perations.

Among other bellicose incidents that varied the dull monotony of my
life, was the beating off a frigate equal in force to our own; though I
believe that we were a little obliged to her for taking leave of us in a
manner so abrupt, though we could not certainly complain of the want, on
her part, of any attention for the short and busy hour that she stayed
with us, for she assisted us to shift all our topmasts, and as, before
she met us, we had nothing but old sails to display, she considerably
decorated us with a profusion of ribands gaily fluttering about our
lower masts and the topmasts that were still standing gracefully hanging
over our sides.

We were too polite and well-bred not to make some return for all these
_petits soins_. As, between the tropics, the weather is generally very
warm, we evinced a most laudable anxiety that she should be properly
ventilated, so we assiduously began drilling holes through and through
her hull; and, I assure the reader, that we did it in a surpassingly
workmanlike manner. But, in the midst of this spirited exchange of
courtesies, our Gallic friend remembered that he had, or might have,
another _engagement_, so he took his leave; and, as he had given us so
many reasons to prevent our insisting to attend upon him, we parted _en
pleine mer_, leaving us excessively annoyed that we were prevented from
accompanying him any further.

In Captain Reud's despatches he stated, and stated truly, that we beat
him off. Why he went, I could not understand; for, excepting in the
shattered state of her hull, and more particularly in a sad confusion of
her quarter gallery, with her two aftermost main-deck-ports, he sailed
off with her colours flying, and every sail drawing, even to her royals.
But the French used to have their own method of managing these little
matters.

But let us rapidly pass over these follies and hasten to something more
exquisitely foolish. And yet I cannot, I have to clear away many dull
weeds, and tread down many noxious nettles, before I can reach the one
fresh and thornless rose, that bloomed for a short space upon my heart,
and the fragrance of which so intoxicated my senses, that, for a time, I
was under a blessed delusion of believing myself happy.

I had now been two years and a half in the West Indies, and I was fast
approaching my nineteenth year. At this period we had retaken several
English West Indiamen.

In one of these retaken merchant v