'33^ Voyage of the Novara. 



actually out of sight, for a fresh N.W. breeze had driven U3 

 merrily along during the night. The last hope was now 

 dissipated of being able to obtain a view of the North side of 

 Amsterdam. We were now rapidly approaching the region of 

 the S.E. Trades. The breeze freshened and crept gradually to 

 the West, thence to the South, and finally to the Eastward. 

 This veering of the wind proved to be a fore-runner of the 

 Trades, which we got into on 14th December, in S. latitude 

 28° V, E. longitude 85°. 



On that day a merchantman hove in sight, which, w4th 

 favouring breezes and all sail set, soon bore down on us. She 

 came down without any flag, and stood right across our bows 

 at so short a distance that we could plainly read her name — the 

 Bunker^ s Hill, of Boston — on her stern. Thereupon we ran up 

 our flag ; and, as it is as gross a breach of the code of maritime 

 politeness for a ship to pass across the bows of another in the 

 open ocean without saluting, as for a man on land to brush 

 quickly across another's path without apologizing, a blank 

 shot was fired at this unmannerly American. To this manifes- 

 tation etiquette lays it down that, as the hoisting of her flag by 

 a man-of-war is a direct challenge for any merchantman that 

 may be in sight to hoist its flag, any neglect of these universally 

 recognized rules must involuntarily give rise to suspicions. 

 After we had fired the blank shot, the American, by a 

 telegraph of flcg-signals, enquired the latitude and longitude, 

 which in merchant ships in the open sea is pretty frequently 

 resorted to, in order to know where precisely they are, as they 



