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Updated: June 10, 2025
Farther along the coast, invisible, but known to be performing a post perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes, lining both the inner and outer edges of the sandbanks off the Flemish coasts, and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate and dangerous cruising-ground between Dunkerk and Walcheren.
"It is all owing to that Pilot," returned the other; "for, d'ye see, if there was no bottom, there would be no pilots. This is dangerous cruising-ground, where we stretch into five fathoms, and then drop our lead on a sand-pit or a rock! Besides, they make night-work of it, too! If we had daylight for fourteen hours instead of seven, a man might trust to feeling his way for the other ten."
Nothing of any importance occurred during the next few days, and, carrying on upon the schooner to the last stitch that she could stagger under, we arrived off the northern extremity of the island of Martinique exactly at midnight on the fifth night after leaving Port Royal. I considered that we had now reached our cruising-ground, and that there was consequently no need for any further hurry.
The "Scourge," meanwhile, was slowly pursuing her course down channel; the wind, after the recent blow, having fallen light and baffling; it was not, therefore, until the morning of the 13th that she reached her cruising-ground, Scilly bearing at the time about N.E., distant 26 miles.
"She is very taut, sir, and her canvas appears to be foreign." "I'll bet you what you please it's that damned fellow Surcoeuf. This is just his cruising-ground, if the report of that neutral vessel was correct." "Another hour will decide the point, sir," replied Newton; "but I must say I think your surmise likely to prove correct. We may as well be ready for him: a cruiser she certainly is."
This wail may have resulted from the pleasantry of one Captain Boyle, of the privateer "Chasseur," a famous Baltimore clipper, mounting sixteen guns, with a complement of one hundred officers, seamen, and marines. Captain Boyle, after exhausting, as it seemed to him, the possibilities of the West Indies for excitement and profit, took up the English channel for his favorite cruising-ground.
For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground.
A single glance at her was sufficient to assure us that she was a man-o'-war a frigate on her cruising-ground; and that her people were broad awake was speedily made manifest, for we had scarcely made her out when she shifted her helm and bore up for us, letting fall her courses and setting her topgallant-sails and royals as she did so.
Our next cruising-ground is known to whalemen as the "Coast of Japan" ground, and has certainly proved in the past the most prolific fishery of sperm whales in the whole world. I am inclined now to believe that there are more and larger cachalots to be found in the Southern Hemisphere, between the parallels of 33deg. and 50deg.
"Farther along the coast, invisible but known to be performing a most perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes lining both the outer and inner of the sand-banks of the Flemish coasts and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate and dangerous cruising-ground between Dunkirk and Texel.
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