table. I gave him an outline of what had
happened to us, not deeming it necessary to relate the affair with the
Speedy, however; simply mentioning the manner in which we had escaped from
a French privateer, and leaving him to infer, should he see fit, that the
rest of our crew had been carried away on that occasion. My reserve on the
subject of the other capture, the reader will at once see, was merely a
necessary piece of prudent caution.

Captain Rowley had no sooner heard my story, which I made as short as
possible, knowing that Marble and Neb had been cautioned on the subject,
than he again took my hand, and welcomed me to his ship. The mate was sent
into the gun-room, and recommended to the hospitality of the lieutenants;
while Neb was placed in the care of the cabin servants. A short
consultation was then held about the boat, which it was decided must be
sent adrift, after its effects were passed out of it; the Briton having no
use for such a launch, nor any place to stow it. I stood at the gangway,
and looked with a melancholy eye at this last remnant of the Dawn that I
ever beheld: a large eighty thousand dollars of my property vanishing from
the earth, in the loss of that ship and her cargo.

Chapter XXIV.

Some shout at victory's loud acclaim,
Some fall that victory to assure,
But time divulges that in name,
Alone, our triumphs are secure.

Duo.

The Briton had come out of the Cove of Cork, only a few days before, and
was bound on service, with orders to run off to the westward, a few
hundred miles, and to cruise three months in a latitude that might cover
the homeward-bound running ships, from the American provinces, of which
there were many in that early period of the war. This was not agreeable
news to us, who had hoped to be landed somewhere immediately, and who had
thought, at first, on seeing the ship carrying a press of sail to the
westward that she might be going to Halifax. There was no remedy, however,
and we were fain to make the best of circumstances. Captain Rowley
promised to put us on board the first vessel that offered, and that was as
much as we had a right, to ask of him.

More than two months passed without the Briton's speaking, or even seeing
a single sail! To these vicissitudes is the seaman subject; at one time he
is in the midst of craft, at another the ocean seems deserted to himself
alone. Captain Rowley ascribed this want of success to the fact that th