nk, from our past experience, that we ought
to take at least one prize every day, were beginning to grumble at our
ill-luck. Great, therefore, was their enthusiasm when, on the following
day,--the breeze being fresh at about north-north-west, and the time
about five bells in the forenoon watch,--a large ship was seen to emerge
from behind Chien Point, then about eight miles distant, a couple of
points on our lee bow. She was coming along under larboard studding-
sails. It was my watch on deck, and upon the ship being reported to me
I took the glass, and at once went up to the fore-cross-trees to get a
better look at her. So far as I could make out she was full-rigged; she
floated very deep in the water; and the exceeding whiteness of her sails
caused me to suspect that she was homeward-bound from a long voyage.
She had somewhat the look of a Dutchman, to my eye, and if so she would
probably afford very respectable pickings to a crew of hard-working
privateersmen like ourselves. When first seen she was steering a course
that would lead her about mid-way between the islands of Jersey and
Guernsey; but before I returned to the deck it seemed to me that she had
hauled up a point or two, and had braced her yards correspondingly
further forward. Our game, of course, was to get between her and the
land, if possible, before declaring ourselves, so that, if she happened
to be what I suspected, she might be prevented from running in and
taking shelter under the guns of one of the numerous batteries which the
French had thrown up all along the coast, to cut her out from which
might involve us in a heavy loss of men. I therefore gave no order to
make sail, or to alter our course, but at once went down below to the
skipper, who was lying down, his wounded head still troubling him a good
deal, and reported the stranger to him. He immediately followed me on
deck at the news, and took a good long look at the ship through the
telescope; and while he was doing so she took in her studding-sails and
hauled her wind.

"Ah!" remarked the skipper; "they have made us out, and evidently don't
quite like our looks. I suppose her captain thinks that, having hauled
his wind, we shall now make sail in chase of him if we happen to be an
enemy. But I know a trick worth two of that. You did quite right, Mr
Bowen, not to shift your helm. Let him stand on another three miles as
he is going, and then we will show him who and what we are. Just