went flying down through the East Channel at the rate of
full thirteen knots, with our topgallant-sail stowed. (Courtenay, I
ought to have mentioned, sailed on the previous day.) Eight bells in
the afternoon watch saw us drawing well up abreast of Morant Point; and
half an hour later Mr Woodford, the master's mate, who was doing duty
as master, took his departure, and we had fairly entered upon our
cruise.

To merely say that I was delighted with my new command would very
inadequately express my feelings; I was _enchanted_ with her; she worked
like a top, and sailed like a witch; she was as stiff as a church; and
so weatherly, notwithstanding her exceedingly light draught, that
Woodford declared he would be puzzled how to correctly estimate her lee-
way. And last, though not least, she was a superb sea-boat, and dry as
a bone--save for the spray which flew in over her weather cat-head--
notwithstanding her extraordinary speed. The men, too, were in
ecstasies with her, slapping the rail with their hands and crying
enthusiastically, "Go it, old gal!" as she plunged easily into the short
choppy sea and sent the spray and foam hissing and whirling many a
fathom away to leeward and astern of her. Then, too, I had a fairly
good crew, amounting to eighty-six, all told fore and aft, though
several of them were fresh from the hospital. The two midshipmen with
which the admiral had supplied me were quiet, gentlemanly lads, aged
fourteen and thirteen respectively; Woodford, the master's mate, was a
man of about twenty-five, and a first-rate navigator; Sanderson was
again with me as doctor; my old friends Fidd, Tompion, and Pottle
occupied the same position on board the _Dolphin_ that they had held on
board the _Foam_; and I had, in addition, a very respectable young man
to perform the duty of purser, and a very handy man--a Swede--as
carpenter.

As I walked the deck that evening chatting gaily with Woodford and
Sanderson I felt, it must be confessed, intensely proud of my position.
And was not the feeling pardonable? There was I, a lad who had still to
see his eighteenth birthday, intrusted with the absolute command of a
vessel so powerful and with so numerous a crew that many a poor hard-
working third lieutenant would have looked upon it as promotion had he
been placed in my shoes, and with the destinies of nearly a hundred of
my fellow-beings in my hands. And to this responsible position I had
attained not through the