the removal proposed by the captain; his character followed him, and he never obtained promotion.  It is a satisfaction to me to reflect that I not only had my full revenge on this man, but that I had been the instrument of turning him out of an honourable profession which he would have disgraced.

This was no time for frigates to be idle; and if I chose to give the name of mine and my captain, the naval history of the country would prove that ours, of all other ships, was one of the most distinguished in the cause of Spanish freedom.  The south of Spain became the theatre of the most cruel and desolating war.  Our station was off Barcelona, and thence to Perpignan, the frontier of France, on the borders of Spain.  Our duty (for which the enterprising disposition of our captain was admirably calculated) was to support the guerilla chiefs; to cut off the enemy’s convoys of provisions, either by sea or along the road which lay by the sea-shore; or to dislodge the enemy from any stronghold he might be in possession of.

I was absent from the ship on such services three and four weeks at a time, being attached to a division of small-arm men under the command of the third lieutenant.  We suffered very much from privations of all kinds.  We never took with us more than one week’s provision, and were frequently three weeks without receiving any supply.  In the article of dress, our “catalogue of negatives,” as a celebrated author says, “was very copious;” we had no shoes nor stockings—­no linen, and not all of us had hats—­a pocket-handkerchief was the common substitute for this article; we clambered over rocks, and wandered through the flinty or muddy ravines in company with our new allies, the hardy mountaineers.