The Autobiography of George Harris

lose, daylight never entering there. Several convicts were there, who were chained down, but who would be made to serve as sailors when the ship was at sea. I slept in a hammock, and had the usual trick played me of letting it down one night after I had got into it. We had to rise at four o'clock every morning and to superintend the washing of the decks, without shoes or stockings, which I found very trying after coming out of the close atmosphere of the cockpit. In the daytime, I climbed the masts a good deal, and reached the topmast, but only by going through the " lubbers' hole." From some cause or other, the sailing of the Spartiate was delayed day after day; and we remained stationary at Spithead, only swinging round with the tide, for about a fortnight. This waiting I found excessively irksome and monotonous ; and the bustle of the ship, the smell of paint, and'the badness of the water, which was then in its worst condition, from its having just been put into rusty iron casks and not having had time to purify itself, brought on a fit of illness and melancholy. I used often to get into a corner by myself, and felt very low, and on one occasion overheard the sailors say one to another that that young gentleman was quite unfit for the service. I also caught a violent cold, which brought on a fit of croup, attended with an extraordinary rattling in my throat, which was much noticed and laughed at by some of the midshipmen. Captain Falcon came on board the Sparti...