This was a very different scene from what I had expected.  I was prepared for a sentimental and affecting meeting; and my feelings were all worked up to their full bearing for the occasion.  Judge, then, of the sudden revulsion in my mind, when I found mirth and good humour where I expected tears and lamentations.  It had escaped my recollection, that although the death of my mother was an event new to me, it had happened six months before I had heard of it; and, consequently, with them grief had given way to time.  I was astonished at their apparent want of feeling; while they gazed with surprise at the sight of me, and the symbols of woe displayed in my equipment.

My father welcomed me with surprise; asked where my ship was, and what had brought her home.  The fact was, that in my sudden determination to return to England, I had spared myself the trouble of writing to make known my intentions; and, indeed, if I had written, I should have arrived as soon as my letter, unless (which I ought to have done) I had written on my arrival at Portsmouth, instead of throwing away my time in the very worst species of dissipation.  Unable, therefore, in the presence of many witnesses, to give my father that explanation which he had a right to expect, I suffered greatly for a time in his opinion.  He very naturally supposed that some disgraceful conduct on my part was the cause of my sudden return.  His brow became clouded and his mind seemed occupied with deep reflection.

This behaviour of my father, together with the continued noisy mirth of my brother and sisters, gave me considerable pain.  I felt as if, in the sad news of my mother’s death, I had over-acted my part in the feeling I had shown, and the sacrifice I had made in quitting my ship.  On explaining to my father, in private, the motives of my conduct, I was not successful.  He could not believe that my mother’s death was the sole cause of my return to England.  I stood many firm and angry interrogations as to the possible good which could accrue to me by quitting my ship.  I showed him the captain’s handsome certificate, which only mortified him the more.  In vain did I plead my excess of feeling.  He replied with an argument that I feel to have been unanswerable—­that I had quitted my ship when on the very pinnacle of favour, and in the road to fortune.  “And what,” said he, “is to become of the navy and the country, if every officer is to return home when he receives the news of the death of a relation?”

In proportion as my father’s arguments carried conviction, they did away, at the same time, all the good impressions of my mother’s dying injunction.  If her death was a matter of so little importance, her last words were equally so; and from that moment I ceased to think of either.  My father’s treatment of me was now very different from what it had ever been during my mother’s lifetime.  My requests were harshly refused, and I was lectured more as a child than as a lad of eighteen, who had seen much of the world.