For the next three days I was so busy looking after the thousand-and-one
things requiring attention just before a ship goes to sea, that I
scarcely had time to sleep, much less to get my meals; but on the fourth
morning I was able to report myself as ready for sea, when the admiral
gave me my written instructions and ordered me to sail forthwith. We
accordingly got under weigh about noon, with a strong sea-breeze
blowing; made a short stretch over toward the Quarantine Ground; tacked
as soon as we could weather Port Royal Point; passed between Rackum and
Gun Cays; and went flying down through the East Channel at the rate of
full thirteen knots, with our topgallant-sail stowed. (Courtenay, I
ought to have mentioned, sailed on the previous day.) Eight bells in
the afternoon watch saw us drawing well up abreast of Morant Point; and
half an hour later Mr Woodford, the master's mate, who was doing duty
as master, took his departure, and we had fairly entered upon our
cruise.
To merely say that I was delighted with my new command would very
inadequately express my feelings; I was _enchanted_ with her; she worked
like a top, and sailed like a witch; she was as stiff as a church; and
so weatherly, notwithstanding her exceedingly light draught, that
Woodford declared he would be puzzled how to correctly estimate her lee-
way. And last, though not least, she was a superb sea-boat, and dry as
a bone--save for the spray which flew in over her weather cat-head--
notwithstanding her extraordinary speed. The men, too, were in
ecstasies with her, slapping the rail with their hands and crying
enthusiastically, "Go it, old gal!" as she plunged easily into the short
choppy sea and sent the spray and foam hissing and whirling many a
fathom away to leeward and astern of her. Then, too, I had a fairly
good crew, amounting to eighty-six, all told fore and aft, though
several of them were fresh from the hospital. The two midshipmen with
which the admiral had supplied me were quiet, gentlemanly lads, aged
fourteen and thirteen respectively; Woodford, the master's mate, was a
man of about twenty-five, and a first-rate navigator; Sanderson was
again with me as doctor; my old friends Fidd, Tompion, and Pottle
occupied the same position on board the _Dolphin_ that they had held on
board the _Foam_; and I had, in addition, a very respectable young man
to perform the duty of purser, and a very handy man--a Swede--as
carpenter.
As I walked the deck that evening chatting gaily with Woodford and
Sanderson I felt, it must be confessed, intensely proud of my position.
And was not the feeling pardonable? There was I, a lad who had still to
see his eighteenth birthday, intrusted with the absolute command of a
vessel so powerful and with so numerous a crew that many a poor hard-
working third lieutenant would have looked upon it as promotion had he
been placed in my shoes, and with the destinies of nearly a hundred of
my fellow-beings in my hands. And to this responsible position I had
attained not through the influence of powerful friends--for of such I
had none--but solely, as I could not help feeling, through good conduct
and my own unaided exertions, with, of course, the blessing of God,
about which, I am ashamed to say, I thought far too little in those
days. And yet I could not see that I had done anything very
extraordinary; I had simply striven with all my might to do my duty
faithfully and to the best of my ability, keeping my new motto, "For
Love and Honour," ever before my eyes, and lo! my reward had already
come to me, as come it must and will to all who are diligent and
faithful. And if I had succeeded so well in the past, with the limited
advantages which I then possessed, "what," I asked myself, "may I not
achieve with my present means?" I felt that there was scarcely anything
I might not dare and do; and my pulses throbbed and the blood coursed in
a quicker tide through my veins as I told myself that I was now indeed
fairly on the highway toward the achievement of that twofold object to
which I had dedicated my life.
Shortly after taking our departure from Morant Point, as already
recorded, the wind headed us, and the schooner "broke off" until she was
heading about north-east, close-hauled. Notwithstanding this, and the
fact that we had run into a very nasty choppy sea, the log showed that
the _Dolphin_ was going through the water at the rate of eleven knots.
We stood on in the same direction until midnight, when, having brought
the high rocky islet of Navaza far enough on our weather quarter to go
to windward of it on the other tack, we hove about, standing to the
southward and eastward for the remainder of the night. Daylight next
morning found us with Point a Gravois broad on our weather bow and
distant about twenty miles. This was most gratifying, as it showed us
that we had beaten clear across the Windward Channel against a fresh
head-wind in about fourteen hours--a passage almost if not quite
unexampled in point of celerity.
