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He saved a specimen of the slip on which they were printed, and it was afterwards presented to the Duke of Wellington. Next morning this pioneer line was broken down at a point about 200 Yards from Cape Grisnez, and it turned out that a Boulogne fisherman had raised it on his trawl and cut a piece away, thinking he had found a rare species of tangle with gold in its heart.
He told me he was both sick and sorry to be on such a wear-and-tear, monotonous, do-nothing station, that he had been out two months without effecting anything, that he had frequently had the enemy’s privateers under his guns, but that the run was so short, they were always sure of escaping. “One morning,” said he, “about five months ago, I had got within musket-shot of one of those vagabonds, and had been sure of him, when a shell fired from Cape Grisnez fell directly down the main hatchway, bedded in one of the water-casks, and shortly after exploded, without, fortunately, doing more mischief than destroying a few more casks and splintering the beams and deck without wounding a man.
For a moment they could see the lighthouse at Grisnez cross its electric beam with the lights from Dover on the other side of the strait. Then the "Albatross" flew over the French territory at a mean height of three thousand feet. There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over the towns and villages so numerous in northern France.
The town itself lies upon the sea-shore. Opposite Dover, at the narrowest part of the channel, we distinguished, on the French coast, Cape Grisnez, where Napoleon erected a small building, in order, it is said, to be at least able to see England; and, further on, the obelisk raised in memory of the camp at Boulogne, by Napoleon, but completed under Louis Philippe.
He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line: "I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the small Powers: 150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape Grisnez.
He gives a cheery trump of satisfaction from his foghorn, when he learns that his sail and his guests have been fetched from land. He has nevertheless paddled to such good purpose by six o'clock that he has covered seven miles from Cape Grisnez, albeit he is but five miles from the French coast, having been carried up channel by the current.
Thinking of these things, and believing that his own preparations would soon be finished, he left Widow Shanks to proclaim his merits, while under the bold and able conduct of Captain Renaud Charron he ran the gauntlet of the English fleet, and was put ashore southward of Cape Grisnez.
"If you don't do it," he says, "they will have to walk back to Boulogne, thirteen miles." A crew having volunteered, Mr. Michael Boyton determines to brave the surf. The Earnest steams back as near as she can safely go to Cape Grisnez. A second boat is lowered.
At this hour he was only some 4-1/2 miles off Cape Grisnez, France, and altho he was not then strong enough to strike out a direct course athwart the new northeast stream for land, he was fetching well in for Sangette, where he would undoubtedly have landed between 7 and 8 A.M. had adverse weather not set in.
Bush, on a plan patented by him, on the Goodwin Sands, or on the Varne in the channel between Folkestone and Cape Grisnez, in four fathoms water. This plan, was recommended to the consideration of parliament by several merchants, ship-owners, and other influential persons.
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