I think it correct to include my first letter home to my mother and sisters. On the H.M.S Resource, off the West Indies, Dear Mother, Marie and Polly, Here I am, travelling across the biggest sea! The weather is as hot as can be imagined, which would be nice were it not for the diseases. Our ship is still unscathed, but the Fifth-rate Ceres has lost nearly all her men to the fever. The other midshipmen are all gentlemen-like fellows, especially one of the Kings boys, Jackson. There is one though, a man older than the others, by the name of Simpson. He is a terrible bully and drunkard. But generally leaves us alone. Other than that I hope you are all well, and I pray for your health each night. Your devoted son and Brother, William.

Simpson was a man I found my later companions had come across too. He was removed by a Captain, who had perhaps a good reason to kill the scoundrel. Whatever the reason was, he justified it well. Finally, the inevitable happened and several in the midshipmen's berth succumbed to the Yellow Jack, reducing my gung-ho companions to corpses and shadows of their former selves. It was agonising to watch Jackson slowly fading in the filthy fever- wing of the Jamaican Hospital, but I was told by the Captain, before he himself died of it, That in the navy there are deaths and hangings aplenty, and to be a good boy, pray and do as I'm bade. At that time I thought he was a singularly odd fellow for telling me that but as time wore on and the ships complement slowly decreased, the new captain, Jameson, told us we were to go to England with the dispatches. On the way there, half-way through the trip, we saw action with a French frigate, which we took as a prize and during the battle we lost several of the Lieutenants, and what with the prize-crew, I found myself virtually alone in the midshipmen's berth, With the company of Jack Simpson, who was bitter enough to drink not only his spirit ration the whole way back but mine as well, which did not vex me too greatly.