We were too polite and well-bred not to make some return for all these _petits soins_. As, between the tropics, the weather is generally very warm, we evinced a most laudable anxiety that she should be properly ventilated, so we assiduously began drilling holes through and through her hull; and, I assure the reader, that we did it in a surpassingly workmanlike manner. But, in the midst of this spirited exchange of courtesies, our Gallic friend remembered that he had, or might have, another _engagement_, so he took his leave; and, as he had given us so many reasons to prevent our insisting to attend upon him, we parted _en pleine mer_, leaving us excessively annoyed that we were prevented from accompanying him any further. In Captain Reud's despatches he stated, and stated truly, that we beat him off. Why he went, I could not understand; for, excepting in the shattered state of her hull, and more particularly in a sad confusion of her quarter gallery, with her two aftermost main-deck-ports, he sailed off with her colours flying, and every sail drawing, even to her royals. But the French used to have their own method of managing these little matters. But let us rapidly pass over these follies and hasten to something more exquisitely foolish. And yet I cannot, I have to clear away many dull weeds, and tread down many noxious nettles, before I can reach the one fresh and thornless rose, that bloomed for a short space upon my heart, and the fragrance of which so intoxicated my senses, that, for a time, I was under a blessed delusion of believing myself happy. I had now been two years and a half in the West Indies, and I was fast approaching my nineteenth year. At this period we had retaken several English West Indiamen.