Heligoland light-north and by west—so many leagues—wind baffling weather hazy—Lady Passengers on deck for the first time.

Arrived in the Downs—ordered by signal from the guard—ship to proceed to Portsmouth. Arrived at Spithead—ordered to fit to receive a general officer, and six pieces of field artillery, and a Spanish Ecclesiastic, the Canon of——. Plenty of great guns, at any rate—a regular park of artillery.

Received General —— and his wife, and aide-de-camp, and two poodle dogs, one white man-servant, one black ditto, and the Canon of ——, and the six nine-pound field-pieces, and sailed for the Cove of Cork.

It was blowing hard as we stood in for the Old Head of Kinsale pilot boat breasting the foaming surge like a sea gull—“Carrol Cove” in her tiny mainsail-pilot jumped into the main channel a bottle of rum swung by the lead line into the boat—all very clever.

Ran in, and anchored under Spike Island. A line-of-battle ship, three frigates, and a number of merchantmen at anchor-men of war lovely craft, bands playing—a good deal of the pomp and circumstance of war. Next forenoon, Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant, sent for me.

“Mr Cringle,” said he, “you have an uncle in Cork, I believe?”

I said I had.

“I am going there on duty to-night; I daresay, if you asked the Captain to let you accompany me, he would do so.” This was too good an offer not to be taken advantage of. I plucked up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and got it; and the evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a ride of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten men, who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed away, but I was not let farther into the secret; so I set out to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr and Mrs Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us about nine o’clock. He was heartily welcomed, and under the plea of our being obliged to return to the ship early next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the inn. As I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I could see it full of blowsy-faced monsters, glimmering and jabbering, through the mist of hot brandy grog and gin twist; with poodle Benjamins, and greatcoats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes, steaming on their pegs, with Barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of seal-skin, and blue cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same.

Nevertheless, such a society in my juvenile estimation, during my short escapade from the middy’s berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with a tolerable swagger, when Mr Treenail pinched my arm.

“Mr Cringle, come here, into my room.”

From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his room was at my elbow; but no such thing—we had to ascend a long, and not overclean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown into a miserable little double-bedded room. So soon as we had entered, the lieutenant shut the door.

“Tom,” said he, “I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore I applied for leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger, and, I will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either. You must enact the spy for a short space.”

I did not like the notion certainly, but I had little time for consideration.

“Here,” he continued—“here is a bundle.” He threw it on the floor. “You must rig in the clothes it, contains, and make your way into the celebrated crimp shop in the neighbourhood, and pick up all the information you can regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard to the ten seamen who have run from the West Indiaman we left below. You know the Admiral has forbidden pressing in Cork, so you must contrive to frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by representing yourself as an apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who had run from his indentures, and that you had narrowly escaped from a press-gang this very night here.”

I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops contained in the bundle; in a pair of shag trowsers, red flannel shirt, coarse blue cloth jacket, and no waistcoat.

“Now,” said Mr Treenail, “stick a quid of tobacco in your cheek, and take the cockade out of your hat; or stop, leave it, and ship this striped woollen night-cap—so—and come along with me.”

We left the house, and walked half a mile down the Quay.

Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog-shop—a bright lamp was flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of the glass of it being broken.

Before I entered, Mr Treenail took me to one side—“Tom, Tom Cringle, you must go into this crimp shop; pass yourself off for an apprentice of the Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we started, and pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best may.” I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my superior officer, so soon as I considered I had obtained my object. I rapped at the inner door, in which there was a small unglazed aperture cut, about four inches square; and I now, for the first time, perceived that a strong glare of light was cast into the lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a brilliant reflector, that like a magazine lantern had been mortised into the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to; I rapped again, and looking round I noticed Mr Treenail flitting backwards and forwards across the doorway, in the rain with his pale face and his sharp nose, with the sparkling drop at the end on’t, glancing in the light of the lamp. I heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket.

“Who are you saking here, an’ please ye?”

“No one in particular, my dear; but if you don’t let me in, I shall be lodged in jail before five minutes be over.”

“I can’t help that, young man,” said she; “but where are ye from, darling?”

“Hush!—I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove.”

“Oh,” said my beauty, “come in;” and she opened the door, but still kept it on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid in beneath it, yet a common-sized man could not possibly have squeezed himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to, and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room—but no tablecloth—at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky-faced savage, dressed in a shabby great-coat of the hodden grey worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and well-patched shoes; he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky steam that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather beaten men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half drunk. When I entered, I walked up to the landlord.

“Yo ho, my young un, whence and whither bound, my hearty?”

“The first don’t signify much to you,” said I, “seeing I have wherewithal in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so, old boy, let’s have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of them cowers that are lying alongside the quay?”

“My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has!” grumbled mine host.

“Why, my lad, we shall see to-morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about the rhino, that we must prove you a bit; so, Kate, my dear,”—to the pretty girl who had let me in—“score a pint of rum against—why, what is your name?”

“What’s that to you?” rejoined I, “let’s have the drink, and don’t doubt but the shiners shall be forthcoming.”

“Hurrah!” shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy. So the rum was produced forthwith, and as I lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle, I struck in, “Messmates, I hope you have all shipped?”

“No, we haven’t,” said some of them.

“Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy,” said others.

“Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and I recommend all of you making yourselves scarce to-night, and keeping a bright look-out.”

“Why, boy, why?”

“Simply because I have just escaped a press-gang, by bracing sharp up at the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark alley here.”

This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling of reckonings.

“Where,” said one of the seamen,—“where do you go to, my lad?”

“Why, if I can’t get shipped to-night, I shall trundles down to Cove immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, and take my chance of shipping with some of the outward-bound that are to sail, if the wind holds, the day after to-morrow. There is to be no pressing when blue Peter flies at the fore—and that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and the foretopsail will be loose to-morrow.”

“D—n my wig, but the small chap is right,” roared one.

“I’ve a bloody great mind to go down with him,” stuttered another, after several unavailing attempts to weigh from the bench, where he had brought himself to anchor.

“Hurrah!” yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with his maudling caresses, “I trundles wid you too, my darling, boy the piper!”

“Have with you, boy—have with him,” shouted half-a-dozen other voices, while each stuck his oaken twig through the handkerchief that held his bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap on the crown, on one side of his head, and staggering and swaying about under the influence of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent double, laughing like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks from his drunken half-shut eyes, while jets of tobacco juice were squirting in all directions.

I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and indicating Pat Doolan’s at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and promising to overtake them before they reached passage, I parted company at the corner of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.

Next morning we spent in looking about the town—Cork is a fine town, contains seventy thousand inhabitants, more or less-safe in that—and three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse grey greatcoats. The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the legs are short, and tails curly; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp and thin, and tails long and straight.

All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images; arrived at Cove to a large dinner and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the same kind.

By the time it was half-past ten o’clock, I was preparing to turn in, when the master at arms called down to me,—“Mr Cringle, you are wanted in the gunroom.”

I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, “There goes the little beagle.” When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog—the gunner taking the watch on deck the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish priest, and aide-de-camp to the general, were playing at chess, and wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar to those of the armed boat’s crew whom I had passed, and presently he stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol.

“Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with you.”

I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore, where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat-lengths, should any suspicious circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with orders to meet before Pat Doolan’s door, as speedily as our legs could carry us. We had landed about a cable’s length to the right of the high precipitous bank—up which we stole in straggling parties—on which that abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is situated, called the Holy Ground. Pat Doolan’s domicile was in a little dirty lane, about the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his stretcher in his hand. It was a very tempestuous, although moonlight night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and on the gem like water-drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof, and lighting up the dark statue like figures of the men, and casting their long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a black cloud as it flew across her disk, cast every thing into deep shade, while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the distant surf, rising and falling on the fitful gusts of the breeze. We tried the door. It was fast.

