542 The Pressed Man: a Tale of the Coast. [MAY, 



enable him to reach the enemy's ship at a good mile of distance, and 

 through rather a rough sea, was a galley problem. However, the wonder 

 hardly lasted its nine days, when it was swept from every one's remem- 

 brance by the white cliffs of England. The Land's End, the Eddystone, 

 the Needles, successively greeted the seaman's longing eyes ; and at 

 length Portsmouth received the corvette in its spacious harbour. Jack 

 got liberty, the new commander his confirmation of rank, and a speedy 

 commission in the prize he had brought home ; in which he was dis- 

 patched to a new scene, where he was to combat kinsmen-foes who 

 spoke the language of Britain, and turned the arms of bought and paid 

 for traitors against the land which had nursed them. Years again passed 

 away. Washington and New Orleans saw the young commander as 

 enterprising and active at the head of his brigade of seamen on shore 

 as he was seamanlike and daring on the quarter-deck of his sloop at sea. 

 Immediately after the last-named unfortunate expedition, posted for his 

 own personal conduct, and charged with dispatches, he once more turned 

 his prow toward Old England. 



Scarcely had his gallant vessel cleared the Bahamas, when one of 

 those sea-snakes, the prides of America, a long black raking schooner 

 rather above her own force, showed the stripes and stars not three miles 

 on her weather beam. te That's the very article," said the young cap- 

 tain, " I should like to carry with me to England ; but we are no match 

 for her in the legs : master, up helm, and let her count our cabin win- 

 dows : she will follow us hard if we show signs of running, and then, 

 if she scapes our eighteens, we'll forgive her." " Oh ! there she comes, 

 tacks and sheets started already : watch her well, and contrive if you 

 can to let her shoot past us : never mind our raking fire ; once close under 

 our lee, she's ours if guns or boarding pikes can buy her." 



The vicissitudes of a sea-fight have been too recently and too well 

 described to be repeated here. Suffice it that after a protracted conflict 

 of some hours' duration, both vessels were reduced to crippled wrecks on 

 the water ; but the Englishman having some head sail remaining, that, 

 though riddled with shot, would still draw, contrived, in spite of a wound- 

 ed rudder, to wear round and join the shattered stump of her bowsprit 

 between the American's main shrouds and runners. Boarding was the 

 word, and Jonathan soon sent to quarters. Our hero was in the act of 

 hauling down the stripes to make way for the red cross, when " Never 

 to him ! ! !" roared a voice that was heard even above the din of battle, 

 and in an instant a pistol wound and cutlass slash stretched him on the 

 deck, Ned Needham flourishing his blood-stained weapon over his pros- 

 trate foe. But not a moment had he in which to exult ; twenty pikes at 

 once pinned him to deck ; the victory remained with the red-cross flag, 

 and the English captain and American renegade were borne below, both 

 as it was supposed mortally wounded, and better, far better that both had 

 expired before they could be laid in their berths. A shattered jaw and 

 incurable body wound condemned the captain to years of lingering 

 misery ; nor was the renegade's lot less melancholy ; an amputated arm 

 and leg, and a fractured skull, deprived him of the means of self support, 

 and at times even of reason. 



The first use our hero made of returning sense was to write on a slate 

 (for his wound had rendered him speechless for life,) " Say nothing !" 

 Kit read, and his tears obliterated the command ; but he understood and 

 obeyed his master's wishes. He who could have told of Needham's 



