popular characters in the ship, who are likely to be very roughly used on that day.
The midshipmen are going to get up a play too, which is a good amusement, as it gives them something new to talk about. Wright and Jones are very busy making dresses for Mrs. Sneak and Mrs. Bruin. Neptune and Amphitrite have begged a great many of our things, and have riven the ribbons off half my caps and bonnets.
I hope you have read Sir James Mackintosh—just the book you will like. I have seldom been more interested. Such extracts! and do you observe what good quotations there are from Bacon? I think we don’t study Bacon half enough.
I forget what happened to the weather—the weeks are so long I cannot remember a whole one; but I know there are five days that the ship pitched so much I could neither eat, nor speak, nor stir. It is so tiresome of me, and nobody else is the least ill, and I thought I had got over it too. However, we are now in the ‘south-east trade’ (such humbugs!); but,