rance was not far off. The seventy-four therefore threw
out the signal to bear up and a course was shaped for Plymouth.

A sharp look-out was kept during the night for the _Diana_. Soon after
sunrise she was seen steering for Plymouth, into which harbour Captain
Martin and his gallant crew had the satisfaction of conducting her the
following day. Although it was a day of triumph to the surviving crew,
it was one of mourning to many who had lost relatives and friends. The
dead were carried on shore to be buried, the wounded conveyed to
hospitals, the Frenchmen were landed and marched off under an escort of
marines to the prisons prepared for them, and press-gangs were soon busy
at work to obtain fresh hands to supply the places of those who had
fallen, although many prime seamen volunteered to serve on board a
frigate which had already won a name for herself.

Tom Fletcher, as soon as the ship got into harbour, managed to procure a
pen and some ink and paper, and indited a letter to his father. It was
not over-well written, but he contrived to make it pretty clearly
express that he was serving on board H.M.S. _Thisbe_, and that having
already seen a great deal of service, he felt sure that if his father
would apply to the Admiralty and make him an allowance of thirty or
forty pounds a year, he should be placed on the quarter-deck, and in due
course of time become an admiral.

"We are sure to make lots of prize-money," he added; "and if I were a
midshipman now, I should be receiving a hundred pounds or more, so that
you may be sure, father, that I will pay it all back with interest."

"Father likes interest," he observed to Bill, who was sitting by him at
the time, and helping him in his somewhat unaccustomed task; "that'll
make him more ready to do what I want, though whether he'll ever get the
money is neither here nor there."

"But if you promise to pay him, you are bound to do so," observed Bill.
"You need not have made the promise, then you could have waited to know
whether he required interest."

"Well, I've written it, and can't scratch it out now," said Tom. "It
will come to the same thing in the end."

Bill had some doubts whether Tom's father would make the allowance Tom
asked for; but if he were a rich man, as Tom asserted, he might do so,
and therefore he said nothing.

The letter, after being folded several times and creased all over, was
at length closed, sealed, and addressed, by which time i