el, hard-hearted despots they were.

The day after our arrival at Cork we once more weighed and stood out of
the harbour with the Bienfaisant, Captain McBride, having under our
charge about seventy sail of victuallers bound for America. That ship
and the Licorne had orders to escort us sixty leagues to the westward.
We lay-to all night outside the harbour, waiting for the rest of the
squadron to join us, which the Licorne and Hussar had been directed to
bring up. We had drifted pretty well down to the old Head of Kinsale
when, as the morning of the 13th of August broke upon us, we saw
standing right into the fleet a large two-decked ship.

"If that fellow is an enemy he certainly does not seem to know what he
is about," observed Mr Edwards to me. "Does he expect to carry off
some of our flock without our even barking at him? But see, Captain
McBride is speaking us. What does he say?"

The signal midshipman on duty replied that he was ordering us to come
within hail. We accordingly made sail towards the Bienfaisant, when
Captain McBride directed us to join with him in chasing the stranger.
Not till then apparently did she make us out from among the fleet of
vessels crowding round us, shrouded, as we were, with the grey mists of
the morning. We were all scrutinising her through our glasses, for it
was still very uncertain what she might prove. Even when we stood out
from among the fleet of merchantmen she gave no signs of any strong
disposition to evade us, but steadily continued her course.

"She must be some English privateer. No Frenchman with a head on his
shoulders would run it so near the lion's den," remarked Edwards.

"Faith, then, I don't believe he's got a head on his shoulders. That's
a French ship, depend on it," observed O'Driscoll.

Some time longer passed before we got near the chase, for the wind was
light. At half-past seven, to our great satisfaction, we saw her
shorten sail and get ready, it appeared, to receive us. On this the
Bienfaisant hoisted her colours and fired a shot ahead of her. We also
hoisted our colours. The chase on this hoisted a blue ensign and
hove-to with main-topsail to the mast. On our getting within hail of
her, we and the Bienfaisant did the same, when Captain McBride spoke her
and inquired her name.

"HMS `Romney,'" was the answer. "Last from Lisbon."

"I told you so," observed Mr Edwards, when the words reached us.
"She's a fifty-gun ship, I know, though