A line--of--battle ship led--and two frigates and three sloops of our class
were stationed on the outskirts of the fleet, whipping them in as it were.
We made Madeira in fourteen days, looked in, but did not anchor; superb
island--magnificent mountains--white town,--and all very fine, but nothing
particular happened for three weeks. One fine evening, (we had by this
time progressed into the trades, and were within three hundred miles of
Barbadoes,) the sun had set bright and clear, after a most beautiful day,
and we were bowling along right before it, rolling like the very devil; but
there was no moon, and although the stars sparkled brilliantly, yet it was
dark, and as we were the sternmost of the men of war, we had the task of
whipping in the sluggards. It was my watch on deck. A gun from the
commodore, who showed a number of lights. "What is that, Mr Kennedy?"
said the captain to the old gunner.--"The commodore has made the night
signal for the sternmost ships to make more sail and close, sir." We
repeated the signal--and stood on hailing the dullest of the merchantmen in
our neighbourhood to make more sail, and firing a musket--shot now and then
over the more distant of them. By and by we saw a large West Indiaman
suddenly haul her wind, and stand across our bows.

"Forward there!" sung out Mr Splinter, "stand by to fire a shot at that
fellow from the boat gun if he does not bear up. What can he be after?
Sergeant Armstrong,"--to a marine, who was standing close by him in the
waist--"get a musket, and fire over him!"

It was done, and the ship immediately bore up on her course again; we now
ranged alongside of him on his larboard quarter.

"Ho, the ship, ahoy!"--"Hillo!" was the reply.--"Make more sail, sir, and
run into the body of the fleet, or I shall fire into you; why don't you,
sir, keep in the wake of the commodore?" No answer. "What meant you by