orders.

"Glad to see you, sir," the captain said; "she looks rather in a litter at
present, doesn't she? We shall get her all ataunto before we get down to
the Nore. These confounded people won't send their stores on board till
the last moment. If I were an owner I should tell all shippers that no
goods would be received within five or six hours of the ship's time for
sailing; that would give us a fair chance, instead of starting all in a
muddle, just at the time, too, when more than any other one wants to have
the decks free for making short tacks down these narrow reaches. I believe
half the wrecks on the sands at the mouth of the river are due to the
confusion in which the ships start. How can a crew be lively in getting
the yards over when they have to go about decks lumbered up like this, and
half of them are only just recovering from their bout of drink the day
before?"

Up to the last moment everyone on board was hard at work, and when the
order was given to throw off the hawsers the deck was already
comparatively clear. Half an hour later the vessel passed out through the
dock gates, with two boats towing ahead so as to take her well out into
the river; the rest of the crew were employed in letting the sails drop.
As soon as she gathered way the men in the boats were called in, the boats
themselves being towed behind in case they might again be required.

The passage from the Pool to the mouth of the river was in those days the
most dangerous portion of the voyage. There were no tugs to seize the
ships and carry them down to the open water, while the channels below the
Nore were badly buoyed and lighted, and it was no uncommon thing for
twenty vessels to get upon the sands in the course of a single tide.