finding that he too had small chance of employment, went up to
Edinburgh and worked hard at the university there until war broke out
again in 1803, when he applied for a ship, and obtained, after a threat to
retire altogether from the service, the command of an old brig. That was
one of the many old craft purchased from men of influence in exchange for
their votes.

"She had been used as a collier, and was unable to sail against the wind.
Cochrane was ordered to watch Boulogne, but in a short time he found that
if a wind on-shore sprung up nothing could save the ship. He reported this
to the admiral, and orders were then sent to him to cruise north of the
Orkneys to protect the fisheries. There were no fisheries to protect, and
the order was simply a sentence of exile. He remained here for nearly
fifteen months, and during the whole of that time not so much as a single
ship was ever seen from the masthead. He returned to England on the 1st of
December, 1804, and found that Lord St. Vincent had just been compelled to
retire from the admiralty. Cochrane's claims were urged by his friends on
Lord Melville, his successor, and with such force that he was transferred
to the _Pallas_, a new thirty-two gun frigate."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BASQUE ROADS.

A few days afterwards the lieutenant said, "Now, Stephen, as you have
nothing to do this evening I will go on with my yarn. Lord Cochrane had
not forgotten me, and on the day that he was appointed to the _Pallas_ he
wrote to me saying that he had applied for me as second lieutenant, and
that Lord Melville had promised to appoint me. Two days later I got the
official appointment with orders to join at once. I found Cochrane in a
very bad temper. He said, 'What do you think, Embleton, that confounded
cruise of mine in the _Arab_ has ruined me in the opinion of the sailors.
Why, if I had been appointed to a hundred-gun ship on the day when we
returned together after the loss of the _Speedy_, I could have got
volunteers enough for her in twenty-four hours. Now the dismal tale told
by the crew of the _Arab_ of our exile in the North Sea, and the fear, no
doubt, that I am going to be sent off to some similar station, has so
frightened them that I have not had half a dozen men apply, and I actually
shall have to impress a crew.'

"'I expect, sir,' I said, 'that when we get hold of a few prime seamen,
and I tell them