e St Vincent.

The second night after this, we had the middle watch, and I claimed
Swinburne's promise that he would spin his yarn, relative to the battle
of St Vincent. "Well, Mr Simple, so I will; but I require a little
priming, or I shall never go off."

"Will you have your glass of grog before or after?"

"Before, by all means, if you please, sir. Run down and get it, and I'll
heave the log for you in the meantime, when we shall have a good hour
without interruption, for the sea-breeze will be steady, and we are
under easy sail." I brought up a stiff glass of grog, which Swinburne
tossed off, and as he finished it, sighed deeply as if in sorrow that
there was no more. Having stowed away the tumbler in one of the capstern
holes for the present, we sat down upon a coil of ropes under the
weather bulwarks, and Swinburne, replacing his quid of tobacco,
commenced as follows--

"Well, Mr Simple, as I told you before, old Jervis started with all his
fleet for Cape St Vincent. We lost one of our fleet--and a three-decker
too--the _St George_; she took the ground, and was obliged to go back to
Lisbon; but we soon afterwards were joined by five sail of the line,
sent out from England, so that we mustered fifteen sail in all. We had
like to lose another of our mess, for d'ye see, the old _Culloden_ and
_Colossus_ fell foul of each other, and the _Culloden_ had the worst on
it; but Troubridge, who commanded her, was not a man to shy his work,
and ax to go in to refit, when there was a chance of meeting the enemy--
so he patched her up somehow or another, and reported himself ready for
action the very next day. Ready for action he always was, that's sure
enough, but whether his ship was in a fit state to go into action is
quite another thing. But as the sailors used to say in joking, he was a
_true bridge_, and you might trust to him; which meant as much as to
say, that he knew how to take his ship into action, and how to fight her
when he was fairly in it. I think it was the next day that Cockburn
joined us in the _Minerve_, and he brought Nelson along with him with
the intelligence that the Dons had chased him, and that the whole
Spanish fleet was out in pursuit of us. Well, Mr Simple, you may guess
we were not a little happy in the _Captain_, when Nelson joined us, as
we knew that if he fell in with the Spaniards our ship would cut a
figure--and so she did sure enough. That was on the morning of the 13th,
and old Jervis