The Subaltern Officer Author:George Wood General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1825 Original Publisher: Septimus Prowett Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ca... more »n select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. See how the golden groves around me smile, That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle ; Or, when transplanted and preserved with care, Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air J Hero kindly warmth their mountain juice ferments To nobler tastes and more exalted scents : Ev'n the rough rocks with tender myrtles bloom, And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume. Addiuon. On our arrival at this, the strongest garrison in the world, we were not permitted to land our troops, the fortress being already too full, and provisions exceedingly scarce; we therefore remained on board about three weeks, waiting the arrival of the rest of the convoy from England. During this time it came on to blow from the Eastward, which is here termed a Levanter : blow, indeed, it did, if possible, more hard than in the Bay of Biscay, and the havoc caused to the ships then at anchor here baffled all description ; some cut their cables and tried to beat out to sea, many were jumbled together by means of their cables twisting, others had signals of distress flying, and minute-guns firing, but no one dared venture out totheir assistance in this tempestuous sea. Amidst this confusion, to increase the scene of horror, night approached, and a small vessel came floating along-side our transport without a soul on board, as we afterwards found. The sentry hailed, and receiving no answer, according to orders fired into it; this was followed by others doing the same, supposing it to have teen an enemy, sent among us from Algesiras by the Spaniards, who might have take...« less