It was my intention to work close along the whole of the southern coast
of Saint Domingo on our eastward passage; and this we did, looking in
first behind the island of a-Vache, where we were lucky enough to descry
a French privateer brigantine snugly anchored under the shelter of a
small battery. As there is nothing like making hay whilst the sun
shines, we at once headed straight for the anchorage, and, trusting to
the extreme roguishness of our own appearance to put our enemies off
their guard, began to shorten sail in a somewhat slovenly fashion, as
though we were about to bring up. Then, passing under the stern of our
quarry we luffed up into the wind, shot alongside the craft, hove our
grappling-irons into her rigging, and, whilst our boarders were still
busy driving her astonished crew below, cut her cable and dragged her a
quarter of a mile to sea before the people in the battery woke up and
fully realised what we were about. By that time, however, we were in
full possession of our prize, and were able to make sail upon her; and
although the shot from the battery flew about our ears pretty thickly
for the next ten minutes, we actually succeeded in getting out of range
without once being struck; and so completely had we surprised the French
crew that not one of our men received so much as a scratch.
The _Julie_, for such proved to be the name of our prize, though small,
turned out to be of considerable value; for she was pretty nearly full
of a rich but heterogeneous assortment of goods which I shrewdly
suspected had been taken out of ships which were subsequently scuttled
or burnt; we therefore put one of the mids with half a dozen hands on
board her, and sent her into Port Royal, where, as we afterwards
learned, she safely arrived next morning.
This little slice of good fortune, coming as it did at the very outset
of our cruise, was peculiarly gratifying to me, not so much on account
of either the honour or the profit likely to accrue to me personally
from the transaction, but because it put the crew into good spirits, and
infused into them, especially the strangers among them, an amount of
confidence in me which my extremely youthful appearance would perhaps
have otherwise failed to command.
We devoted an entire week to our projected examination of the Saint
Domingo coast, making four more captures during that time; but they all
proved to be of so little value that they were set on fire and
destroyed. Then, having worked our way as far east as Saona, we
stretched across the Mona Passage; looked into the various bays and
creeks on the south coast of Porto Rico without success, and finally
found ourselves, on our sixteenth day out, with the island of Virgin
Gorda and the Herman reefs under our lee as we stood to the northward
and eastward to weather the Virgin group.
It was about noon when--having stretched off the land some twenty miles
or so, we were about to bear up and take a look at the northern shores
of those islands whose southern coastline we had just so rigorously
overhauled--the lookout aloft hailed to say that he thought he heard
firing somewhere to windward. I was walking the deck at the time
chatting with young Marchmont, one of the two mids sent on board by the
admiral, and, upon this report being made, the lad volunteered to go
aloft and investigate. A couple of minutes later the active youngster
was on the royal-yard, peering out eagerly ahead and to windward, with
one hand shading his eyes to ward off the glare of the sun. He remained
thus for perhaps three or four minutes, when I saw him assume a more
eager look, and presently he turned round and hailed:
"On deck there! there certainly _is_ firing going on somewhere in our
neighbourhood, sir, for I have just heard it most distinctly; and a
moment before I spoke I thought I caught sight of something like a
smoke-wreath gleaming in the sun away yonder, broad on our weather bow.
Ha! there it goes again! Did you not hear it, sir?"
"No," I replied; "the wash of the water under our bows and alongside
makes too much noise down here. But that will do; you can come down
again, Mr Marchmont. If, as you believe, there is firing going on to
windward of us we shall soon know more about it, for, of course, I shall
not now bear up until I have satisfied myself as to the matter."
The men forward became at once upon the _qui vive_, as I could see by
the animated countenances of the messmen, and the eagerness with which
they exchanged remarks as they went to the galley for the dinner which
the cook was then serving out; as also by the nimble manner in which the
relief lookout aloft shinned up the ratlines. He was one of the
keenest-sighted men we had on board; and instead of seating himself, as
usual, on the topsail-yard, he continued his upward progress until he
reached the royal-yard, upon which he perched himself as easily as if he
had been in an arm-chair, steadying his body by bracing his back against
the few inches of the slender royal-mast which rose above the yard. He
had not been settled more than ten minutes before he hailed to report
that he heard the firing distinctly, and had also caught sight of a
light wreath of smoke about four points on the weather bow. This was so
far satisfactory, inasmuch as there could now be no longer any doubt as
to the firing; the next thing was to find out its nature, whether it was
in broadsides or by single guns, and how often it occurred. So I hailed
him to report every time he heard anything. Presently he hailed again:
"Another gun, sir!"