othing. We received his Majesty with all the honours
we were able to pay him, by manning yards and firing a salute of
twenty-one guns. We had also a feast spread for his entertainment, with
an abundance of liquor, which he seemed to consider much more to the
purpose. He and his chiefs indulged very freely in the potent beverages
placed before them, and at length they returned on shore, highly
delighted with the entertainment, vowing eternal friendship to England,
and excessively drunk. The accounts of the atrocities committed by the
Spaniards, which we had just received, induced Captains Packenham and
Dalrymple to come to the resolution of making an attack on one of their
settlements. We accordingly beat up for volunteers, and in a very short
time collected a hundred Indians and Black River volunteers, under the
command of an Indian general named Tempest. Having embarked our army,
we sailed on the 6th of October from the Mosquito shore with light
westerly winds. On the next day three strange sail were seen from the
mast-head to the northward. They very soon also discovered us, and made
all sail in chase.

"Are they friends or foes?" was the question we asked each other.

Captain Packenham was not a man to run away from either one or the
other, so we backed our main-topsail, and lay-to for them. We watched
them with no little anxiety till they drew near. I forgot to say that
my old friend O'Driscoll had joined the ship as a supernumerary, and
that I had once more with me my faithful companions in many an
adventure, Nol Grampus and Tom Rockets. Nol did not look a day older
than when I first came to sea. Rockets was now grown into as stout,
active and strong a seaman as any in his Majesty's service. I could not
so often have a yarn with my old followers as I used to when I was a
midshipman, but I frequently exchanged words with them, and never failed
to take them on any expedition on which I was sent.

"I hopes as how them strangers are friends, old ship," I heard Tom
remark to Grampus. "Three to one is long odds if they ain't, and I
suppose our captain intends to fight, as he don't seem inclined to run.
I only hopes as how he will fight, and sink rather than give in. I've
no fancy to be made prisoner, and to be kept on short commons among
blackamoors, as we was at Ou Trou."

"No fear, my boy," answered Grampus. "Our skipper has got some dodge or
other in his brain-box, and depend on it he'll make the `P