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Griffith and yet you are not the man to be told that implicit obedience is what I have a right to expect. I have not your pretensions, sir, by birth or education, and yet Congress have not seen proper to overlook my years and services. I command this frigate " "Say no more," interrupted the pilot "There is reason in his doubts, and they shall be appeased.
I turned many an anxious glance at the approaching sail. I felt sure that, in spite of the staunchness of our men, we must inevitably be overpowered. The stranger was getting closer and closer. "She is a frigate!" cried the captain. "She shows English colours! hurrah! hurrah!" The enemy saw that the chance of capturing us was gone.
But the greatest peril of all would be in the case of fog succeeding storm, when the mighty flotilla might sweep across before our ships could resume blockade, or even a frigate intercept.
"You have not been to sea before," he observed, glancing at my woe-begone countenance, and then at the numberless articles handed up after me. "A pity your friends hadn't any one to tell them that a frigate has no lumber-room for the stowage of empty boxes. Boy! send Mr Owen here."
As he stood looking about him, uncertain whether to go on or turn back, a man approached him from a house that stood at the furthest point of the bay, and saluted him politely in French. "I presume, sir," he said, as he bowed and extended his hand to the Englishman, "that you are one of the officers from the English frigate anchored at Tyar.
The mode of proceeding on board the frigate seemed to True Blue like that of the very slackest of privateers; indeed, when he described what he saw to his godfather, Paul told him that even pirates could not carry on in a worse way. Before long several of the crew looked in and attempted to speak English, but very seldom got beyond a few of the ordinary oaths so general in the mouths of seamen.
This they continued to do, right and left of us, as we walked through and went down to the boats, the seamen closing up the rear with their stretchers, with which they ever and anon made a sweep at the black fellows if they approached too near. It was now broad daylight, and in a few minutes we were again safely on board the frigate. Thus ended the first and last dignity ball that I attended.
Far different was the conduct of the commander of the United States frigate Macedonian whose sentinels did not hail the boats the officers in an under-tone wishing us success; and still more honourable was the subsequent testimony of that talented officer, Captain Basil Hall, who commanded His Britannic Majesty's ship Conway, then in the Pacific.
"That pirate has been lying, all the afternoon, concealed behind this island; and his spies, sent into the woods on the island, and to this end of it, probably, saw both our ship and the frigate take their positions, and this intervening fog coming on, and reported all to their master; who at once conceived the bold design which he has now started out to execute, that of snatching us, as its prize, from under the very guns of the frigate!"
As it was not advisable to make any change in the position until the frigate was far on her way, the boats continued to pass to and fro, carrying back to the Sea-horse the stores that had just been removed, until the Frenchman was five or six miles away. "Don't you think that we might make sail again, Captain?" the major then hailed. "I think that we had better give him another hour, sir.
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