We cracked on all sail, during the whole of the day and night. The next morning, at the dawn of day, our lookout descried the English fleet, on our larboard-side. Luckily, we had the weather-gauge. We kept crowding on our canvass, however, during the whole forenoon, and as we gained on the convoy, we saw sail after sail rising in the seaboard, until the whole horizon was dotted with them, and the lookout reported more than fifty, in sight. By this the men-of-war had caught the alarm, and were firing guns to keep their flock around them. The dull sailers, however, fell rapidly behind. This forced one of the English frigates to leave the advance, and run astern of the fleet. During the whole day we kept coquetting to windward of the fleet, but no demonstrations against us were made on the part of the men-of-war. “A cowardly set, by the Lord Harry,” said our old boatswain, who often beguiled a dull hour with a yarn, “here are we giving them a chance for a fair stand-up fight, and the cowardly lubbers haven’t the pluck to come up and take or give a thrashing. I can’t stand such sneaking scoundrels—by St. George,” and the old fellow energetically squirted a stream of tobacco-juice from his mouth, as if from a force-pump. “We’ll have a brush with them, nevertheless, Hinton,” said I, “or I know nothing of the captain. He has got his eye on more than one rich prize in that fleet, and depend upon it, he’ll make a dash for it before long.” “Ay! ay! you’re right,” answered the boatswain “and he’ll do it, too, before two bells have struck in the morning watch.”