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, men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together, I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet--"Silence, men; hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of command!" The effect was magical.--"Brace round the foreyard--round with it; set the jib--that's it--fore-top-mast staysail--haul--never mind if the gale takes it out of the bolt-rope"--a thundering flap, and away it flew in truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.--"Never mind, men, the jib stands. Belay all that--down with the helm, now--don't you see she has stern way yet? Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don't mind your hands, you lubbers--main-topsail sheets let fly--there she pays off, and has headway once more--that's it: right your helm, now--never mind his spanker-boom, the fore-stay will stand it: there--up with helm, sir--we have cleared him--hurrah!" And a near thing it was too, but we soon had everything snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five-Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St. George's Harbour. It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, for that same afternoon one of the most tremendous gales of wind from the westward came on that I ever saw. Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and having good ground-tackle down, we rode it out well enough. The effect was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast-heads, and amongst the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at sea all was white foam, and the tumbling waves seemed to meet from north and south, leaving a space of smooth water under the lee of the island, shaped like the tail of a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening and becoming more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owned allegiance to the genius of the storm. There we rode, with three anchors ahead, in safety through the night; and next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up and anchored off the Tanks. Three days after this, the American frigate _President_ was brought in by the Endymion and the rest of the squadron. I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and certainly I never saw a more superb vessel; her scantling was that of a seventy-four, and she appeared to have been fitt
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