ture her, and she once nearly fell into the hands of
a Spanish frigate, which had been painted as a merchantman. However, she
opened her ports too soon; and fortunately we were prepared for the
situation. Cochrane had had our craft painted in imitation of a Danish
brig, which was trading on the coast, and whose appearance was familiar to
the Spanish authorities, and a Danish quartermaster had been shipped to
answer inconvenient questions.

"Directly we discovered the real nature of the supposed merchant ship, by
her opening her ports, we ran up Danish colours, and on the ship's name
being demanded gave that of the Danish brig. The Spaniard, however, was
not quite satisfied, and lowered a boat, whereupon we ran up the
quarantine flag, and the Danish quartermaster, on the boat coming within
hail and then stopping at a prudent distance, informed them that he had
come from the African coast, where the plague was at that time raging. The
boat pulled off to the frigate, which at once made sail and left us in
solitude. It was a narrow escape, though possibly we might have made as
good a fight of it as we did afterwards.

"Cruising about we took a considerable number of prizes. Our luck, indeed,
was extraordinary, and we all anticipated that the prize-money would
amount to a large sum. It was on the 4th of May that our first serious
adventure began. We had captured some prizes off Barcelona, and a swarm of
gunboats came out to try to retake them. However, we kept them at bay
until the prizes had got off, and the following night returned to our
station off the town. We found that there was a strict watch being kept
ashore, for the gun-boats at once came out, but when we sailed towards
them they made for the shore, keeping up a fire at us as they retired.

"Again we drew off and again they came out, and twice during the day they
did the same, always returning when we sailed in to meet them. Their fire
was exceedingly accurate, and after each skirmish with them we had to draw
off and repair damages. It seemed to us that there must be some object in
the gun-boats' action, and that they were trying to decoy us to go close
inshore, where some larger ship might be ready to come out against us.
Just before daybreak on the 6th we again ran in towards Barcelona. As we
did so we saw a large ship creeping along under the land, as if making for
the port. We at once sailed to cut her off, when, instead of trying to
avoid us, she changed her