anchor, opened her
canvass, shot out of the fleet, hauled by the wind, and followed in the
admiral's wake. So accurate was the course she steered, that, half an
hour after she had braced up, a hawse-bucket, which had been dropped
from the Plantagenet in hauling water, was picked up. We may add, here,
though it will be a little anticipating events, that the Thunderer
followed the Carnatic; the Blenheim the Thunderer; the Achilles the
Blenheim; the Warspite the Achilles; the Dover the Warspite; the York
the Dover; the Elizabeth the York; the Dublin the Elizabeth; and the
Caesar the Dublin. But hours passed before all these ships were in
motion, and hours in which we shall have some occurrences to relate that
took place on shore. Still it will aid the reader in better
understanding the future incidents of our tale, if we describe, at once,
some of the circumstances under which all these ships got in motion.

By the time the Plantagenet's top-sails were beginning to dip from the
cliffs, the Carnatic, the Thunderer, the Blenheim, the Achilles, and the
Warspite were all stretching out in line, with intervals of quite two
leagues between them, under as much canvass as they could now bear. The
admiral had shortened sail the most, and was evidently allowing the
Carnatic to close, most probably on account of the threatening look of
the sky, to windward; while he was suffering the frigate and sloop, the
Chloe and Driver, to pass ahead of him, the one on his weather, and the
other on his lee bow. When the Dover weighed, the admiral's upper sail
was not visible from her tops, though the Warspite's hull had not yet
disappeared from her deck. She left the fleet, or the portions of it
that still remained at anchor, with her fore-course set, and hauled by
the wind, under double-reefed top-sails, a single reef in her main-sail,
and with her main-topgallant sail set over its proper sail. With this
reduced canvass, she started away on the track of her consorts, the
brine foaming under her bows, and with a heel that denoted the heavy
pressure that bore on her sails. By this time, the York was aweigh, the
tide had turned, and it became necessary to fill on the other tack in
order to clear the land to the eastward. This altered the formation, but
we will now revert to the events as they transpired on the shore, with a
view to relate them more in their regular order.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Bluewater must have remained on, or
ab