The Hope was a good sailer, and soon doubled round the long, sandy point at the harbor mouth, across which the cutter still continued firing, the shots sending the sand into the air in clouds as they skipped over the beach. After getting outside, Capt. Doten made more sail for the better handling of his vessel, and one of his men, William Stacy of Boston, went aloft to loose a to’gallant sail. Just as he reached the crosstrees and gripped the shrouds for further ascent, a shot passed so close to him that, holding by his hands, the wind of it strung him out like a flag. Getting his footing again he yelled: “A good shot, try it again,” and went on with his duty. The cutter soon got into the open bay where the sea was so rough that her firing became entirely ineffectual, and she could only chase. Capt. Nicolson, however, was one of the plucky kind and meant to do his full duty by keeping the Hope in sight if he could do nothing more. The gale became fiercer, and the sea rougher as the two vessels got from under the lee of the Cape, and that night the cutter was forced ashore near Scituate and wrecked, but with no loss of life. Capt. Doten, with a loaded vessel under him, which he knew how to handle, made better weather of it, and succeeded in beating the Hope out past Cape Cod against the storm, and in a day or two was running for the West Indies, intending to make Martinique. All went well until nearing his destination, when one afternoon a big British frigate poked her nose out from behind an island right across his path and fired a gun for him to heave to. There was nothing for it but to obey, and a boat with a boarding party was soon alongside. The officer wanted to know where the brig was bound, to which Capt. Doten replied, “West Indies and a market.” “You mean Martinique, don’t you?” said the officer, “and let me tell you that had you got in there the Frenchmen would have given you $25 a quintal for your fish; but you will do well as it is, for I’m going to send you into the English island of St. Lucia, and our people will give you $16.” “Very well,” answered Capt. Doten, “I’ll go to St. Lucia then.” “Yes,” replied the officer, “I’m sure you will, as I’m going with you, for you Yankees are altogether too smart and slippery to be trusted alone, with $9 on a quintal of fish difference as to where you land them.” So the Hope went into St. Lucia, where Capt. Doten sold both fish and vessel, and later he found his way home with $25,000 in Spanish doubloons, a large part of the sum being sewed into his clothing, and the writer has heard the Captain’s wife tell of letting him into the house at about two o’clock one morning, and of their sitting up in bed together, ripping out the gold pieces and tossing them into a shining pile, of which “Hope told a flattering tale.” CHAPTER X.