United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


On the second day after their arrival, a fifty-gun ship, frigate, and two corvettes, made their appearance off the mouth of the harbour; and after a due proportion of guns, some shotted and some not, the whole convoy were under weigh, and hove-to round their protectors.

The glass, which had dropped very fast all day, and fallen lower than the captain had ever seen it in the southern hemisphere, had given him warning what was coming, and he had prepared for it. That night we ran away before the wind to the north, next day we lay hove-to till evening, and two days afterwards the gale was repeated, but with still greater violence.

We stretched off the land until we were about three miles distant from the mouth of the bay, and then the ship was hove-to and preparation was made for the dispatch of a cutting-out expedition; that is to say, an attack upon the Indiaman by the frigate's boats, with the object of overpowering her prize-crew, cutting her cables, and bringing her out of the harbour.

As soon as we hove-to, Captain Johnston gave me the best spy-glass, with orders to hand it to Cooper, to hide. The latter buried it in the shingle ballast. We, in the cabin, concealed a bag of guineas so effectually, that, after all was over, we could not find it ourselves.

As soon as the weather moderated, we hove-to for her; but, as she did not make her appearance, having, as we afterward learned, been obliged to lie-to during the height of the gale, we continued our course out of the Straits, and did not again meet with the Griper till our return to England.

No; apart, perhaps, from the passengers, he of all on board betrayed the most anxiety respecting the crew of the distressed vessel. In an hour the Flying Cloud was hove-to abreast and close to leeward of the wreck, which proved to be a fine wooden barque, copper-bottomed, on her beam-ends, as Ned had reported, with her masts lying prone in the water.

In a few minutes the vessel which Philip and Schriften had left was no longer to be discerned through the thick haze; the Phantom Ship was still in sight, but at a much greater distance from them than she was before. Philip pulled hard towards her, but although hove-to, she appeared to increase her distance from the boat.

In such auspicious occasions all watches were his, and he strode the poop perpetually with all age-lag banished from his legs. Margaret and I were with him in the chart-room when he hurrahed the barometer, down to 28.55 and falling. And we were near him, on the poop, when he drove by an east-bound lime-juicer, hove-to under upper-topsails.

During our watch on deck, which was from twelve to four, the wind came out ahead, with a pelting storm of hail and sleet, and we lay hove-to, under a close-reefed fore topsail, the whole watch.

No sooner was the ship round and hove-to, with her fore topsail aback, than Gurney and Saunders slid down into the longboat and hooked on the tackles, which I stood by on deck to haul taut. Then by means of a snatch-block, the watch-tackle, and the winch, we proceeded to lift first the bows and then the stern out of the water, a foot or so at a time.