influence of powerful friends--for of such I
had none--but solely, as I could not help feeling, through good conduct
and my own unaided exertions, with, of course, the blessing of God,
about which, I am ashamed to say, I thought far too little in those
days. And yet I could not see that I had done anything very
extraordinary; I had simply striven with all my might to do my duty
faithfully and to the best of my ability, keeping my new motto, "For
Love and Honour," ever before my eyes, and lo! my reward had already
come to me, as come it must and will to all who are diligent and
faithful. And if I had succeeded so well in the past, with the limited
advantages which I then possessed, "what," I asked myself, "may I not
achieve with my present means?" I felt that there was scarcely anything
I might not dare and do; and my pulses throbbed and the blood coursed in
a quicker tide through my veins as I told myself that I was now indeed
fairly on the highway toward the achievement of that twofold object to
which I had dedicated my life.

Shortly after taking our departure from Morant Point, as already
recorded, the wind headed us, and the schooner "broke off" until she was
heading about north-east, close-hauled. Notwithstanding this, and the
fact that we had run into a very nasty choppy sea, the log showed that
the _Dolphin_ was going through the water at the rate of eleven knots.
We stood on in the same direction until midnight, when, having brought
the high rocky islet of Navaza far enough on our weather quarter to go
to windward of it on the other tack, we hove about, standing to the
southward and eastward for the remainder of the night. Daylight next
morning found us with Point a Gravois broad on our weather bow and
distant about twenty miles. This was most gratifying, as it showed us
that we had beaten clear across the Windward Channel against a fresh
head-wind in about fourteen hours--a passage almost if not quite
unexampled in point of celerity.

It was my intention to work close along the whole of the southern coast
of Saint Domingo on our eastward passage; and this we did, looking in
first behind the island of a-Vache, where we were lucky enough to descry
a French privateer brigantine snugly anchored under the shelter of a
small battery. As there is nothing like making hay whilst the sun
shines, we at once headed straight for the anchorage, and, trusting to
the extreme roguishness of our own appearance to put ou