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The boat was rigged as a fore and aft schooner, setting a main trysail, fore trysail, and a staysail secured to the head of the stem; and while the masts had been stepped and the shrouds set up hand-taut, I found, upon casting loose the sails, that they had omitted to obey my instructions to close-reef them, and since the wind was still blowing altogether too hard for the boat to carry anything more than close-reefed canvas I lost quite ten minutes in reefing and setting the mainsail and staysail I dared not attempt to set the foresail also, for I did not believe that the boat could carry it.

The wind had again chopped round to the southward, and though not blowing very strong, we made but little progress. All night we stood on under close-reefed canvas, and when the next morning dawned, I saw land to the southward. Its appearance evidently puzzled the Frenchmen.

Except the close-reefed topsail, no other canvas was set. The Champion had by this time got to the eastward of Cuba, and was compelled to run on far away from the coast her commander wished to reach. Another day and night passed by, the wind blowing with scarcely less fury than at first. The well was sounded, but it was found that the ship had made no unusual amount of water.

This day commenced with calm and thick fog, and ended with hail, snow, a violent wind, and close-reefed topsails. Sunday, Nov. 9th. To-day the sun rose clear and continued so until twelve o'clock, when the captain got an observation.

We knowed it was comin'; it gived us good warnin' and left us plenty of time to get ready for it; so Mr Barker the lieutenant in command gived orders to send the yards and both topmasts down on deck, and rig in the jib-boom; and then he stripped her down to a close-reefed boom foresail. But we capsized reg'larly `turned turtle' when the gale struck us, and only five of us lived to tell the tale.

As for the transports, the largest of the three had lost her foretopmast, and had bore up under her foresail; another was also scudding under a close-reefed fore-topsail; but the third or head-quarter ship was still lying to windward, under her storm staysails. None of the merchant vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to bear up in the night, and to run before it under bare poles.

The gunner of the first ship in which I served after graduation told me that in 1832, when he was a young seaman before the mast on board a sloop-of-war in the Mediterranean, on Christmas Eve, there being a two-knot breeze that is, substantially, calm at sundown the ship was put under two close-reefed topsails for the night storm canvas and then the jollity began.

With this view, and favored by the wind, a course was shaped for Lochswilly, and away we scudded under close-reefed foresail and main-topsail, followed by a tremendous sea, which threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and accompanied by piercing showers of hail, and a gale which blew with incredible fury. The same course was steered until next day about noon, when land was seen on the lee-bow.

Suddenly, when in the neighbourhood of Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very squally, with rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put the boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-reefed the sails, keeping as near the wind as possible, with the hope of weathering the rocky point at the western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses.

Close-reefed topsails were set on the ship and we stood over to the English coast, and anchored to the westward of Dungeness.