ten o'clock
Portsmouth had become very dull , I was told , since the war was over , and we certainly at times found a difficulty in knowing how to pass our time . Our captain occasionally posted up to London , but , having no business there , received a hint from the Admiralty that he must remain on board his ship , and therefore had to post down again as fast as he could . He consoled himself by spending nearly all the day on shore , generally at the houses of people in the neighbourhood . He had one evening gone to dine at a house situated some way in the country , on the Gosport side , and he had ordered his boat to be waiting for him at the nearest landing-place to it , punctually at ten o'clock . As he had a picked crew , not likely to desert , no midshipman went in the boat . As it happened , the doctor , the second lieutenant , and the lieutenant of marines had been invited to spend the evening close to Gosport , and I was ordered to go and bring them off at half-past ten , not far from the place where the captain had intended to embark . When I got in I found his boat still there .