We expect to sail in about three weeks. A
London life and little exercise disagrees entirely with me, but the sea
still more. If I have health and constitution enough for the campaign, I
shall think myself a lucky man; what happens afterwards is of no great
consequence." He sent to his mother an affectionate letter of farewell,
went to Spithead, embarked with Admiral Saunders in the ship "Neptune,"
and set sail on the seventeenth of February. In a few hours the whole
squadron was at sea, the transports, the frigates, and the great
line-of-battle ships, with their ponderous armament and their freight of
rude humanity armed and trained for destruction; while on the heaving
deck of the "Neptune," wretched with sea-sickness and racked with pain,
stood the gallant invalid who was master of it all.
The fleet consisted of twenty-two ships of the line, with frigates,
sloops-of-war, and a great number of transports. When Admiral Saunders
arrived with his squadron off Louisbourg, he found the entrance blocked
by ice, and was forced to seek harborage at Halifax. The squadron of
Admiral Holmes, which had sailed a few days earlier, proceeded to New
York to take on board troops destined for the expedition, while the
squadron of Admiral Durell steered for the St. Lawrence to intercept the
expected ships from France. In May the whole fleet, except the ten ships
with Durell, was united in the harbor of Louisbourg.
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