THE LIVERPOOL BUCCANEERS. 



TOWARDS the close of day, on the 2nd of August, 1819, the pas- 

 sengers and crew of a small English brig, named the Helen, Liver- 

 pool, were enjoying the first breath of a cool light breeze, that had 

 sprung up from the Spanish shore : and which approaching slowly 

 and uninterruptedly, promised relief to the weariness and exhaustion 

 occasioned by twelve hour's calm under a burning sun, between the 

 coasts of Spain and Africa. There is nothing, haply, in the course of 

 a sea life more dispiriting to a sailor, than the monotonous and heavy 

 flapping of the sails against the mast the alternate rolling and pitch- 

 ing of the vessel and the creaking strain of masts and timbers, as 

 she lies a sluggish weight upon the waters: and the veriest landsman 

 may allow that, whatever there be of fearful and perilous in a storm, 

 there is no want of grandeur of effect, or excitement of feeling, so di- 

 rectly the reverse of the sickening tedium of a continued calm. Each 

 motion of the feather-vane, at the bidding of the capricious breeze, 

 was hailed with pleasure by the Helen's crew, and their anxious ob- 

 servation of the dark and distant line that marked the progress of the 

 wind from the north, was only, at times, diverted by the sublime 

 appearance, that the white and lofty range of the Sierra Nevada pre- 

 sented, as the last rays of the setting sun lighted up its summits' 

 while the near and bold promontory of Cape de Gatt, was fast sinking 

 into obscurity, and the various sail they had observed during the day, 

 were one by one lost to view with the exception, however, of a ves- 

 sel of the Helen's size, which, having already caught the breeze, was 

 evidently bearing down, with well-filled sails, in the direction where 

 she lay. 



" Take the glass, Weeks, and examine her well, while light is left 

 us," said Captain Cornish to his mate, after having some time ob- 

 served the stranger, " for I am puzzled what to make of her. In 

 shape, spars and rigging, she is the very counterpart of the American, 

 that spoke us at day-light this morning." 



" Why, captain, the brig bearing down on us, has quarter badges 

 and a billet-head, which the yankee had not:" answered the mate, as 

 he still intently observed her : " she shews a gun too, at the larboard 

 bow, and yet it is neither more or less than the American. One can 

 tell her, amongst ten thousand, by the raking of her masts, although 

 she is somewhat disguised since she spoke us, and has a wickeder 

 look." 



" Humph !" said Cornish, as he paced the deck, keeping his eyes 

 fixed on the now fast approaching vessel "There is something 

 strange in all this : and were we not, in the very highway of trade, 

 and far within the straits, I should not feel quite at ease. As for the 

 news of war, being declared by the United States against Great Bri- 

 tain, which the captain reported as having had place, before he left 

 Boston, two and twenty days since, it can be mere yankee invention : 

 yet there is something ugly in it altogether: and I would give no 



