he
carpenters, plugs for shot-holes; indeed, we all felt that people should
always feel that there was work to do. We had good reason to rejoice
before the cruise was up that we had not been idle.

We reached Plymouth without meeting with an enemy or taking a prize.
What a state of bustle and excitement the place was in!
Carriages-and-four dashing through the streets at all hours of the day;
troops marching here and there, with drums and fifes playing--some
coming in, others embarking for foreign lands; artisans of all sorts
hurrying in, certain to get work at high wages; men-of-war, and
merchantmen, and store-ships, and troop-ships sailing in and out every
day; boats laden with men and chests pulling across the harbour; seamen
crowding every quay; pressgangs at work catching men to fight England's
battles; and then such hurrying to and fro, and shrieking of women, and
shouting of men, and crying of children, and revelling, and laughter,
and scenes of extravagance, and debauchery, and vice I had never before
beheld, and did not think could exist in a civilised part of the globe.

Having refitted with as little delay as possible, and again put to sea,
we found ourselves off the north coast of Spain, far into the Bay of
Biscay. For some time we were employed in looking along the coast of
France, and picking up all the small coasters we could lay eyes on. We
did a great deal of damage to a number of poor people, and taught them
that war was a very disagreeable thing, so that they must heartily have
wished it over, or rather, that it never had begun; but I doubt if we
did ourselves any good in the way of collecting prize-money; at all
events, I know that I never got any. At length, one morning, when we
could just make out the French coast like a thin wavy blue line on the
horizon, beyond which a rich yellow glow was bursting forth, the
forerunner of the glorious sun, a sail was seen, hull down, to the
northward, and apparently standing in on a bowline for the land. The
ship, as was usual when cruising, had been quietly jogging on under her
topsails during the night. "All hands, make sail in chase!" was the
cheerful sound which made us spring on deck to our stations; and in a
few minutes the corvette, with royals and studding-sails alow and aloft,
was kept away after the stranger. The latter, which was pronounced to
be a large topsail schooner, was soon seen to bear up, and to set all
the canvas she could carry, in a