theirs, I did not
venture to tell my two friends what I had witnessed, nor trust myself to
speak on a subject where my feelings might have betrayed me into
unseemly expressions of my hopes. I was glad to find that they knew
nothing of the matter, and talked away indifferently of other subjects.
By daybreak, the next morning, I was at my post, a sharp nor'wester
blowing, and a heavy sea rolling in from the Atlantic. Instinctively
carrying my eyes to the spot where I had heard the cannonnade, I could
distinctly see the tops of spars, as if the upper rigging of some
vessels, beyond the horizon. Gradually they rose higher and higher, till
I could detect the yard-arms and cross-trees, and finally the great
hulls of five vessels that were bearing toward me.

For above an hour I could see their every movement, as with all canvas
spread they held on majestically toward the land, when at length a lofty
promontory of the bay intervened, and they were lost to my view. I
jumped to my legs at once, and set off down the cliff to reach the
headland, from whence an uninterrupted prospect extended. The distance
was greater than I had supposed, and in my eagerness to take a direct
line to it, I got entangled in difficult gorges among the hills, and
impeded by mountain torrents which often compelled me to go back a
considerable distance; it was already late in the afternoon as I gained
the crest of a ridge over the Bay of Lough Swilly. Beneath me lay the
calm surface of the lough, landlocked and still; but further out,
seaward, there was a sight that made my very limbs tremble, and sickened
my heart as I beheld it. There was a large frigate, that, with
studding-sails set, stood boldly up the bay, followed by a dismasted
three-decker, at whose mizen floated the ensign of England over the
French "tri-color." Several other vessels were grouped about the offing,
all of them displaying English colors.

The dreadful secret was out. There had been a tremendous sea fight, and
the Hoche, of seventy-four guns, was the sad spectacle which, with
shattered sides and ragged rigging, I now beheld entering the Bay. Oh,
the humiliation of that sight! I can never forget it. And although on
all the surrounding hills scarcely fifty country people were assembled,
I felt as if the whole of Europe were spectators of our defeat. The flag
I had always believed triumphant now hung ignominiously beneath the
ensign of the enemy, and the decks of our noble ship wer