berts as to what was their best plan of
proceeding. It was agreed to haul up for a quarter of an hour, then furl
all, and allow the privateer to pass them. This was put in execution:
the convicts, now that there was no more firing, coming to their
assistance. The next morning the weather proved hazy, and the schooner,
who had evidently crowded sail in pursuit of them, was nowhere to be
seen.

Newton and his crew congratulated themselves upon their escape, and
again shaped their course for the Channel.

The wind would not allow them to keep clear of Ushant; and two days
afterwards they made the French coast near to that island. The next
morning they had a slant of wind, which enabled them to lay her head up
for Plymouth, and anticipated that in another twenty-four hours they
would be in safety. Such, however, was not their good fortune; about
noon a schooner hove in sight to leeward, and it was soon ascertained to
be the same vessel from which they had previously escaped. Before dusk
she was close to them; and Newton, aware of the impossibility of
resistance, hove-to, as a signal of surrender.

Chapter XII

"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
SHAKESPEARE.

As the reader may have before now occasionally heard comments upon the
uncertainty of the moon and of the sea, and also, perhaps of human life,
I shall not venture any further remarks upon the subject; for were they
even new, I should never have the credit of them. This is certain, that
instead of finding themselves, as they anticipated to be in the next
twenty-four hours, safely moored in the port of Plymouth, Newton and his
comrades found themselves, before that time had elapsed, safely locked
up in the prison of Morlaix. But we must not proceed so fast.

Although the _Estelle_ had squared her mainyard as a signal of
submission, the privateer's men, as they ranged their vessel alongside,
thought it advisable to pour in a volley of musketry; this might have
proved serious, had it not been that Newton and his crew were all down
below, hoping to secure a few changes of linen, which, in a prison,
might prove very useful. As it was, their volley only killed the
remaining French prisoner, who remained on deck, over-joyed at the
recapture, and anticipating an immediate return to his own country; by
which it would appear that the "_L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose_" of
France, is quite as sure a proverb as the more homely "Many a slip