a lee-spanker brail salutes me, not lovingly, across the face.
The captain and officers are viewing the gallant vessel with intense
anxiety, and scrutinising every evolution that she is making. How does
she answer her helm? Beautifully. What leeway does she make? Scarce
perceptible. The log is hove repeatedly,--seven, seven-and-a-half,
close-hauled. Stand by, the captain is going to work her himself. She
advances head to the wind bravely, like a British soldier to the
breach--she is about! she has stayed within her own length--she has not
lost her way! "Noble! excellent!" is the scarcely-suppressed cry; and
then arose, in the minds of that gallant band of officers, visions of an
enemy worthy to cope with; of the successful manoeuvre, the repeated
broadsides, the struggle, and the victory: their lives, their honour,
and the fame of their country, they now willingly repose upon her; she
is at once their home, their field of battle, and their arena of glory.
See how well she behaves against that head sea! There is not a man in
that noble fabric who has not adopted her, who has not a love for her;
they refer all their feelings to her, they rest all their hopes upon
her. The Venetian Doge may wed the sea in his gilded gondola, ermined
nobles may stand near, and jewelled beauty around him--religion, too,
may lend her overpowering solemnities; but all this display could never
equal the enthusiasm of that morning, when above three hundred true
hearts wedded themselves to that beauty of the sea, the _Eos_, as she
worked round the North Foreland into the Downs.

The frigate behaved so admirably in all her evolutions, that, when we
dropped anchor in the roadstead, the captain, to certify his admiration
and pleasure, invited all the ward-room officers to dine with him, as
well as three or four midshipmen, myself among the rest.

It was an animated scene, that dinner-party. The war was then raging.
Several French frigates, of our own size and class, and many much
larger, were wandering on the seas. The republican spirit was blazing
forth in their crews, and ardently we longed to get among them. As yet,
no one knew our destination. We had every stimulant to honourable
excitement, and mystery threw over the whole that absorbing charm that
impels us to love and to woo the unknown.

But this meeting, at first so rational, and then so convivial, at length
permitted its conviviality to destroy its rationality. Men who spok