The generality of our society on board was respectable, and some of its
members were men of education and talent. Excepting that there was no
lady of the party, it was composed of the usual materials to be found at
the cuddy-table of an outward bound Indiaman. First, there was a puisne
judge, intrenched in all the dignity of a dispenser of law to his
majesty's loving subjects beyond the Cape, with a _Don't tell me_ kind of
face, a magisterial air, and dictatorial manner, ever more ready to lay
down the law, than to lay down the lawyer. Then, there was a general
officer appointed to the staff in India, in consideration of his services
on Wimbledon Common and at the Horse Guards, proceeding to teach the art
military to the Indian army--a man of gentlemanly but rather pompous
manners; who, considering his simple nod equivalent to the bows of half a
dozen subordinates, could never swallow a glass of wine at dinner without
lumping at least that number of officers or civilians in the invitation
to join him, while his aid-de-camp practised the same airs among the
cadets. Then, there was a proportion of civilians and Indian officers
returning from furlough or sick certificate, with patched-up livers, and
lank countenances, from which two winters of their native climate had
extracted only just sufficient sunbeams to leave them of a dirty lemon
colour. Next, there were a few officers belonging to detachments of
king's troops proceeding to join their regiments in India, looking, of
course, with some degree of contempt on their brethren in arms, whose
rank was bounded by the longitude of the Cape; but condescending to
patronize some of the most gentlemanly of the cadets. These, with a free
mariner, and no inconsiderable sprinkling of writers, cadets, and
assistant-surgeons, together with the officers of the ship, who dined at
the captain's table, formed a party of about twenty-five.--_Twelve Years'
Military Adventure._
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