e
war was inducing the running ships to collect in convoys, and that his
orders carried him too far north to permit his falling in with the
Americans, bound to and from Liverpool. Whatever may have been the reason,
however, the result was the same to us. After the gale of the equinox, the
Briton stood to the southward, as far as Madeira, such a change of ground
being included in her instructions; and thence, after cruising three weeks
in the neighbourhood of that island, she shaped her course for Plymouth.
In the whole, the frigate had, at that time, brought-to and boarded some
thirty sail, all of whom were neutrals, and not one of whom was bound to a
port that would do us any good. The ship's water getting low, we were now
compelled to go in, and, as has been said, we made sail to the northward.
The afternoon of the very day the Briton left her second cruising ground,
a strange ship was seen directly on our course, which was pronounced to be
a frigate, before the sun set.

The Briton manoeuvred all night to close with the stranger, and with
success, as he was only a league distant, and a very little to windward of
her, when I went on deck early the next morning. I found the ship clear
for action, and a degree of animation pervading the vessel, that I had
never before witnessed. The people were piped to breakfast just as I
approached the captain to salute him with a 'good morning.'

"Good morning to you, Wallingford," cried the old man, in a cheerful way;
"you are just in time to take a look at yonder Frenchman in his glory. Two
hours hence I hope he'll not appear quite as much of a beau as he is a'
this moment. She's a noble craft, is she not, and quite of our
own force."

"As for the last, sir," I answered, "there does not seem much to
choose--she is what you call a thirty-eight, and mounts fifty guns, I dare
say. Is she certainly French?"

"As certainly as this ship is English. She can do nothing with our
signals, and her rig is a character for her. Whoever saw an Englishman
with such royal-masts and yards? So, Master Wallingford, you must consent
to take your breakfast an hour earlier than common, or go without it,
altogether. Ah--here is the steward to say it waits for us."

I followed Captain Rowley to the cabin, where I found he had sent for
Marble, to share our meal. The kind-hearted old gentleman seemed desirous
of adding this act of civility to the hundred others that he had already
shown us. I had receiv