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I suspected that it would not be long before my message was delivered, if the lieutenant could get leave from his ship, which was then refitting. He gave me also a satisfactory piece of intelligence, to the effect, that as soon as his brig was ready for sea, she was to be sent to cruise in search of the Emu, should her piratical career not yet have terminated.
"Those sort of things are very good, my dear wife, for some people," he answered, carelessly; "but sailors have no time to attend to them; I, at all events, have not, for I have to see to the refitting of the ship; and you must acknowledge that I have been a good husband and father. I have done my duty; and what more can you want of me?"
This melancholy duty performed I was again sent away to drag for the anchor and cable slipped by the Virginia on the previous evening, and these also I found, weighed, and conveyed on board the prize, where, under Smellie's able supervision, the work of repairing and refitting was going on apace.
A minute attention, indeed, to the injunctions contained in these written orders, is absolutely necessary to keep the officers of a ship out of eternal hot water with admiral, flag-captain, secretary, and first lieutenant of the flag-ship, all of whom are put out of their way by any neglect on the part of an officer fitting or refitting a ship.
I laid hold on this Opportunity, and was not long on Board, before we fell down the River, and sail'd to Cowes; where, having taken in some Passengers, we proceeded on our Voyage 'till we sprung a-leak, and were forc'd into the Islands of Scilly. Here we spent about 10 Days in refitting; in which Time we had a great deal of Diversion in Fishing and Shooting on those rocky Islands.
After filling with provisions and refitting, the British ships left the anchorage and cruised off the approach to it, thus preventing the retreat of the Essex to the ocean, unless she could succeed in passing and then outsailing them.
"While Howe amused himself refitting them, I saved the convoy, and I saved my head." Based on diagram in Mahan's Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, Vol. Though the escape of the convoy enabled the French to boast a "strategic victory," the First of June in reality established British prestige and proved a crushing blow to French morale. Austria remained England's only active ally.
Cousin Silas soon afterwards joined us, and remained while the ship was refitting. We spent a very merry Christmas, and no one seemed tired of hearing us recount our adventures. Old Surley used to sit at our feet, and he nodded his head and winked his eyes, as much as to say "It is all true, and if I could but speak I would tell you the same story."
We remained a few days at the White House resting and refitting the cavalry, a large amount of shoeing being necessary; but nothing like enough horses were at hand to replace those that had died or been disabled on the mud march from Staunton to the Pamunkey River, so a good many of the men were still without mounts, and all such were sent by boat to the dismounted camp near City Point.
Dined on board the Chinese gunboat Kwang-Tung, Commander Young. This is one of Laird's side-wheel steamers, built for Captain Sherrard Osborne's fleet. Capt. Bickford, of the Narcissus, and Lieut. Wood, flag Lieutenant, dined with us. Tuesday, August 11th. Weather fine. Visited the flag-ship of Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin W. Walker and the Kwang-Tung. Employed caulking and refitting ship.
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