“Surround the house, men,” said the lieutenant, in a whisper. He rapped loudly. “Pat Doolan, my man, open the door, will ye?” No answer. “If you don’t, we shall make free to break it open, Patrick, dear.”

All this while the light of a fire, or of candles, streamed through the joints of the door. The threat at length appeared to have the desired effect. A poor decrepid old man undid the bolt and let us in. “Ohon a reel Ohon a reel What make you all this boder for—come you to help us to wake poor ould Kate there, and bring you the whisky wid you?”

“Old man, where is Pat Doolan?” said the lieutenant.

“Gone to borrow whisky, to wake ould Kate, there—the howling will begin whenever Mother Doncannon and Mistress Conolly come over from Middleton, and I look for dem every minute.”

There was no vestige of any living thing in the miserable hovel, except the old fellow. On two low trestles, in the middle of the floor, lay a coffin with the lid on, on the top of which was stretched the dead body of an old emaciated woman in her grave-clothes, the quality of which was much finer than one could have expected to have seen in the midst of the surrounding squalidness. The face of the corpse was uncovered, the hands were crossed on the breast, and there was a plate of salt on the stomach.

An iron cresset, charged with coarse rancid oil, hung from the roof, the dull smoky red light flickering on the dead corpse, as the breeze streamed in through the door and numberless chinks in the walls, making the cold, rigid, sharp features appear to move, and glimmer, and gibber as it were, from the changing shades. Close to the head, there was a small door opening into an apartment of some kind, but the coffin was placed so near it, that one could not pass between the body and the door.

“My good man,” said Treenail, to the solitary mourner, “I must beg leave to remove the body a bit, and have the goodness to open that door.”

“Door, yere honour! It’s no door o’mine—and it’s not opening that same, that old Phil Carrol shall busy himself wid.”

“Carline,” said Mr Treenail, quick and sharp, “remove the body.” It was done.

“Cruel heavy the old dame is, sir, for all her wasted appearance,” said one of the men.

The lieutenant now ranged the press-gang against the wall fronting the door, and stepping into the middle of the room, drew his pistol and cocked it. “Messmates,” he sung out, as if addressing the skulkers in the other room, “I know you are here—the house is surrounded—and unless you open that door now, by the power, but I’ll fire slap into you.” There was a bustle, and a rumbling tumbling noise within. “My lads, we are now sure of your game,” sung out Treenail, with great animation. “Sling that clumsy bench there.” He pointed to an oaken form about eight feet long, and nearly three inches thick. To produce a two-inch rope, and junk it into three lengths, and rig the battering-ram, was the work of an instant. “One, two, three,”—and bang the door flew open, and there were our men stowed away, each sitting on the top of his bag, as snug as could be, although looking very much like condemned thieves. We bound eight of them, and thrusting a stretcher across their backs, under their arms, and lashing the fins to the same by good stout lanyards, we were proceeding to stump our prisoners off to the boat, when, with the innate devilry that I have inherited, I know not how, but the original sin of which has more than once nearly cost me my life, I said, without addressing my superior officer, or any one else, directly—“I should like now to scale ‘my pistol through that coffin. If I miss, I can’t hurt the old woman; and an eyelet hole in the coffin itself, will only be an act of civility to the worms.”

I looked towards my superior officer, who answered me with a knowing shake of the head. I advanced, while all was silent as death—the sharp click of the pistol lock now struck acutely on my own ear. I presented, when—crash the lid of the coffin, old woman and all, was dashed off in an instant, the corpse flying up in the air, and then falling heavily on the floor, rolling over and over, while a tall handsome fellow, in his stripped flannel shirt and blue trowsers, with the sweat pouring down over his face in steams, sat up in the shell.

“All right,” said Mr Treenail—“help him out of his berth.”

He was pinioned like the rest, and forthwith we walked them all off to the beach. By this time there was an unusual bustle in the Holy Ground, and we could hear many an anathema, curses, not loud but deep, ejaculated from many a half-opened door as we passed along. We reached the boat, and time it was we did so, for a number of stout fellows, who had followed us in a gradually increasing crowd, until they amounted to forty at the fewest, now nearly surrounded us, and kept closing in. As the last of us jumped into the boat, they made a rush, so that if we had not shoved off with the speed of light, I think it very likely that we should have been overpowered. However, we reached the ship in safety, and the day following we weighed, and stood out to sea with our convoy.

It was a very large fleet nearly three hundred sail of merchant vessel and a noble sight truly.

A line-of-battle ship led—and two frigates and three sloops of our class were stationed on the outskirts of the fleet, whipping them in as it were. We made Madeira in fourteen days, looked in, but did not anchor; superb island—magnificent mountains—white town,—and all very fine, but nothing particular happened for three weeks. One fine evening, (we had by this time progressed into the trades, and were within three hundred miles of Barbadoes,) the sun had set bright and clear, after a most beautiful day, and we were bowling along right before it, rolling like the very devil; but there was no moon, and although the stars sparkled brilliantly, yet it was dark, and as we were the sternmost of the men of war, we had the task of whipping in the sluggards. It was my watch on deck. A gun from the commodore, who showed a number of lights. “What is that, Mr Kennedy?” said the captain to the old gunner.—“The commodore has made the night signal for the sternmost ships to make more sail and close, sir.” We repeated the signal—and stood on hailing the dullest of the merchantmen in our neighbourhood to make more sail, and firing a musket-shot now and then over the more distant of them. By and by we saw a large West Indiaman suddenly haul her wind, and stand across our bows.

“Forward there!” sung out Mr Splinter, “stand by to fire a shot at that fellow from the boat gun if he does not bear up. What can he be after? Sergeant Armstrong,”—to a marine, who was standing close by him in the waist—“get a musket, and fire over him!”

It was done, and the ship immediately bore up on her course again; we now ranged alongside of him on his larboard quarter.

“Ho, the ship, ahoy!”—“Hillo!” was the reply.—“Make more sail, sir, and run into the body of the fleet, or I shall fire into you; why don’t you, sir, keep in the wake of the commodore?” No answer. “What meant you by hauling your wind, just now, sir?”

“Yesh, Yesh,” at length responded a voice from the merchantman.

“Something wrong here,” said Mr Splinter. “Back your maintopsail, sir, and hoist a light at the peak; I shall send a boat on board of you. Boatswain’s mate, pipe away the crew of the jolly boat.” We also hove to, and were in the act of lowering down the boat, when the officer rattled out. “Keep all fast, with the boat; I can’t comprehend that chap’s manoeuvres for the soul of me. He has not hove to.” Once more we were within pistol-shot of him. “Why don’t you heave to, sir?” All silent.

Presently we could perceive a confusion and noise of struggling on board, and angry voices, as if people were trying to force their way up the hatchways from below; and a heavy thumping on the deck, and a creaking of the blocks, and rattling of the cordage, while the mainyard was first braced one way, and then another, as if two parties were striving for the mastery. At length a voice hailed distinctly “We are captured by a”—A sudden sharp cry, and a splash overboard, told of some fearful deed.

“We are taken by a privateer or pirate,” sung out another voice. This was followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher’s axe is driven through a bullock’s forehead deep into the brain.

By this time all hands had been called, and the word had been passed to clear away two of the foremost carronades on the starboard side, and to load them with grape.

“On board there—get below, all you of the English crew, as I shall fire with grape,” sung out the captain.

