rried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter the
position of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing them
more toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-
nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weight
from the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of her
broadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine from
forward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.

These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject,
and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked.
There had been some little talk about increasing the height of her
bulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it would
certainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, graceful
appearance.

It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposed
alterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returning
to my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. On
the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and as
I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier
little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft,
and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely
necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though
light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she
had been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the week
and were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in the
brilliant sunshine, white as snow.

Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, and
above this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour being
relieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was a
fancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war as
possible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for her
destined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet his
wishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull and
rigging, more like a yacht than anything else.

On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on the
day after I called at the admiral's office for my instructions, joined
the ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in,
proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among th