the body of a fourth, produced a large amount of Frankenstien sea monsters. An apothecary's boy has little Latin and no Greek, but he knows the meaning of his hiergolyphics and the manipulations of his pestle and mortar; he knows that certain medicines produce certain effects, that Pulv. Rhei. Comp; Pulv. Ipecac; Hydrarg; &c., have certain results,, but to combine and apportion his medicaments into new substances, is quite beyond him. So in our ships of war the qualities of speed, stabilility, strength, stowage, power, roominess, handiness, easiness, require, to produce them, an architectural philosopher and not a mere mechanist. Such an one should go to Russia, where he will be listened to and rewarded, but has clearly no business at Whitehall. Acting from time immemorial on the excellent principle of "how not to do it," it was not to be wondered at that at one swoop we were presented with forty sail of the line, known as "the forty thieves," and fit only to be burned or broken up ; so very odd, when they were built on the lines of the glorious 'Sanspariel,' only a LEETLE altered and spoiled; it was consequently far too much to think that a force should be in readiness which would have terminated the war in three months; very unreasonable to expect such preparations. But to go on with my journal. My wife and daughter were struck with the new life of a great sea-port town. Wherries flying about like sea birds, steamers running to and fro like mad, bands playing, batteries saluting, ships signalling, everything instinct with life; "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war," all very striking. Went on board my old ship, the Prometheus,' who was reposing on her shadow, as an hulk, in Portsmouth Harbor, the only thing she was fit for, and coming to her now she certainly did strike me with considerable astonishment. 30 I give the dimensions of the Prometheus' to "improve the opportunity." Built at Southampton in 1807. Length of upper deck, 113ft. 6in.; breadth, 29ft. 9in. Length of gun deck, 111ft. 9in.; height, 4ft. 5in.!!! Length between decks, 111ft. 9in.; breadth, 27ft. 6in. Depth of hold, 9ft. 4in. Tonnage, 432 tons. Light draft forward, 8ft. 3in.; aft, 10ft. 3in. Best sailing trim forward, 14ft. 9in.; aft, 14ft. 3in. Carried forty tons of water and three months' provisions; would neither wear nor steer, nor sail nor stand up (she tacked easily and was a good sea boat, voila tout). If she were overwhelmed some day by a change of the waters of Portsmouth Harbour, and left to slumber under congenial mud, and dug out hereafter, as a Roman galley was at Rye, she would be as much wondered at as the galley, or as a tesselated pavement. When the Megatherium ceased to be a novelty, men might admire a similar monster, the work, apparently, of men's hands, made after the other, with vertebræ, ribs, and articulations, and the use of which would be a fine antiquarian puzzle. Some of the learned would affirm that the monster was intended for sailing; but others would insist that she was never intended for locomotion, for she had not the form, nor for a floating battery, for she had not the room, but probably for a mud barge or a dredging machine, or it might be for the pivot gate of a floating dock. After marchings and countermarchings, Lord Lake defeated Hoche, who was very near slipping through his fingers, and getting to Dublin before him; on which occasion "The cannons thundered, Tom Pakenham wondered, But was this wonder-in which so many shared or any wonder of the war, to be compared to the fact that we had out of our twelve hundred vessels of war, "eight hundred" of the worst in the world, and that we should have swept the sea with such brooms. Here was an incorrigible beast to which I was tied for five mortal years, and all the time I was trying if I could put any heels in her; I tried her in every imaginable way; I tried her light and I tried her deep; I tried her with her masts raking, and I tried her with her masts upright; I tried her by the stern-when her heavy quarters prevented her steering-and I tried her by the headwhen her sharp bow buried her-and I tried her on an even keel, still worse. "I tried Prince George drunk, and I tried Prince George sober, but, drunk or sober, there was nothing in him." We caught four Privateers, whom we inveigled alongside, for though it was a libel on our maritime marine, we assumed the appearance of a merchant ship, and those corsairs were donkeys who thought to catch us, but caught a Tartar. We got numberless vessels close to us, and then if we did not bring down a mast by the first fire "He gave his bridle reins a shake; Adieu for evermore, my love, one goodish prize we did catch, but not by speed. We were coming North from the West Indies across the trades, and in the evening saw from the mast-head a vessel coming down with a cloud of sail before the wind, about five leagues distant. We thought it likely we kept a better look out than she did, and saw before we were seen, and accordingly wore round and appeared to be dodging away on a wind to the S.E. In half an hour they saw us and immediately in sail, and hauled to the wind on the opposite tack to ours, and before sun-set were out of sight. I calculated that when it was well dark (an hour or so after sunset) our friend would resume his course, and I supposed that if he did so and steered S.W. at a certain rate, and that we cut into his track at a prescribed pace, we should cross each other at half-past twelve o'clock. I ordered the watch below to lie down in their clothes, but did not give them their hammocks; and at half-past twelve, having worked out the diagram I had made, I went on deck with my night glass, swept the horizon very carefully, and said to the First Lieutenant, "It is no go; our figure does not come out: I made a wrong cast somewhere. Pipe the hammocks down, and call the watch." They piped accordingly "Unkiver the hammocks; and in the very performance of this the look-out man hallooed, “ A vessel close to, right ahead, crossing our bows." "Hard up;" "stand fast the hammocks ;" "hands make sail." In a few minutes (for we had a crew worthy of a better vessel) we had the yards square and studding sails on both sides, and the forecastle gun playing away on the chase. In an hour we had the Yankee captain parading our deck and denouncing his hard luck. I should not care to repeat his objurgations, but remember part of his lament: 'It was only last evening, an hour before sun-set, that we got a tarnation fright by one of your sarpents, but we shook her off; and now to be spifflicated by another!! D--n Jemmy Madison, say I, for going to war"; and suiting the action to the word, skimmed his tin case of papers along the deck. He was little better pleased to find that the shaking off was re-infecta, and that "the nephew of my Uncle Gil Perez was caught like a rat in a trap." But all this was by dodging and finesse; catching the game in a pitfall, instead of fairly running it down. |