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286 when I left England but when I came there I found the place shut up. Having been absent so many years, and having, in all that time, never a word from home, I knew not who was dead or who was living or where to go next, or even how to pay the coachman. I recollected a linen-draper's shop, not far from thence, at which our family used to deal. I therefore drove thither and, making myself known, they paid the coachman. I then inquired after our family and was told that my sister had married Lord Carlisle and was at that time in Soho Square. I immediately walked to the house and knocked at the door. But the porter, not liking my figure which was half French and half Spanish, with the addition of a large pair of boots covered with dirt, was going to shut the door in my face but I prevailed upon him to let me in.

I need not acquaint the reader with what surprise and joy my sister received me. She immediately furnished me with money to appear like the rest of my countrymen. Till that time I could not properly be said to have finished all the extraordinary scenes in which I had been involved by a series of adventures, for the space of five years and upwards.

The Honorable John Byron became a British vice-admiral and was also the grandfather of the poet, who transmuted some of the exploits of the midshipman of the Wager into the pages of Don Juan. As one of the most famous fighting sailors of his era, Admiral Byron earned the nickname of "Foul Weather Jack," because he contended so constantly with gales and head winds, and it is to