big ship hove in sight, standing directly across
our course. The people on board the Honduras ship had told us that a
few days before they fell in with us, they had spoken an outward-bound
brig, from which they gained the news that war had broken out between
England and France and Spain. We made out the stranger to be a heavy
frigate, but as she showed no colours, to what nation she belonged we
could not tell. Some on board thought we ought to haul our wind on the
opposite tack to that she was on, so as to avoid her altogether. She
was standing with her head to the north. Our captain soon after gave
the order to brace up the yards on the larboard tack, hoping to run into
Mount's Bay or Falmouth harbour. We soon had proof that those on board
the frigate had their eyes on us. The smoke of a gun was seen to issue
from one of her bow ports, as a sign for us to heave-to, but the captain
thought he should first like to try the fleetness of his heels before he
gave in. So we continued our course to the northward. The frigate on
this braced her yards sharp up, and showed that she was not going to
allow us to escape her, and, by the way she walked along, we soon saw
that we should without fail become her prize.

All the men who had got two suits of clothes went and put them on, and
stowed away all their money and valuables in their pockets, and we all
of us began to think how we should like to see the inside of a Spanish
or French prison. For my part, I had heard such stories about the
cruelty of the Spaniards and French that I began to wish I was back
again on the raft in the middle of the Atlantic. One thing is
certain,--there is nothing harder than to become a prisoner at the
beginning of a war, to an enemy who hates you, with very little prospect
of being exchanged. All the glasses in the ship were turned towards the
frigate as she drew near, to try and make out what she was. Presently
she fired another gun across our bows, and this time she was within shot
of us, and at the same moment up went the British ensign. Seeing that
there was no chance of escape, our captain hove-to. I thought that as
she was an English ship, all was right, and could not make out the
reason of the agitation some of the older hands were in. In a quarter
of an hour or so, a boat with a lieutenant and a pretty strongly armed
crew came alongside. As he stepped on board, he went up to the captain
and told him about the war, and asked wh