The hint was not taken. The ship at length came to the wind—we rounded to, under her lee—and an armed boat, with Mr Treenail, and myself, and sixteen men, with cutlasses, were sent on board.

We jumped on deck, and at the gangway, Mr Treenail stumbled, and fell over the dead body of a man, no doubt the one who had hailed last, with his scull cloven to the eyes, and a broken cutlass blade sticking in the gash. We were immediately accosted by the mate, who was lashed down to a ringbolt close by the bits, with his hands tied at the wrists by sharp cords, so tightly that the blood was spouting from beneath his nails.

“We have been surprised by a privateer schooner, sir; the lieutenant of her, and twelve men, are now in the cabin.”

“Where are the rest of the crew?”

“All secured in the forecastle, except the second mate and boatswain, the men who hailed you just now; the last was knocked on the head, and the former was stabbed and thrown overboard.”

We immediately released the men, eighteen in number, and armed them with boarding pikes. “What vessel is that astern of us?” said Treenail to the mate. Before he could answer, a shot from the brig fired at the privateer showed she was broad awake. Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. “Have you mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail?”—“Aye, aye, sir.”—“Then keep your course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night, and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall haul my wind after the suspicious sail in your wake.”

Another shot, and another, from the brig—the time between each flash and the report increasing with the distance. By this the lieutenant had descended to the cabin, followed by his people, while the merchant crew once more took the charge of the ship, crowding sail into the body of the fleet.

I followed him close, pistol and cutlass in hand, and I shall never forget the scene that presented itself when I entered. The cabin was that of a vessel of five hundred tons, elegantly fitted up; the panels filled with crimson cloth, edged with gold mouldings, with superb damask hangings before the stem windows and the side berths, and brilliantly lighted up by two large swinging lamps hung from the deck above, which were reflected from, and multiplied in, several plate glass mirrors in the panels. In the recess, which in cold weather had been occupied by the stove, now stood a splendid grand piano, the silk in the open work above the keys corresponding with the crimson cloth of the panels; it was open, a Leghom bonnet with a green veil, a parasol, and two long white gloves, as if recently pulled off, lay on it, with the very mould of the hands in them.

The rudder case was particularly beautiful; it was a richly carved and gilded palm tree, the stem painted white, and interlaced with golden fretwork, like the lozenges of a pine-apple, while the leaves spread up and abroad on the roof.

The table was laid for supper, with cold meat, and wine, and a profusion of silver things, all sparkling brightly; but it was in great disorder, wine spilt, and glasses broken, and dishes with meat upset, and knives, and forks, and spoons, scattered all about. She was evidently one of those London West Indiamen, on board of which I knew there was much splendour and great comfort. But, alas! the hand of lawless violence had been there. The captain lay across the table, with his head hanging over the side of it next to us, and unable to help himself, with his hands tied behind his back, and a gag in his mouth; his face purple from the blood running to his head, and the white of his eyes turned up, while his loud stentorous breathing but too clearly indicated the rupture of a vessel on the brain.

He was a stout portly man, and, although we released him on the instant, and had him bled, and threw water on his face, and did all we could for him, he never spoke afterwards, and died in half an hour.

Four gentlemanly-looking men were sitting at table, lashed to their chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian-looking scoundrels I ever beheld, stood on the opposite side of the table in a row fronting us, with the light from the lamps shining full on them. Three of them were small, but very square mulattoes; one was a South American Indian, with the square high-boned visage, and long, lank, black glossy hair of his cast. These four had no clothing besides their trowsers, and stood with their arms folded, in all the calmness of desperate men, caught in the very fact of some horrible atrocity, which they knew shut out all hope of mercy. The two others were white Frenchmen, tall, bushy-whiskered, sallow desperadoes, but still, wonderful to relate, with, if I may so speak, the manners of gentlemen. One of them squinted, and had a hair-lip, which gave him a horrible expression. They were dressed in white trowsers and shirts, yellow silk sashes round their waists, and a sort of blue uniform jacket, blue Gascon caps, with the peaks, from each of which depended a large bullion tassel, hanging down on one side of their heads. The whole party had apparently made up their minds that resistance was vain, for their pistols and cutlasses, some of them bloody, had all been laid on the table, with the buts and handles towards us, contrasting horribly with the glittering equipage of steel, and crystal, and silver things, on the snow-white damask table-cloth. They were immediately seized and ironed, to which they submitted in silence. We next released the passengers, and were overpowered with thanks, one dancing, one crying, one laughing, and another praying. But, merciful Heaven! what an object met our eyes! Drawing aside—the curtain that concealed a sofa, fitted into a recess, there lay, more dead than alive, a tall and most beautiful girl, her head resting on her left arm, her clothes disordered and tom, blood on her bosom, and foam on her mouth, with her long dark hair loose and dishevelled, and covering the upper part of her deadly pale face, through which her wild sparkling black eyes, protruding from their sockets, glanced and glared with the fire of a maniac’s, while her blue lips kept gibbering an incoherent prayer one moment, and the next imploring mercy, as if she had still been in the hands of those who knew not the name; and anon, a low hysterical laugh made our very blood freeze in our bosoms, which soon ended in a long dismal yell, as she rolled off the couch upon the hard deck, and lay in a dead faint.

Alas the day!—a Maniac she was from that hour. She was the only daughter of the murdered master of the ship, and never awoke, in her unclouded reason, to the fearful consciousness of her own dishonour and her parent’s death.

The Torch captured the schooner, and we left the privateer’s men at Barbadoes to meet their reward, and several of the merchant sailors were turned over to the guardship, to prove the facts in the first instance, and to serve his Majesty as impressed men in the second, but scrimp measure of justice to the poor ship’s crew.

Anchored at Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes.—Town seemed built of cards—black faces—showy dresses of the negroes—dined at Mr C——‘s, capital dinner little breeze mill at the end of the room, that pumped a solution of saltpetre and water into a trough of tin, perforated with small holes, below which, and exposed to the breeze, were ranged the wine and liqueurs, all in cotton bags; the water then flowed into a well, where the pump was stepped, and thus was again pumped up and kept circulating.

Landed the artillery, the soldiers, officers, and the Spanish Canon discharged the whole battery.

Next morning, weighed at day—dawn, with the trade for Jamaica, and soon lost sight of the bright blue waters of Carlisle Bay, and the smiling fields and tall cocoa-nut trees of the beautiful island. In a week after we arrived off the east end of Jamaica, and that same evening, in obedience to the orders of the admiral on the Windward Island station, we hove to in Bull Bay, in order to land despatches, and secure our tithe of the crews of the merchant-vessels bound for Kingston, and the ports to leeward, as they passed us. We had fallen in with a pilot canoe off Morant Bay with four negroes on board, who requested us to hoist in their boat, and take them all on board, as the pilot schooner, to which they belonged, had that morning bore up for Kingston, and left instructions to them to follow her in the first vessel appearing afterwards. We did so, and now, as it was getting dark, the captain came up to Mr Treenail.

“Why, Mr Treenail, I think we had better heave-to for the night, and in this case I shall want you to go in the cutter to Port Royal to deliver the despatches on board the flag-ship.”

“I don’t think the admiral will be at Port Royal, sir,” responded the lieutenant; “and, if I might suggest, these black chaps have offered to take me ashore here on the Palisadoes, a narrow spit of land, not above one hundred yards across, that divides the harbour from the ocean, and to haul the canoe across, and take me to the agent’s house in Kingston, who will doubtless frank me up to the pen, where the admiral resides, and I shall thus deliver the letters, and be back again by day—dawn.”

“Not a bad plan,” said old Deadeye; “put it in execution, and I will go below and get the despatches immediately.”

