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Updated: June 19, 2025
I entered the river without any disguise of any sort, showing British colours and the man-o'-war's pennant; and, as I had expected, our old friend Lobo soon came alongside in his gig, with his usual stereotyped smiles and bows, and offers to supply us with anything and everything that we might happen to want.
I had given up hope, and the suspense of awaiting the expected catastrophe was so acute that I had almost made up my mind to throw myself overboard and take my chance with the sharks, when two square sails emerged out of the smoke, and the hull of a man-o'-war, with a wide spread of canvas, ranged alongside, while a number of English man-o'-war's men, led by an officer, sprang upon our decks.
"Look, father," I said, as we went on down, seeing each moment more and more of the opening to the sea; "there's a boat coming ashore." "Man-o'-war's," cried my father excitedly. "Look at the way the oars dip, Sep. Hah, it's a treat to see the lads handle them again. There she is!" he cried. "Look! Why, it's the revenue cutter."
So, as soon as your brig was identified as a man-o'-war and that was as soon as she could be distinctly made out another mistake that you man-o'-war's men make, friend Dugdale; you can scarcely ever bring yourselves to disguise your ships; they declare their character as far as it is possible to see them. Let me see, what was I saying? I have run clean off my course, and don't know where I am."
The gilded masthead truck of a smart yacht, with one of her cabin racks, bespoke of recent disaster, unknown and unaccounted, and a brand new oar, finished and fitted with the nattiness of a man-o'-war's man, told of some wave-swept deck.
"Only a fight, sir, between a black-fish and a thresher," answered Ben Boltrope, the carpenter, an old man-o'-war's man, and one of the most efficient hands of the Nancy Bell's crew.
The gallant frigate, always a favorite among man-o'-war's men, carried with her on this cruise a full crew of native Americans, thorough seamen, and as plucky fighters as ever pulled a lanyard or carried a cutlass. Her course lay due east; and in January, 1815, she was in the Bay of Biscay, where she fell in with, and captured, two prizes.
It was certainly a wonderful and varied scene that we gazed at over the hammock rail, the glaring sun overhead, the vividly blue sea stretching up to the white beach in front of the busy-looking town and the verdant hills beyond, with white villas nestling amid the green, like Madeira, and big, gru-gru palms and agaves, with other odd, broad-foliaged plants to tell that we were in more outlandish latitudes; while, skimming over the glassy blue water, that turned to an emerald green in its depths and was so transparent that the sandy bottom could be seen, with various molluscs crawling about amongst the algas, were hundreds of boats of every description from the trim-built man-o'-war's cutter down to the slipper-like sampan and aboriginal coracle of as queer construction as the catamaran of the Coromandel coast or the war canoe of the Sandwich Islands.
But scarcely had the oars caught the water when around the promontory came a large man-o'-war's launch, a rapid-fire gun mounted on her bows. She was manned by about twenty men in Russian police uniform. "From the 'tramp," commented Alan excitedly. "And her gun is trained on us." "Get down to work!" shouted Jack to the straining oarsmen. "No use!" groaned Kempt.
The sloop's boat passed out between the two arms of the little harbour before Tom Bodger recommenced his polishing up in Aleck's boat. "A pretty cutter," he said. "There arn't anything better worth looking at afloat than a man-o'-war's launch or cutter well manned by a smart crew. Makes me wish I'd got my understandings again and was an AB once more. Not as I grumbles not me.
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