. Meanwhile, Captain Caulfield, looking over the back of the
culprit, and viewing the supineness of the men, who were totally
regardless of his repeated injunctions to veer the cable _quickly_,
began to be indignant; and when the master repeated, "If you do not
veer away at once, we shall lose the bowsprit and all the masts," he
called to the officers in the waist "to start the rascals down to the
cable:" but, as it may be supposed, their unarmed endeavours would not
have been successful, had he not, as the crisis approached, jumped
down himself among the men, and, with the end of the thickest rope he
could find, become the transgressor of his own laws, of the absurdity
of which he was now so fully convinced, that he acknowledged he was
wrong, and completely reversed his system.

No ship ever had a more narrow escape of being wrecked; the prize
drifted so close to the Grampus as to carry away her spritsail yard,
and, drifting on the rocks, about three cables' length astern, was
totally lost, and every man perished, among whom were a midshipman and
four of the Grampus's crew. Had the prize, which was a large Dutch
ship, came athwart-hawse of the Grampus, both, instead of one, would
have been wrecked. No alternative was therefore left to Captain
Caulfield but the rope's end, which he employed in violation of his
own rules of discipline.

Sir James was extremely averse to innovations of this kind, and he
took occasion to point out the propriety of officers being supported
in the execution of their duty, and the danger of interfering with the
excellent laws enacted for the government of the navy.

In the Grampus, Sir James visited the island of Jersey, and, after
cruising to examine the coast of France adjacent to the islands, he
returned to Guernsey; soon after which, the Grampus, being a new ship,
was selected to convoy the East India fleet, and was relieved by the
Diomede of fifty guns, Captain Thomas Larcom, on board which ship the
flag was shifted, on the 19th of June, 1803.

As the summer advanced, the preparations of the enemy became more
formidable, and the island was minutely examined by Sir James. The
following anecdote may serve to prove how much officers may be
mistaken as to the natural defences of a sea-coast.

Some differences of opinion having arisen respecting the possibility
of the enemy landing on the south side of Guernsey, where the land is
high, it was proposed to put the question to the test by a