The canoe was once more hoisted out; the three black fellows, the pilot of the ship continuing on board, jumped into her alongside.

“Had you not better take a couple of hands with you, Mr Treenail?” said the skipper.

“Why, no, sir, I don’t think I shall want them; but if you will spare me Mr Cringle I will be obliged, in case I want any help.”

We shoved off, and as the glowing sun dipped under Portland Point, as the tongue of land that runs out about four miles to the southward, on the western side of Port Royal harbour, is called, we arrived within a hundred yards of the Palisadoes. The surf, at the particular spot we steered for, did not break on the shore in a rolling curling wave, as it usually does, but smoothed away under the lee of a small sandy promontory that ran out into the sea, about half a cable’s length to windward, and then slid up the smooth white sand, without breaking, in a deep clear green swell, for the space of twenty yards, gradually shoaling, the colour becoming lighter and lighter, until it frothed away in a shallow white fringe, that buzzed as it receded back into the deep green sea, until it was again propelled forward by the succeeding billow.

“I say, friend Bungo, how shall we manage? You don’t mean to swamp us in a shove through that surf, do you?” said Mr Treenail.

“No fear, massa, if you and toder leetle man-of-war buccra, only keep dem seat when we rise on de crest of de swell dere.”

We sat quiet enough. Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped him as well as I could. The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, of the sea, was trying enough as we approached, buoyed on the last long undulation.

“Now sit still, massa, bote.”

We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove forwards with a smooth sliding motion up on the beach—until grit, grit, we stranded on the cream-coloured sand, high and dry.

“Now jomp, massa, jomp.”

We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down on our noses; the sea receded, and before the next billow approached, we had run the canoe twenty yards beyond high water mark.

It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe across the sandbank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the harbour of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we landed at the bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin windows of the merchantmen glimmering as e passed, and the town only discernible from a solitary sparkle here and there. But the contrast when we landed was very striking. We had come through the darkness of the night in comparative quietness; and in two hours from the time we had left the old Torch, we were transferred from her orderly deck to the bustle of a crowded town.

One of our crew undertook to be the guide to the agent’s house. We arrived before it. It was a large mansion, and we could see lights glimmering in the ground floor; but it was gaily lit up aloft. The house itself stood back about twenty feet from the street, from which it was separated by an iron railing.

We knocked at the outer-gate, but no one answered. At length our black guide found out a bell-pull, and presently the clang of a bell resounded throughout the mansion. Still no one answered. I pushed against, the door, and found it was open, and Mr Treenail and myself immediately ascended a flight of six marble steps, and stood in the lower piazza, with the hall, or lower vestibule, before us. We entered. A very well-dressed brown woman, who was sitting at her work at a small table, along with two young girls of the same complexion, instantly rose to receive us.

“Beg pardon,” said Mr Treenail, “pray, is this Mr——‘s house?” “Yes, sir, it is.”

“Will you have the goodness to say if he be at home?”

“Oh yes, sir, he is dere upon dinner wid company,” said the lady.

“Well,” continued the lieutenant, “say to him, that an officer of his Majesty’s sloop Torch is below, with despatches for the admiral.”

“Surely, sir,—surely,” the dark lady continued;—“Follow me, sir; and dat small gentleman,—[Thomas Cringle, Esquire, no less!]—him will better follow me too.”

We left the room, and, turning to the right, landed in the lower piazza of the house, fronting the north. A large clumsy stair occupied the easternmost end, with a massive mahogany balustrade, but the whole affair below was very ill lighted. The brown lady preceded us; and planting herself at the bottom of the staircase, began to shout to some one above.

“Toby!—Toby!—buccra gentlemen arrive, Toby.” But no Toby responded to the call.

“My dear madam,” said Treenail, “I have little time for ceremony. Pray usher us up into Mr——‘s presence.”

“Den follow me, gentlemen, please.”

Forthwith we all ascended the dark staircase until we reached the first landing-place, when we heard a noise as of two negroes wrangling on the steps above us.

“You rascal!” sang out one, “take dat; larn you for teal my wittal!”—then a sharp crack, as if he had smote the culprit across the pate; whereupon, like a shot, a black fellow, in a handsome livery, trundled down, pursued by another servant with a large silver ladle in his hand, with which he was belabouring the fugitive over his flinthard skull, right against our hostess, with the drumstick of a turkey in his hand, or rather in his mouth.

“Top, you tief—top, you tief!—for me piece dat,” shouted the pursuer.

“You dam rascal!” quoth the dame. But she had no time to utter another word, before the fugitive pitched, with all his weight, right against her; and at the very moment another servant came trundling down with a large tray-full of all kinds of meats—and I especially remember that two large crystal stands of jellies composed part of his load—so there we were regularly capsized, and caught all of a heap in the dark landing-place, half way up the stair; and down the other flight tumbled our guide, with Mr Treenail and myself, and the two blackies, on the top of her, Tolling in our descent over, or rather into, another large mahogany tray which had just been carried out, with a tureen of turtle soup in it, and a dish of roast-beef, and platefulls of land-crabs, and the Lord knows what all besides.

The crash reached the ear of the landlord, who was seated at the head of his table in the upper piazza, a long gallery about fifty feet long by fourteen wide, and he immediately rose and ordered his butler to take a light. When he came down to ascertain the cause of the uproar, I shall never forget the scene.

There was, first of all, mine host, a remarkably neat personage, standing on the polished mahogany stair, three steps above his servant, who was a very well-dressed respectable elderly negro, with a candle in each hand; and beneath him, on the landing-place, lay two trays of viands, broken tureens of soup, fragments of dishes, and fractured glasses, and a chaos of eatables and drinkables, and table gear scattered all about, amidst which lay scrambling my lieutenant and myself, the brown housekeeper, and the two negro servants, all more or less covered with gravy and wine dregs. However, after a good laugh, we gathered ourselves up, and at length we were ushered on the scene. Mine host, after stifling his laughter the best way he could, again sat down at the head of his table, sparkling with crystal and wax lights, while a superb lamp hung overhead. The company was composed chiefly of naval and military men, but there was also a sprinkling of civilians, or Muftees, to use a West India expression. Most of them rose as we entered, and after they had taken a glass of wine, and had their laugh at our mishap, our landlord retired to one side with Mr Treenail, while I, poor little middy as I was, remained standing at the end of the room, close to the head of the stairs. The gentleman who sat at the foot of the table had his back towards me, I and was not at first aware of my presence. But the guest at his right hand, a happy-looking, red-faced, well-dressed man, soon drew his attention towards me. The party to whom I was thus indebted seemed a very jovial-looking personage, and appeared to be well known to all hands, and indeed the life of the party, for, like Falstaff, he was not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others.

The gentleman to whom he had pointed me out immediately rose, made his bow, ordered a chair, and made room for me beside himself, where the moment it was known that we were direct from home, such a volley of questions was fired off at me, that I did not know which to answer first. At length, after Treenail had taken a glass or two of wine, the agent started him off to the admiral’s pen in his own gig, and I was desired to stay where I was until he returned.

