hing-boats, an
equestrian statue of that great dethroner, Bonaparte, was to be placed. A
large division of the army of England, as they chose to call themselves,
were encamped round it. We occasionally anchored at Dungeness for a few
hours to procure fresh beef and vegetables. Our cruise was nearly
terminated when the sloop of war, whose captain was senior to myself, made
my signal. On repairing on board her, he informed me that a division of
the flotilla was to run along shore for Cherbourg that night, and that it
was necessary to keep the vessels as close in shore as possible, in order
to intercept them.

I again joined my ship and remained on deck until midnight in the hope of
encountering these bugbears, and making them pay dearly for all the
trouble they had given us; but, alas! how futile is the expectation of
man! I had gone to my cabin and thrown myself on the sofa, and fallen into
a canine slumber--that is, one eye shut and the other open--when I heard a
confused kind of rumbling noise, and soon afterwards the officer of the
watch tumbled down the hatchway and called out to me that the ship was
aground on the French coast, but that the fog, which had come on about an
hour after I quitted the deck, was so dense that the land could not be
seen. I had only taken off my coat and shoes. I was immediately on deck,
where I saw, to my sorrow and amazement, my commanding officer hard and
fast about half pistol-shot from us. I asked the pilots, whose
carelessness had done us this favour, what time of tide it was. "The
infant ebb of the spring," was the comfortable answer. "I wish you were
both hanged," I replied. "So be it," responded the officers. During this
period we were not idle; the boats were got out as well as an anchor
astern, and the sails hove aback, the water started, the pumps set going,
guns thrown overboard over the bows as well as shot, but all our efforts
proved fruitless--you might as well have tried to start the Monument; and,
to conclude this distressing and disastrous scene, a heavy battery began
pouring its shot into the vessel I commanded, she being the nearest, and
the fort not more than an eighth of a mile from us on the edge of a cliff.
A boat came from the sloop to request that I would make preparations to
blow up my vessel and quit her with the crew. "Sooner said than done,"
replied I to the officer sent; "my boats will not carry the whole of us,
and however I may wish to go to heaven in a hurr