.
This, of course, was all very well; and would do no harm whatever _if_
the rascals only adhered to their agreement; but of this I confess I
felt somewhat doubtful. The mischief, however, if mischief there were,
was done, and it was therefore no use to worry about it; but I saw that
it would need even greater circumspection than ever in the carrying out
of our difficult enterprise, and for that, heaven knows, the necessity
ought never to have been created.

Our palaver over, we all adjourned to the deck, and from, thence into
the gig, which had been ordered alongside to convey us on shore to the
dockyard. We took advantage of this opportunity to make a thorough
inspection of the outward appearance of the craft which was to be our
future home; and, so far as I at least was concerned, I cannot say that
the impression produced was an altogether satisfactory one. In the
first place, the _Foam_ was, to my mind, rather small for the work she
had to do, measuring only eighty tons register. She was, it is true, a
very fine beamy little vessel for her size, of shallow draught of water,
with sides as round as an apple, and beautifully moulded; indeed, I
judged, from the look of her, that she had evidently been specially
built for privateering purposes, her carrying capacity being very small,
whilst no effort seemed to have been spared to render her exceedingly
fast and stiff under her canvas. She was very strongly built of oak,
with massive timbers, copper fastened throughout, and heavily coppered
up to her bends; so that, as far as her hull was concerned, there was
not much, beyond its size, to find fault with. But, in the matter of
spars and rigging, those heathens the dockyard riggers had completely
ruined her, as O'Flaherty admitted, almost with tears in his eyes. Her
lower masts had been left in her intact and untouched, as they had been
when she first fell into our hands, and two handsomer sticks I never
saw; but, in place of the tall slim willowy topmasts which she then
carried, they had sent up a couple of heavy, clumsy sticks which, with
the yards on her foremast, were stout enough for a vessel of at least
twice her tonnage. And, not content with this, they had further
hampered the poor little craft with a regular maze of heavy shrouds,
stays, and back-stays, all of which had been set up until they were as
taut as harp-strings; so that we had only too much reason to fear that,
in a fresh breeze and a choppy sea,