During our stay here a playhouse was likewise erected, and some of the more clever among the officers and men amused the troops in that way. The scenery was rather rude, to be sure; but with these and various other games and freaks the three months that we lay there passed off very pleasantly The poor blacks, however, suffered dreadfully from the cold, it being then winter, and they had to be sent back to their own country long before we left.
Our chief reason for lying there so long was to see all settled and to wait for orders before we proceeded back to England. When the order did come, joy was in every mouth, for this was indeed a short campaign compared with our Peninsular affairs, and it may be supposed we were by no means sorry for that. We embarked on board the same ships, and again tacked to the West Indies to get provisions at one of the Spanish islands, where we took on board live cattle and water, and as food for the former a kind of cabbage, which on account of their size were called cabbage-trees.
Thence we proceeded on our route to Portsmouth, and had a very pleasant voyage with fair weather prevailing; but when near England we fell in with an English frigate, which informed us that Napoleon Buonaparte had left the island of Elba with a small force and had landed in France to collect more troops. This was indeed a disappointment to me, for I felt sure that if he again intended disturbing Europe, we should have to be on the scene again. But in another way it caused no small amount of stir on board, for the young officers, who were looking ravenously forward to promotion, were so rejoiced at the news that they treated all the men to an extra glass of grog, to make everybody as lively as themselves.
Nothing else of any particular note occurred on our voyage, and having arrived near Portsmouth a signal was raised, and we fell in on the quarantine ground, hoisting a yellow flag for a doctor to inspect us on board. When he came he found all on board our ship to be in very good condition, which was reported to the general, and the very next morning he signalled to us to weigh anchor and proceed to Flanders; so without setting foot on English ground we again went on our way to meet our common enemy. This time, however, he was not in his old quarters, but in the north of France, where he had collected more than a hundred thousand troops.