ears, though
he was still a young man. He had dark, strongly-marked features,
somewhat perhaps of a Jewish cast, with large black whiskers, and was
powerfully built. He was greatly respected on board, as he was known to
be a good seaman and a determined character, but my father used to say
there was something about him he could not exactly make out. He messed
with the officers, for he was perfectly the gentleman, and possessed of
a large amount of information, especially respecting that part of the
world. I rather think that it was he who suggested the plan of
operations we were now carrying out. Captain Cobb himself, having once
spent some time in France as a prisoner, spoke French sufficiently well
to deceive a Spaniard at all events, though I suspect a Frenchman would
soon have detected him. Several of our men also had been in French
prisons, or had lived among Frenchmen, and if they could not speak the
language grammatically, they could at all events imitate the sounds of a
party of Frenchmen talking together. The uniform of the officers did
not differ much from those of the French, while such alterations as were
necessary were speedily made. It was a great source of amusement to the
men to see the officers who were about to act in the proposed drama
going through their parts, Captain Cobb flourishing his hat with the air
of a Frenchman, and uttering the expressions with which he proposed to
greet his visitors.

"I wonder whether we shall bamboozle the Dons," observed Toby Kiddle,
who, holding me in his arms, formed one of a group of seamen collected
on the forecastle.

"No fear of that, Toby," observed Pat Brady. "If they once think we are
Frenchmen, they are such conceited fellows that they will never find out
that they are wrong."

Onward we stood, till soon after breakfast we opened the ships in Cavite
Road. The glasses of all the officers were pointed in that direction,
when they made out three sail of the line and three frigates--tolerable
odds against us, it might be supposed; but they could not do us any harm
then, because four of them were without masts and the other two had only
their lower masts in, and no yards across. We, therefore, if we could
get possession of the gunboats, should be at liberty to commit any
mischief we chose along the coast. Three gunboats, at all events, were
likely soon to give us an opportunity of having something to say to
them. The wind was so light that we made