t drunk, and the other two were so much frightened that they got
sober.

We cleared the wreck as well as we could, got her before the wind
again, and continued on our course. But a British sailor, the most
daring of all men, is likewise the most regardless of warning or of
consequences. The loss of the mainmast, instead of showing my men the
madness of their indulgence in drink, turned the scale the opposite
way. If they could get drunk with two masts, how much more could they
do so with one, when they had only half as much sail to look after?
With such a rule of three, there was no reasoning; and they got drunk,
and continued drunk during the whole passage.

Good luck often attends us when we don't deserve it:

"The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,"

as Dibdin says, had an eye upon us. I knew we could not easily get out
of the Gut of Gibraltar without knowing it; and accordingly, on the
third day after leaving the frigate, we made the rock early in the
morning, and, by two o'clock, rounded Europa Point. I had ordered the
men to bend the cable, and, like many other young officers, fancied it
was done because they said it was, and because I had ordered it.
It never once occurred to me to go and see if my orders had been
executed; indeed, to say the truth, I had quite as much as I could
turn my hand to: I was at the helm from twelve o'clock at night till
six in the morning, looking out for the land; and when I ordered one
of the men to relieve me, I directed him how to steer, and fell into
a profound sleep, which lasted till ten o'clock; after which I was
forced to exert the whole of my ingenuity in order to fetch into the
Bay, and prevent being blown through the Gut; so that the bending of
the cable escaped my memory until the moment I required the use of the
anchor.

As I passed under the stern of one of the ships of war in the Bay,
with my prize colours flying, the officer on deck hailed me, and said
I "had better shorten sail." I thought so too, but how was this to be
done? My whole ship's company were too drunk to do it, and though I
begged for some assistance from his Majesty's ship, it blew so fresh,
and we passed so quick, that they could not hear me, or were not
inclined. Necessity has no law. I saw among the other ships in the bay
a great lump of a transport, and I thought she was much better able to
bear the concussion I intended for her than any other vessel; because
I had heard then, and have b