The whole party seemed very happy, my boon ally was fun itself, and I was much entertained with the mess he made when any of the foreigners at table addressed him in French or Spanish. I was particularly struck with a small, thin, dark Spaniard, who told very feelingly how the night before, on returning home from a party to his own lodgings, on passing through the piazza, he stumbled against something heavy that lay in his grass-hammock, which usually hung there. He called for a light, when, to his horror, he found the body of his old and faithful valet lying in it, dead and cold, with a knife sticking under his fifth rib—no doubt intended for his master. The speaker was Bolivar. About midnight, Mr Treenail returned, we shook hands with Mr——, and once more shoved off; and, guided by the lights shown on board the Torch, we were safe home again by three in the morning, when we immediately made sail, and nothing particular happened until we arrived within a day’s sail of New Providence. It seemed, that about a week before, a large American brig, bound from Havanna to Boston, had been captured in this very channel by one of our men-of-war schooners, and carried into Nassau; out of which port, for their own security, the authorities had fitted a small schooner, carrying six guns and twenty-four men. She was commanded by a very gallant fellow—there is no disputing that—and he must needs emulate the conduct of the officer who had made the capture—for in a fine clear night, when all the officers were below rummaging in their kits for the killing things they should array themselves in on the morrow, so as to smite the Fair of New Providence to the heart at a blow—Whiss—a shot flew over our mast-head.

“A small schooner lying-to right ahead, sir,” sung out the boatswain from the forecastle.

Before we could beat to quarters, another sung between our masts. We kept steadily on our course, and as we approached our pigmy antagonist, he bore up. Presently we were alongside of him.

“Heave-to,” hailed the strange sail; “heave-to or I’ll sink you.”

The devil you will, you midge, thought I.

The captain took the trumpet—“Schooner, ahoy”—no answer “D—n your blood, sir, if you don’t let every thing go by the run this instant, I’ll fire a broadside. Strike, sir, to his Britannic Majesty’s sloop Torch.”

The poor fellow commanding the schooner had by this time found out his mistake and immediately came on board, where, instead of being lauded for his gallantry, I am sorry to say he was roundly rated for his want of discernment in mistaking his Majesty’s cruiser for a Yankee merchantman.

Next forenoon we arrived at Nassau.

In a week after we again sailed for Bermuda, having taken on board ten American skippers, and several other Yankees, as prisoners of war.

For the first three days after we cleared the Passages. We had fine weather. Wind at east south-east; but after that it came on to blow from the north-west, and so continued without intermission during the whole of the passage to Bermuda. On the fourth morning after we left Nassau, we descried a sail in the south-east quarter, and immediately made sail in chase. We overhauled her about noon; she hove-to, after being fired at repeatedly; and, on boarding her, we found she was a Swede from Charleston, bound to Havre-de-Grace. All the letters we could find on board were very unceremoniously broken open, and nothing having transpired that could identify the cargo as enemy’s property, we were bundling over the side, when a nautical looking subject, who had attracted my attention from the first, put in his oar.

“Lieutenant,” said he, “will you allow me to put this barrel of New York apples into the boat as a present to Captain Deadeye, from Captain——of the United States navy?”

Mr Treenail bowed, and said he would; and we shoved off and got on board again, and now there was the devil to pay, from the perplexity old Deadeye was thrown into, as to whether, here in the heat of the American war, he was bound to take this American captain prisoner or not. I was no party to the councils of my superiors, of course, but the foreign ship was finally allowed to continue her course.

The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled unexpectedly, nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to take advantage of the fine blink, when the man at the mast-head sung out—“Breakers right ahead, sir.”

“Breakers!” said Mr Splinter, in great astonishment. “Breakers! why the man must be mad—I say, Jenkins!”

“Breakers close under the bows,” sung out the boatswain from forward.

“The devil,” quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, and ascended the forecastle, while I kept close to his heels. We looked out a-head, and there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white foaming of the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers. Gradually, this splashing and foaming appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the clear green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until every thing hissed again; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation of the water seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which impelled us had also floated it onwards. At length the whirling circle of white foam ascended higher and higher, and then gradually contracted itself into a spinning black tube, which wavered about, for all the world, like a gigantic loch-leech, held by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was poking its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on.

“Is the boat gun on the forecastle loaded?” said Captain Deadeye.

“It is, sir.”

“Then luff a bit—that will do—fire.”

The gun was discharged, and down rushed the black wavering pillar in a watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark, heaving billows rolled over the spot whereout it arose, as if no such thing had ever been.

This said troubling of the waters was neither more nor less than a waterspout, which again is neither more nor less than a whirlwind at sea, which gradually whisks the water round and round, and up and up, as you see straws so raised, until it reaches a certain height, when it invariably breaks. Before this I had thought that a waterspout was created by some next to supernatural exertion of the power of the Deity, in order to suck up water into the clouds, that they, like the wine-skins in Spain, may be filled with rain.

The morning after the weather was clear and beautiful, although the wind blew half-a-gale. Nothing particular happened until about seven o’clock in the evening. I had been invited to dine with the gunroom officers this day, and every thing was going on smooth and comfortable, when Mr Splinter spoke. “I say, master, don’t you smell gunpowder?”

“Yes I do,” said the little master, “or something deuced like it.”

To explain the particular comfort of our position, it may be right to mention that the magazine of a brig sloop is exactly under the gunroom. Three of the American skippers had been quartered on the gunroom mess, and they were all at table. Snuff, snuff, smelled one, and another sniffled,

“Gunpowder, I guess, and in a state of ignition.”

“Will you not send for the gunner, sir?” said the third.

Splinter did not like it, I saw, and this quailed me.

The captain’s bell rang. “What smell of brimstone is that, steward?” “I really can’t tell,” said the man, trembling from head to foot; “Mr Splinter has sent for the gunner, sir.”

“The devil!” said Deadeye, as he hurried on deck. We all followed. A search was made.

“Some matches have caught in the magazine,” said one.

“We shall be up and away like sky-rockets,” said another.

Several of the American masters ran out on the jib-boom, coveting the temporary security of being so far removed from the seat of the expected explosion, and all was alarm and confusion, until it was ascertained that two of the boys, little skylarking vagabonds, had stolen some pistol cartridges, and had been making lightning, as it is called, by holding a lighted candle between the fingers, and putting some loose powder into the palm of the hand, and then chucking it up into the flame. They got a sound flogging, on a very unpoetical part of their corpuses, and once more the ship subsided into her usual orderly discipline. The northwester still continued, with a clear blue sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a bright cold moon by night. It blew so hard for the three succeeding days, that we could not carry more than close reefed topsails to it, and a reefed foresail. Indeed, towards six bells in the forenoon watch, it came thundering down with such violence, and the sea increased so much, that we had to hand the fore-topsail.

This was by no means an easy job. “Ease her a bit,” said the first lieutenant, “there—shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the men get the canvass”—whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee fore yardarm into the sea. “Up with the helm—heave him the bight of a rope.” We kept away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him. The man got it under his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least—and one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water, by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him in—he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest below his arms, as if it had been a girl’s waist, cutting into the very muscles of it and of his back half an inch deep. He had to be bled before he could breathe, and it was an hour before the circulation could be restored, by the joint exertions of the surgeon and gunroom steward, chafing him with spirits and camphor, after he had been stripped and stowed away between the blankets in his hammock.

The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the squadron in the Chesapeake, a dismasted schooner, manned by a prize crew of a midshipman and six men. She had a signal of distress, an American ensign, with the union down, hoisted on the jury-mast, across which there was rigged a solitary lug-sail. It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot-boat—built schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able to rig, was a spare topmast which they had jammed into one of the pumps fortunately she was as tight as a bottle—and stayed it the best way they could. The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of her, and his crew and cargo, on board, and then scuttle her; but no—all he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit; and having had a glass of grog, he trundled over the side again, and returned to his desolate command. However, he afterwards brought his prize safe into Bermuda.

The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the second evening after this. The forenoon had been even more boisterous than any of the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with “make sail,” and “shorten sail,” and “all hands,” the whole day through; and as the night fell, I found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop. The men had just lain in from the main topsail yard, when we heard the watch called on deck, “Starboard watch, ahoy,”—which was a cheery sound to us of the larboard, who were thus released from duty on deck and allowed to go below.

