'17th.--Here we are still in the same place off Celebrina detained by calms and light breezes, just now a breeze has sprung up which is likely to last. Last night we all went overboard and had a delightful bath.
'29th.--We have just arrived at Genoa after a tedious and unpleasant voyage, the last six days squalls and heavy gales of wind and lightning. Genoa is a most beautiful city, and situated most delightfully. Last night I was at the Opera, and it is exactly the same as our own in England, it is much larger and a most magnificent theatre. The houses are mostly of marble and beautifully ornamented, they are immensely high but the streets very narrow. There are no ships here and we sail for Marseilles as soon as we have watered. Pray give my best love to Lady C. and all hands on board.'
It is of interest to note the mention in this letter of Charles Yorke's first visit to Genoa, and the impression that beautiful city, 'Genova la superba,' made upon his youthful imagination. As will appear further on in this memoir, he visited it again some thirty-five years later in very different circumstances, and that Genoa exists to-day, with much of its beauty unimpaired, is mainly owing to the part played by Charles Yorke when, as Lord Hardwicke, he again appeared in a British man-of-war off that port.
The boy's wish to stay on the _Sparrowhawk_ expressed in this letter to his father was not fulfilled, for a month after his arrival in the Mediterranean he was transferred to the _Leviathan_, of 74 guns, commanded successively by Captains F. W. Burgoyne and Thomas Briggs. In her he remained a little less than a year, during which he had a serious attack of scarlet fever followed by rheumatism, which left him very weak, and raised a question as to whether he should be invalided home. He was, however, exceedingly popular with his superiors, who were most kind and attentive to him through his illness, and he was lucky enough to recover without having to return to England. In August of 1816 he was again transferred, to the _Queen Charlotte_, Captain Brisbane, a ship of the line of 120 guns, and the flagship of Admiral Lord Exmouth, commanding in the Mediterranean.
The young midshipman was most fortunate in being stationed under that command, for it was the one place in the world at that moment where there was any probability of seeing active service. The supremacy of the British navy which had been established over the fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar, and the recent peace which had followed the defeat and surrender of Buonaparte, had removed any possibility of collision with a European State. But, as a matter of fact, the naval Powers, England in particular, had long been waiting an opportunity to settle a long-standing account in the Mediterranean with a set of potentates established on the north coast of Africa, who had for years availed themselves of the dissensions between the Great Powers to carry on a system of piracy and rapine of the most insolent and atrocious character. During the naval wars which had lasted with short intervals for half a century, the fleets of England, France, Spain, and Holland had been so much occupied in fighting each other that they had been unable to bestow much attention on the doings of these petty rulers, who were known collectively as the Barbary States, individually as the Deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. All of these owned nominal allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey at Constantinople when it suited them, but in reality claimed and exercised complete independence when such was convenient to any purpose they had in hand.