not making it out, bore up under her jib, and topsails, and gallantly waited for us. Well, sir—as we walked down to her, there stands the old man, (Hull) his swabs on his shoulders, dressed as fine in his yellow nankin vest and breeches, as if he was going ashore on leave—there he stands, one leg inside the hammock nettings, taking snuff out of his vest pocket, watching her manœuvres, as she blazed away like a house a-fire, just as cool as if he was only receiving complimentary salutes. She burnt her brimstone, and was noisy—but never a gun fires we. Old Ironsides poked her nose steady right down for her, carrying a bank of foam under her bows like a feather-bed cast loose. Well, as we neared her, and she wears first a-star-board, and then a-larboard, giving us a regular broadside at every tack, her shot first falls short, but as we shortened the distance, some of them begins to come aboard—first among the rigging, and cuts away some of the stuff aloft, for them Englishmen didn’t larn to fire low till we larnt ’em. First they comes in aloft, but by-and-by, in comes one—lower—crash—through the bulwarks, making the splinters fly like carpenter’s chips,—then another, taking a gouge out of the main-mast; and pretty soon agin—‘_chit_’—I recollects the sound of that ere shot well—‘chit’—another dashed past my ear, and glancing on a gun-carriage, trips up the heels of three as good men as ever walked the decks of that ere ship; and all this while, never a gun fires we; but continues steadily eating our way right down on to his quarter, the old man standing in the hammock nettings, watching her movements as if she was merely playing for his amusement. Well, as we came within carronade distance, them shot was coming on board rather faster than mere fun, and some of the young sailors begins to grumble, and by-and-by, the old men-of-wars-men growled too, and worked rusty—cause why—they sees the enemy’s mischief, and nothing done by us to aggravate them in return. Says Bill Vinton, the vent-holder, to me, ‘I say, Kennedy,’ says he, ‘what’s the use—if this here’s the way they fights frigates, dam’me! but I’d rather be at it with the Turks agin, on their own decks as we was at Tripoli. It’s like a Dutch bargain—all on one side. I expects the next thing, they’ll order pipe down, and man the side-ropes for that ere Englishman to come aboard and call the muster-roll.’ ‘Avast a bit,’ says I; ‘never you fear the old man. No English press-gang comes on board this ship—old Blow-hard knows what he’s about.’