The process of making sail succeeded. There was no “letting fall”
a fore-topsail here, as on board a merchant-man, but all the canvas
dropped from the yards, into festoons, at the same instant. Then the
three topsails were sheeted home and hoisted, all at once, and all in
a single minute of time; the yards were counter-braced, and the
capstan-bars were again manned. In two more minutes it was “heave and
she's up and down.” Then “heave and in sight,” and “heave and pull
again.” The cat-fall was ready, and it was “hook on,” when the fife
seemed to turn its attention to another subject as the men catted the
anchor. Literally, all this was done in less time than we have taken
to write it down in, and in very little more time than the reader has
wasted in perusing what we have here written.
The Poughkeepsie was now “free of bottom,” as it is called, with her
anchor catted and fished, and her position maintained in the basin where
she lay, by the counter-bracing of her yards, and the counteracting
force of the wind on her sails. It only remained to “fill away,”
by bracing her head-yards sharp up, when the vast mass overcame its
inertia, and began to move through the water. As this was done, the jib
and spanker were set. The two most beautiful things with which we are
acquainted, are a graceful and high-bred woman entering or quitting a
drawing-room, more particularly the last, and a man-of-war leaving her
anchorage in a moderate breeze, and when not hurried for time. On the
present occasion, Captain Mull was in no haste, and the ship passed
out to windward of the light, as the Swash had done the previous night,
under her three topsails, spanker and jib, with the light sails loose
and flowing, and the courses hanging in the brails.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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