The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing to follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top, and capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed too, as during the greatest part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see what had bolted me to the grating, but I had no sooner extricated my foot, than, over-worked and over fatigued as I was, I fell over in the soundest sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the back of my neck resting on a coil of rope, so that my head hung down within it.

The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched to the skin. I must have slept for four hours or so, when I was awakened by a rough thump on the side from the stumbling foot of the captain of the top, the word having been passed to shake a reef out of the topsails, the wind having rather suddenly gone down. It was done; and now broad awake, I determined not to be caught napping again, so I descended, and swung myself in on deck out of the main rigging, just as Mr Treenail was mustering the crew at eight bells. When I landed on the quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the binnacle, with the light shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and the rain-drop sparkling at the brim of it. He had noticed me the moment I descended.

“Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch. Why, what are you doing here, eh?”

I stepped up to him, and told him the truth, that, being over fatigued, I had fallen asleep in the top.

“Well, well, boy,” said he, “never mind, go below, and turn in; if you don’t take your rest, you never will be a sailor.”

“But what do you see aloft?” glancing his eye upwards, and all the crew on deck as I passed them looked anxiously up also amongst the rigging, as if wondering what I saw there, for I had been so chilled in my noose, that my neck, from resting in the cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened and rigid to an intolerable degree; and although, when I first came on deck, I had by a strong exertion brought my caput to its proper bearings, yet the moment I was dismissed by my superior officer, I for my own comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of the muscle, whereby I once more staved along the deck, glowering up into the heavens, as if I had seen some wonderful sight there.

“What do you see aloft?” repeated Mr Treenail, while the crew, greatly puzzled, continued to follow my eye, as they thought, and to stare up into the rigging.

“Why, sir, I have thereby got a stiff neck—that’s all, sir.”

“Go and turn in at once, my good boy—make haste, now—tell our steward to give you a glass of hot grog, and mind your hand that you don’t get sick.”

I did as I was desired, swallowed the grog, and turned in; but I could not have been in bed above an hour, when the drum beat to quarters, and I had once more to bundle out on the cold wet deck, where I found all excitement. At the time I speak of, we had been beaten by the Americans in several actions of single ships, and our discipline had improved in proportion as we came to learn by sad experience that the enemy was not to be undervalued. I found that there was a ship in sight, right a-head of us apparently carrying all sail. A group of officers were on the forecastle with night-glasses, the whole crew being stationed in dark clusters round the guns at quarters. Several of the American skippers were forward amongst us, and they were of opinion that the chase was a man-of-war, although our own people seemed to doubt this. One of the skippers insisted that she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower masts, and the immense squareness of her yards. But the puzzle was, if it were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail. Still this might be accounted for, by her either wishing to make out what we were before she engaged us, or she might be clearing for action. At this moment a whole cloud of studdingsails were blown from the yards as if the booms had been carrots; and to prove that the chase was keeping a bright look-out, she immediately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, under the impression, no doubt, that she would draw a-head of us, from her gear being entire, before we could rig out our light sails again.

And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gun-shot. The American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on, and the word passed to see all clear. Our shot was by this time flying over and over her, and it was evident she was not a man-of-war. We peppered away—she could not even be a privateer; we were close under her lee-quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large swaggering Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled down the next moment. Hurrah! a large cotton ship, from Charlestown to Bourdeaux, prize to H.M.S. Torch.

She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, of four hundred tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.

By the time we got the crew on board, and the second lieutenant, with a prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without any thing particular happening. It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry “that the brig was amongst the breakers.” I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by some mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove the brig in the wind, and taken the sails a-back. We accordingly fetched stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a heavy sea, with our stern grinding against the cotton ship’s high quarter.

The main boom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the taffril; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship’s mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away. Officers shouting, men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together, I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet “Silence, men,—hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of command!”

The effect was magical.—“Brace round the foreyard; round with it—set the jib—that’s it—fore-topmast stay-sail—haul—never mind if the gale takes it out of the bolt rope”—a thundering flap, and away it flew in truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.—“Never mind, men, the jib stands. Belay all that—down with the helm, now don’t you see she has sternway yet? Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don’t mind your hands, you lubbers—main-topsail sheets let fly—there she pays off, and has headway once more, that’s it—right your helm now—never mind his spanker-boom, the forestay will stand it—there—up with the helm, sir we have cleared him hurrah!”—And a near thing it was too but we soon had every thing snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St George’s Harbour.

It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, for that same afternoon, one of the most tremendous gales of wind from the westward came on that I ever saw. Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and having good ground-tackle down, we rode it out well enough. The effect was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast-heads, and amongst the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at sea all was white foam, and the tumbling waves seemed to meet from north and south, leaving a space of smooth water under the lee of the island, shaped like the tail of a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening and becoming more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owed allegiance to the genius of the storm.

There we rode, with three anchors a-head, in safety through the night; and next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up, and anchored off the Tanks. Three days after this, the American frigate President was brought in by the Endymion, and the rest of the squadron.

I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and certainly I never saw a more superb vessel; her scantling was that of a seventy-four, and she appeared to have been fitted with great cares. I got a week’s leave at this time, and, as I had letters to several families, I contrived to spend my time pleasantly enough.

Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the middle of the Atlantic. There are Lord knows how many of them, but the beauty of the little straits and creeks which divide them, no man can describe who has not seen them. The town of Saint George’s, for instance, looks as if the houses were cut out of chalk; and one evening the family where I was on a visit proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to attend a ball there. We had to cross three ferries, although the distance was not above nine miles, if so far. The Mudian women are unquestionably beautiful—so thought Thomas Moore, a tolerable judge, before me. By the by, touching this Mudian ball, it was a very gay affair—the women pleasant and beautiful; but all the men, when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit;—a lucid and succinct description of a community.

The second day of my sojourn was fine—the first fine day since our arrival and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling through the cedar wood above St George’s, when a dark good-looking man passed us; he was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a blue frock-coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a round hat. On passing he touched his hat with much grace, and in the evening I met him in society. It was Commodore Decatur. He was very much a Frenchman in manner, or, I should rather say, in look, for although very well bred, he, for one ingredient, by no means possessed a Frenchman’s volubility; still, he was an exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man.

The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the three hundred and sixty-five islands, many of them not above an acre in extent—fancy an island of an acre in extent!—with a solitary house, a small garden, a red-skinned family, a piggery, and all around clear deep pellucid water. None of the islands, or islets, rise to any great height, but they all shoot precipitously out of the water, as if the whole group, had originally been one huge platform of rock, with numberless grooves subsequently chiselled out in it by art.

We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small channels for two hours before we reached the gentleman’s house where we had been invited to dine; at length, on turning a corner, with both latteen sails drawing beautifully, we ran bump on a shoal; there was no danger, and knowing that the Mudians were capital sailors, I sat still. Not so Captain K——, a round plump little homo,—“Shove her off, my boys, shove her off.” She would not move, and thereupon he in a fever of gallantry jumped overboard up to the waist in full fig; and one of the men following his example, we were soon afloat. The ladies applauded, and the Captain sat in his wet breaks for the rest of the voyage, in all the consciousness of being considered a hero. Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but there was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of; a knot of young West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and large credits on England, had at this time domiciled themselves in St George’s, to batten on the spoils of poor Jonathan, having monopolized all the good things of the place. I happened to be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less reason to complain, but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to put up with but Lenten fair at the taverns. At length, having refitted, we sailed, in company with the Rayo frigate, with a convoy of three transports, freighted with a regiment for New Orleans, and several merchantmen, bound for the West Indies.

