for the purpose of taking her.
They engaged her furiously for three hours off the island of Cyprus,
when the large ship was run ashore and her crew fled up the country.
The _Fame's_ crew then boarded and brought her off.

By an Act of Parliament passed this year, every ship in Great Britain or
his majesty's plantations in North America was compelled on first going
to sea to be furnished with a complete suit of sails, made of sail-cloth
manufactured in Great Britain, under a penalty of fifty pounds. It was
also enacted that every sail-maker in Britain or the plantations shall
on every new sail affix in letters and words at length his name and
place of abode, under a penalty of ten pounds.

By an order in council dated the 10th of February, 1747, established
rank was first given to the officers in the Royal Navy, and a uniform
clothing appointed to be worn by admirals, captains, lieutenants, and
midshipmen. Hitherto they had dressed much as suited their fancy. The
crew of a man-of-war must have looked more like a band of pirates than a
well-ordered ship's company of the present day. Even in later days
midshipmen sometimes appeared on the deck of a man-of-war in rather
extraordinary costume, as the following account, taken from the journal
of an old admiral, will show.

"As we midshipmen met on board the cutter which was to carry us to
Plymouth, we were not, I will allow, altogether satisfied with our
personal appearance, and still less so when we stepped on the
quarter-deck of the seventy-four, commanded by one of the proudest and
most punctilious men in the service, surrounded by a body of
well-dressed, dashing-looking officers. Tom Peard first advanced as
chief and oldest of our gang, with a bob-wig on his head, surmounted by
a high hat bound by narrow gold lace, white lapels to his coat, a white
waistcoat, and light blue inexpressibles with midshipman's buttons. By
his side hung a large brass-mounted hanger, while his legs were encased
in a huge pair of waterproof boots. I followed next, habited in a coat
`all sides radius,' as old Allen, my schoolmaster, would have said, the
skirt actually sweeping the deck, and so wide that it would button down
to the very bottom--my white cuffs reaching half-way up the arm to the
elbow. My waistcoat, which was of the same snowy hue, reached to my
knees, but was fortunately concealed from sight by the ample folds of my
coat, as were also my small clothes. I had on white-th