be ready at a moment’s notice. Accordingly, on the 19th, we were all drawn up in the hospital yard. Mr. Mahoney and myself stood next to the lieutenants; but, to our great surprise, on calling the names over, we were moved, and placed next to the people, together with the boatswain and gunner[1]. We demanded an explanation of this conduct: they informed us, we were of a class (master’s mates) different from any in their navy; that we were ranked as adjutants, sous officiers, and that they could not alter it. Lieutenant Pridham now interfered; who, it appeared, bad been acquainted that we should be thus ranked, but not being versed in military regulations, he supposed that an adjutant was between a midshipman and lieutenant, which he, of course, thought our proper place. After remonstrating a long time on the impropriety of our being placed in the ranks, among the people, the officer agreed to go to the Minister of Marine, to have the business, as he termed it, arranged. He shortly returned – the Minister of Marine was out, but his head clerk, or secretary, assured us that the mistake should be rectified the moment he returned, and that a courier would be despatched after us to the next stage, with another feuille de route: thus far reconciled, we commenced our march, and as they informed us, for Verdun in Lorraine. Our allowance was eleven sols per day, and the youngest midshipman had fifty.”
Instead of to Verdun, Messrs. Mahoney and O’Brien were conducted to Charlemont, the sailors’ dépôt, near 700 miles from Brest, where several of the stoutest, and, apparently, most healthy of the Hussar’s crew, died of a fever supposed to have been caught in some of the common jails on the road. Their route thither was through Morlaix, Guingamp, St. Brieux, Lamballe, Rennes, Vitre, Laval, Alençon (where they parted with the lieutenants and midshipmen, who were marched from thence, by the Paris route to Verdun), Rouen, Amiens, Cambray, Landrecy, Rocroy, and Fuimez, a village on the Meuse, from whence they proceeded to Givet, of which Charlemont is the citadel, on the 2Sth March 1804. The morning previous to their arrival at Rouen, they halted in a village on the banks of the Seine, to get some refreshment, but could only procure bread and eggs, served up with large pewter spoons. Mr. O’Brien observed to the commander of their guard, that a small spoon would be much more convenient; upon which he asked the old lady of the house a she had any. She replied in the affirmative, opened a large coffer, and took out six silver
- ↑ The carpenter (Mr. Thomas) was drowned in attempting to land in Berthaume bay.
