e old course, hoping gradually to close with us, or to draw so
far ahead and to windward, as to make certain of her prey in the morning.

According to our reckoning, the ship was now heading well up towards the
coast of Wales, which we might expect to make in the course of the next
four-and-twenty hours, should the wind stand. I determined, therefore, to
make the best of the matter, and to go directly up the Irish channel,
hoping to fall in with some boat from the north shore, that might not have
as apt intellects on board it, as those of our Scilly pilot had proved to
be. We stood on, consequently, all that day; and another sun set without
our making the land. We saw several vessels at a distance, in the
afternoon; but we were now in a part of the ocean where an American ship
would be as little likely to be disturbed as in any I know. It was the
regular track of vessels bound to Liverpool,--and these last were as
little molested as the want of men would at all permit. Could we get past
that port, we should then be in the way of picking up half a
dozen Irishmen.

Chapter XX.

"Och! botheration--'T is a beautiful coost
All made up of rocks and deep bays;
Ye may sail up and down, a marvellous host,
And admire all its beautiful ways."

Irish Song.

Little did we, or could we, anticipate all that lay before us. The wind
held at north-west until the ship had got within twenty miles of the Welsh
coast; then, it came out light, again, at the southward. We were now so
near Liverpool, that I expected, every hour, to make some American bound
in. None was seen, notwithstanding, and we stood up channel, edging over
towards the Irish coast at the same time, determined to work our way to
the northward as well as we could. This sort of weather continued for two
days and nights, during which we managed to get up as high as Whitehaven,
when the wind came dead ahead, blowing a stiff breeze. I foresaw from the
commencement of this new wind, that it would probably drive us down
channel, and out into the Atlantic once more, unless we could anchor. I
thought I would attempt the last, somewhere under the Irish coast, in the
hope of getting some assistance from among the children of St. Patrick. We
all knew that Irish sailors, half the time, were not very well trained,
but anything that could pull and haul would be invaluable to us, in heavy
weather. We had now been more than a week, four of us in all, working the