On the following evening, the gentlemen having gone to a public meeting, and measures being taken for the exclusion of visitors, Mrs. Esdale and her daughters seated themselves at the table with their work, and Mrs. Fenton produced her manuscript book, and read as follows: having first reminded her auditors that her husband and herself, instead of embarking at London, had gone by land to Portsmouth, and from thence crossed over to the Isle of Wight, where they took apartments at the principal hotel in the little town of Cowes, at which place the ship was to touch on her way down the British channel. * * * * * Having amply availed ourselves of the opportunity (afforded by a three days' sojourn) of exploring the beauties of the Isle of Wight, we felt some impatience to find ourselves fairly afloat, and actually on our passage "o'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea." On the fourth afternoon, we walked down to the beach, and strolled amid shells and sea-weed, along the level sands at the foot of a range of those chalky cliffs that characterize the southern coast of England. It was a lovely day. A breeze from the west was ruffling the crests of the green transparent waves, and wafting a few light clouds across the effulgence of the declining sun, whose beams danced radiantly on the surface of the water, gilding the black and red sails of the fishing-boats, and then withdrawing, at intervals, and leaving the sea in shade. "Should this wind continue," said Mr. Fenton, "we may be detained here a week, and have full leisure to clamber again among the ruins of Carisbrook Castle, and to gaze at the cloven chalk-rocks of Shankline Chine, and the other wonders of this pleasant little island." We then approached an old disabled sailor, who was smoking his pipe, seated on a dismantled cannon that lay prostrate on the sands, its iron mouth choked up with the sea-weed that the tide had washed into it; and on entering into conversation with him, we found that he was an out-pensioner of Greenwich hospital, and that for the last ten years he had passed most of his time about Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. "Have you ever known a ship come down from London with such a wind as this?" inquired Mr. Fenton. "No," replied the sailor.--"After she doubles Beachy Head, this wind would be right in her teeth." "Then," said Mr. Fenton, turning to me--"till it changes, we may give up all hope of seeing our gallant vessel." "What ship are you looking for?" asked the sailor. "The Washington." "Oh! an American ship--ay, _she'll_ come down. _They_ can make their way with any sort of wind."[81] [Footnote 81: This implied compliment to our vessels and seamen was really made by a British sailor, in a similar conversation with an American gentleman.]