“The still vexed Bermoothes”—I arrived at them in a gale of wind, and I sailed from them in a gale of wind. What the climate may be in the summer I don’t know; but during the time I was there, it was one storm after another.

We sailed in the evening with the moon at full, and the wind at west-north-west. So soon as we got from under the lee of the land, the breeze struck us, and it came on to blow like thunder, so that we were all soon reduced to our storm staysails; and there we were, transports, merchantmen, and men-of-war, rising on the mountainous billows one moment, and the next losing sight of every thing but the water and sky in the deep trough of the sea, while the seething foam was blown over us in showers from the curling manes of the roaring waves. But overhead, all this while, it was as clear as a lovely winter moon could make it, and the stars shone brightly in the deep blue sky; there was not even a thin fleecy shred of cloud racking across the moon’s disk. Oh, the glories of a northwester!

But the devil seize such glory! Glory, indeed! with a fleet of transports, and a regiment of soldiers on board! Glory! why, I daresay five hundred rank and file, at the fewest, were all cascading at one and the same moment, a thousand poor fellows turned outside in, like so many pairs of old stockings. Any glory in that? But to proceed.

Next morning the gale still continued, and when the day broke, there was the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitching, as she tore her way through the boiling sea, under a close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, with topgallant-yards and royal masts, and every thing that could be struck with safety in war time, down on deck. There she lay with her clear black bends, and bright white streaks and long tier of cannon on the maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle grinning through the ports in the black bulwarks, while the white hammocks, carefully covered by the hammock-cloths, crowned the defences of the gallant frigate fore and aft, as she delved through the green surge,—one minute rolling and rising on the curling white crest of a mountainous sea, amidst a hissing snowstorm of spray, with her bright copper glancing from stem to stem, and her scanty white canvass swelling aloft, and twenty feet of her keel forward occasionally hove into the air clean out of the water, as if she had been a sea-bird rushing to take wing,—and the next, sinking entirely out of sight, hull, masts, and rigging, behind an intervening sea, that rose in hoarse thunder between us, threatening to overwhelm both us and her. As for the transports, the largest of the three had lost her fore topmast, and had bore up under her foresail; another was also scudding under a close reefed fore-topsail; but the third or head-quarter ship was still lying to windward, under her storm stay-sails. None of the merchant vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to bear up in the night, and to run before it under bare poles.

At length, as the sun rose, we got before the wind, and it soon moderated so far, that we could carry reefed topsails and foresail; and away we all bowled, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky, and a bright sun overhead, and a stormy leaden-coloured ocean, with whitish green-crested billows, below. The sea continued to go down, and the wind to slacken, until the afternoon, when the Commodore made the signal for Torch to send, a boat’s crew, the instant it could be done with safety, on board the dismasted ship, to assist in repairing damages, and in getting up a jury-fore-topmast.

The damaged ship was at this time on our weather-quarter; we accordingly handed the fore-topsail, and presently she was alongside. We hailed her, that we intended to send a boat on board, and desired her to heave-to, as we did, and presently she rounded to under our lee. One of the quarter-boats was manned, with three of the carpenter’s crew, and six good men over and above her complement; but it was no easy matter to get on board of her, let me tell you, after she had been lowered, carefully watching the rolls, with four hands in. The moment she touched the water, the tackles were cleverly unhooked, and the rest of us tumbled on board, shin leather growing scarce, when we shoved off. With great difficulty, and not without wet jackets, we, the supernumeraries, got on board, and the boat returned to the Torch. The evening when we landed in the lobsterbox, as Jack loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do anything towards refitting that night; and the confusion, and uproar, and numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were irksome to a greater degree than I expected even, after having been accustomed to the strict and orderly discipline of a man-of-war. The following forenoon the Torch was ordered by signal to chase in the south-east quarter, and hauling out from the fleet, she was soon out of sight.

“There goes my house and home,” said I, and a feeling of desolateness came over me, that I would have been ashamed at the time to have acknowledged. We stood on, and worked hard all day in repairing the damage sustained during the gale.

At length dinner was announced, and I was invited, as the officer in charge of the seamen, to go down. The party in the cabin consisted of an old gizzened Major with a brown wig, and a voice melodious as the sharpening of a saw—I fancied sometimes that the vibration created by it set the very glasses in the steward’s pantry a-ringing three captains and six subalterns, every man of whom, as the devil would have it, played on the flute, and drew bad sketches, and kept journals. Most of them were very white and blue in the gills when we sat down, and others of a dingy sort of whitey-brown, while they ogled the viands in a most suspicious manner. Evidently most of them had but small confidence in their moniplies; and one or two, as the ship gave a heavier roll than usual, looked wistfully towards the door, and half rose from their chairs, as if in act to bolt. However, hot brandy grog being the order of the day, we all, landsmen and sailors, got on astonishingly, and numberless long yarns were spun of what “what’s-his-name of this, and so-and-so of t’other, did or did not do.”

About half-past five in the evening, the captain of the transport, or rather the agent, an old lieutenant in the navy, and our host, rang his bell for the steward.

“Whereabouts are we in the fleet, steward?” said the ancient.

“The stern most ship of all, sir,” said the man.

“Where is the Commodore?” “About three miles a-head, sir.”

“And the Torch, has she rejoined us?”

“No, sir; she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was in chase of something in the south-east quarter, and carrying all the sail she could stagger under.”

“Very well, very well.”

A song from Master Waistbelt, one of the young officers. Before he had concluded, the mate came down. By this time it was near sun-down.

“Shall we shake a reef out of the main and mizzen-topsails, sir, and set the mainsail and spanker? The wind has lulled, sir, and there is a strange sail in the northwest that seems to be dodging us—but she may be one of the merchantmen after all, sir.”

“Never mind, Mr Leechline,” said our gallant captain. “Mr Bandalier—a song if you please.”

Now the young soldiers on board happened to be men of the world, and Bandalier, who did not sing, turned off the request with a good-humoured laugh, alleging his inability with much suavity; but the old rough Turk of a tar-bucket chose to fire at this, and sang out—“Oh, if you don’t choose to sing when you are asked, and to sport your damned fine airs....”

“Mr Crowfoot.”

“Captain,” said the agent, piqued at having his title by courtesy withheld.

“By no mean,” said Major Sawrasp, who had spoken—“I believe I am speaking to Lieutenant Crowfoot, agent for transport No.—, wherein it so happens I am commanding officer—so”—

Old Crowfoot saw he was in the wrong box, and therefore hove about, and backed out in good time—making the amende as smoothly as his gruff nature admitted, and trying to look pleased.

Presently the same bothersome mate came down again—“The strange sail is creeping up on our quarter, sir.”

“Ay?” said Crowfoot, “how does she lay?”

“She is hauled by the wind on the starboard tack, sir,” continued the mate.

We now went on deck, and found that our suspicious friend had shortened sail, as if he had made us out, and wag afraid to approach, or was lying by until nightfall.

Sawrasp had before this, with the tact and ease of a soldier and a gentleman, soldered his feud with Crowfoot, and, with the rest of the lobsters, was full of fight. The sun at length set, and the night closed in when the old major again addressed Crowfoot.

“My dear fellow, can’t you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle at that chap?” And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge long, seemed much inclined to fall in with the soldier’s views; and, in fine, although the weather was now moderate, he did not make sail. Presently the Commodore fired a gun, and showed lights. It was the signal to close. “Oh, time enough,” said old Crowfoot—“what is the old man afraid of?” Another gun and a fresh constellation on board the frigate. It was “an enemy in the northwest quarter.”

“Hah, hah,” sung out the agent, “is it so? Major, what say you to a brush let her close, eh?—should like to pepper her—wouldn’t you—three hundred men, eh?”

