exuberance of their spirits.
I thought if I could now but jump overboard with something to float me
till she came up, and then I would climb up her side, and say that I had
come to join them. Still, when I thought again, I knew that she was not
likely, even if I was seen, to heave-to to pick me up, and I abandoned
the idea as too hazardous. As the frigate got up to them, the two
French ships let fall their canvas, and began to manoeuvre to gain the
weather-gage; but she was too quick for them, and getting up to the
corvette first, gave her such a dose from her broadside as must have
made the Frenchmen dance to a double-quick tune. Our captain's object
was to land his passengers, so of course he could not stop to see the
result of the action. As we ran out of sight, all three ships were
hotly engaged. "Well, if there's one man on board who will do his duty,
and show what real Englishmen are made of, its Joe Merton," I said to
myself.

For some time after nightfall I could hear the sound of their guns borne
over the calm waters, and then all was silent, and we continued our
course to the French coast. Two days after this we were again chased by
an English sloop of war; but the _Skylark_ showed a faster pair of heels
than she did, and we ran her out of sight. At length, after being
chased away from various ports, we entered the mouth of the Gironde
river in France, which runs down from Bordeaux. We were some days
getting up to Bordeaux, where we landed Don Longwhiskerandos and his
black slave and all his property, and hoped to get a return cargo. But
there were no freights to be had; so, as the Don described the schooner
as being a very fast craft, the French Government offered a large sum
for her, which our captain was too glad to accept. The mates and crew
accordingly received their wages, and we were all turned adrift. Now I
found that there was a great chance of my being in a much worse
condition than ever. Of course I hailed as an American, and if the
police had found me on shore without a ship, I should have been seized
and sent to serve on board a French man-of-war. On every account I must
avoid that, I felt. In the first place, I did not wish to serve with
Frenchmen; and in the second, had any ship I might have been in been
captured, I should have been looked upon as a deserter and a traitor,
and very likely shot.

La Motte, as an English subject, was in the same condition, except that
he had never