NIGHTS IN THE GALLEY. 167 



give him double next time. ' Well, lads, soon after this we got our 

 orders to go and cruise in the Channel ; so hands up anchor away 

 we went. After knocking about in a gale of wind for three days, 

 looking out for the Mounseers, our masthead-man saw something 

 right a-head looming like Beachy Head in a fog. ' Turn the hands 

 up make sail ' we had been going before the wind under easy sail. 

 ' Topmen aloft, shake out all reefs man the top-gallant and royal 

 haulyards trice your staysails up lower topmast and top-gallant 

 stunsails ' (studding sails). Every stitch of canvas was clapt on her 

 before you could say Jack Robinson, 'cause we had a smart ship's 

 company, I can tell you that, lads. In about an hour we overhauled 

 her like the devil, and could see her hull ; she was a French 18 ; di- 

 rectly she saw us, she hauled her wind to get the weather-gage of us, but 

 we warn't to be done that way ; so we in with our staysails, stunsails, 

 and royals, and came to the wind well ; then we was to windward of 

 her, o' course, and we kept running along, looking at each other that 

 way for some time, while we were getting ready, and then up comes 

 the skipper, and tells the first-leaftenant to bear away two points, to 

 close with her, and just as he had piped sail-trimmers aft to trim 

 sails, the captain, looking at the hammocks, as he often did, says 

 ' Oh ! oh ! I see lots of slack lashings I'll have a nice flogging 

 match when I've taken that brig ;' so he goes round, and whenever 

 he found a lashing that was slack enough for him to get his fingers 

 in, he made a midshipman take down the numbers, and when he had 

 got about twenty of them, he said, ' Now, my lads, I'll just take that 

 brig, and then I'll give each of these here fellers five dozen.' Well, 

 you know, this was quite disheartening, and it lasted so long the 

 men were reglarly pauled. The serjeant of marines had been 

 bully'd by the skipper, and he had been heard to swear he would 

 be revenged. Just as we was all ready, and getting very close 

 alongside o' her, the skipper sings out ' Why don't you hand the 

 cartridges up ?' f Can't find the key of the magazine.' ' Send the 

 serjeant here.' Whiz whiz came shot after shot, and cut away 

 our foretopsail haulyards ; down came the topsails, and we had no 

 cartridges on deck. When the serjeant came up, the skipper asks 

 him ' where the key of the magazine was?' 'I've thrown it over- 

 board, Sir,' says he, ' and I hope you will be taken, and rot in a 

 French prison.' ' Break open the door immediately put that black- 

 guard in irons !' By this time the door was broken open, and we 

 began to load, but not afore our jib and foretopmast staysail haul- 

 yards was cut through, and the ship having no head-sail, luffed right 

 up in the wind, and the Frenchman raked us fore and aft. There 

 was the captain, swearing like a devil that he'd never give in, and at 

 last we managed, somehow or another, to lash their jib-boom to our 

 mizen-mast. The serjeant was still standing on deck ; nobody had 

 time to pay any attention to him, when the captain turned round, 

 and happened to see him : ' Put that blackguard in irons,' says the 

 captain. ' Hadn't you better wait till the action's over, Sir,' says the 

 first-leaftenant. ' No, no down with him !' so up comes a couple 

 of marines to take him below, when whiz came a shot, and sent all 

 his brains over the skipper and first-leaftenant. Well, all this time 



