afterwards became notorious, on the
American coast, in consequence of a man killed in a coaster by one of her
shot, within twenty miles of the spot where I now saw her; an event that
had its share in awakening the feeling that produced the war of 1812; a
war of which the effects are just beginning to be made manifest in the
policy of the republic: a fact, by-the-way, that is little understood, at
home or abroad. The Leander was a fast ship of her kind, but the Dawn was
a fast ship of any kind; and I had great faith in her. It is true, the
fifty had the advantage of the wind; but she was a long way off, well to
the southward, and might have something in sight that could not be seen
even from our top-gallant yards, whither Neb was sent to take a look at
the horizon.

Our plan was soon laid. The south side of Long Island trending a little to
the north of east, I ordered the ship to be steered east by south, which,
with the wind at south-south-west, gave me an opportunity to carry all
our studding-sails. The soundings were as regular as the ascent on the
roof of a shed, or on that of a graded lawn; and the land in sight less
than two leagues distant. In this manner we ran down the coast, with about
six knots' way on the ship, as soon as we got from under the Jersey shore.

In less than an hour, or when we were about four leagues from Sandy Hook
Light, the Englishman wore short round, and made sail to cut us off. By
this time, he was just forward of our weather beam, a position that did
not enable him to carry studding-sails on both sides; for, had he kept off
enough for this, he would have fallen into our wake; while, by edging away
to close with us, his after-sails becalmed the forward, and this at the
moment when every thing of ours pulled like a team of well-broken
cart-horses. Notwithstanding all this, we had a nervous afternoon's and
night's work of it. These old fifties are great travellers off the wind;
and more than once I fancied the Leander was going to lay across my bows,
as she did athwart those of the Frenchman, at the Nile. The Dawn, however,
was not idle, and, as the wind stood all that day, throughout the night,
and was fresher, though more to the southward, than it had hitherto been,
next morning, I had the satisfaction of seeing Montauk a little on my
lee-bow, at sunrise, while my pursuer was still out of gun-shot on my
weather beam.

Marble and I now held a consultation on the subject of the best mode of