By this time we were all on deck—the schooner came bowling along under a reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently disappearing behind the stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the rising moon shining brightly on her canvass pinions, as if she had been an albatross skimming along the surface of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her class, long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear, from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore-topmast, that she took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off from the convoy.

As she approached, we could perceive by the bright moonlight, that she had six guns of a side, and two long ones on pivots, the one forward on the forecastle, and the other choke up to the mainmast.

Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutlass in hand; we were by this time so near that we could see pistols in their belts, and a trumpet in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his feet on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds. We had cleared away our six eighteen-pound carronades, which composed our starboard broadside, and loaded them, each with a round shot, and a bag of two hundred musket-balls, while three hundred soldiers in their foraging jackets, and with their loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the deck, concealed by the quarters, while the blue jackets were sprawling in groups round the carronades.

I was lying down beside the gallant old Major, who had a bugler close to him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun nearest us; but getting tired of this recumbent position, I crept aft, until I could see through a spare port.

“Why don’t the rascals fire?” quoth Sawrasp.

“Oh, that would alarm the Commodore. They intend to walk quietly on board of us; but they will find themselves mistaken a little,” whispered Crowfoot.

“Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds,” said the Major.

The word was passed along.

The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within half pistolshot, with the white water dashing away from her bows, and buzzing past her sides her crew as thick as peas on her deck. Once or twice she hauled her wind a little, and then again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to do. At length, without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her helm a-starboard, and ranged alongside.

“Now, my boys, give it him,” shouted Crowfoot—“Fire!”

“Ready, men,” shouted the Major—“Present—fire!”

The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, and the men cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury. The breeze was strong enough to carry all the smoke forward, and I saw the deck of the schooner, where the moment before all was still and motionless, and filled with dark figures, till there scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into a shambles. The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the whole mass, like a maize plant before a hurricane; and such a cry arose, as if “Men fought on earth, and fiends in upper air.”

Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have been levelled with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most wounded, while we could see numbers endeavouring to creep towards the hatches, while the black blood, in horrible streams, gushed and gurgled through her scuppers down her sides, and across the bright white streak that glanced in the moonlight.

Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, “We have surrendered; cease firing, sir.” But devil a bit—we continued blazing away—a lantern was run up to his main gaff, and then lowered again.

“We have struck, sir,” shouted another voice, “don’t murder us don’t fire, sir, for Godsake.”

But fire we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. “Give them the stem,” is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet for our one, the schooner at length, in their desperation, hauled her wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, having all this time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran—under the Rayo’s stern she was lying to.

“Mr Crowfoot what have you been after? I have a great mind to report you, sir.”

“We could not help it, sir,” sung out Crowfoot in a most dolorous tone, in answer to the captain of the frigate; “we have been nearly taken, sir, by a privateer, sir—an immense vessel, sir, that sails, like a witch, sir.”

“Keep close in my wake then, sir,” rejoined the captain, in a gruff tone, and immediately the Rayo bore up.

Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could crowd. By this time we had gotten our jury-fore-topmast up, and the Rayo, having kept astern in the night, was now under topsails, and top-gallant sails, with the wet canvass at the head of the sails, showing that the reefs had been freshly shaken out—rolling wedge like on the swell, and rapidly shooting a-head, to resume her station. As she passed us, and let fall her foresail, she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get through the Caicos Passage, into which we were now entering, before nightfall. It was eleven o’clock in the forenoon. A fine clear breezy day, fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower. As the sun rose there were indications of squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon one of them was whitening to windward. So “hands by the topgallant clew-lines” was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail, when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her. I ran to the side and looked over. The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a light green hissing ripple.

“Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water—why it breaks—we shall be ashore!”

“Down with the helm-brace round the yards,” shouted Crow foot; “that’s it steady—luff, my man;” and the danger was so imminent that even the studding-sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the booms snapped off like carrots, as we came to the wind.

“Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the spanker—haul out—haul down the foretopmast—staysail—so, mind your luff, my man.”

The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot. The other transports were equally fortunate with ourselves, in weathering the shoal, and presently we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we weathered the easternmost prong, when we bore up. But, poor Rayo! she had struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty charts laid down fifteen fathoms water; and although there was some talk at the time of an error in judgment, in not having the lead going in the chains, still do I believe there was no fault lying at the door of her gallant captain. By the time we had weathered the reef, the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle of rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was making all the sail she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, and chain-pumps clanging, and whole cataracts of water gushing from them, clear white jets spouting from all the scuppers, fore and aft. She made the signal to close. The next, alas! was the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging, the sign of the uttermost distress. Still we all bowled along together, but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man.

“What is that splash?”

It was the larboard-bow long eighteen-pound gun hove overboard, and watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after another, was cast into the sea. The clang of the chain-pumps increased, the water rushed in at one side of the main-deck, and out at the other, in absolute cascades from the ports. At this moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping way with the ship, in the light breeze. Her main-topsail was hove aback, while the captain’s voice resounded through the ship.

“Now, men—all hands—bags and hammocks—starboard watch, the starboard side—larboard watch, the larboard side—no rushing now—she will swim this hour to come.”

The bags, and hammocks, and officers’ kits, were handed into the boats; the men were told off over the side, as quietly by watches as if at muster, the officers last. At length the first lieutenant came down. By this time she was settling perceptibly in the water; but the old captain still stood on the gangway, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in his eyes. He then replaced it, descended, and took his place in the ship’s launch—the last man to leave the ship; and there was little time to spare, for we had scarcely shoved off a few yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she sended forward, heavily and sickly, on the long swell.—She never rose to the opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head. The hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished beneath the dark ocean—I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been drawn down through a trap-door. The topsails next disappeared, the fore-topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the main-topgallant-mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind, flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with—life, like a stream of white fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever. The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.

The captain now stood up in his boat—“Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men, this hint may not be necessary, still it is right you should know it.”

When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the whole fleet. “There she goes, the dear old beauty,” said one of her crew. “There goes the blessed old black b——h,” quoth another. “Ah, many a merry night have we had in the clever little craft,” quoth a third; and there was really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco juice. But the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glasslike surface of the sea where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, with the prospect of a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes for a time, seemed to be uppermost amongst the men. The officers, I saw and knew, felt very differently.

“My eye!” sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, “my eye, what a pity—oh, what a pity!”

Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I.

“My,” said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, “what is can’t be helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, and”—“Old Rayo be d——d, Master Bill,” said the man; “but may I be flogged, if I han’t forgotten half a pound of negro head baccy in Dick Catgut’s bag.”

“Launch ahoy!” hailed a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of us. “Hillo,” responded the coxswain. The poor skipper even pricked up his ears. “Have you got Dick Catgut’s fiddle among ye?” This said Dick Catgut was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun amongst the men. “No, no,” said several voices, “no fiddle here.” The hail passed round among the other boats, “No fiddle.” “I would rather lose three days grog than have his fiddle mislaid,” quoth the man who pulled the bow oar.

“Why don’t you ask Dick himself?” said our coxswain.

“Aye—true enough—Dick, Dick Catgut!” but no one answered. Alas! poor Dick was nowhere to be found; he had been mislaid as well as his fiddle. He had broken into the spirit room, as it turned out, and having got drunk, did not come to time when the frigate sunk.

Our ship, immediately after the frigate’s crew had been bestowed, and the boats got in, hoisted the Commodore’s light, and the following morning we fell in with the Torch, off the east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing the transports safe into Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up through the Gulf, and resumed her cruising ground on the edge of the Gulf stream, between 25 degrees and 30 degrees north latitude.