WE left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed with more funshine than wind aboard our fhip.

WHENCE Our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promifed us and himself a profperous wind, I will not determine; it is fufficient to obferve that he was a falfe prophet, and that the weathercocks continued to point as before.

He would not, however, fo eafily give up his fkill in prediction. He perfevered in afferting that the wind was changed, and having weighed his anchor fell down that afternoon to St. Helen's, which was at about the diftance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance of the wind, which was most manifeftly against him, foftly wafted him in as many hours,

HERE about feven in the evening, before which time we could not procure it, we fat down to regale ourselves with fome roafted venifon, which was much better dreft than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pafty which my wife

had

had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all chearfully exulted in being returned from the prefence of Mrs. Francis, who, by the exact resemblance fhe bore to a fury, feemed to have been with no great propriety fettled in paradise.

Friday, July 24. As we paffed by Spithead on the preceding evening, we faw the two regiments of foldiers who were juft returned from Gibraltar and Minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. He was what is called by fome a very pretty fellow; indeed much too pretby a fellow at his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his addrefs and converfation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. In his converfation, it is true, there was fomething military enough, as it confifted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wife fayings of Jack, and Will, and Tom of our regiment, a phrafe eternally in his mouth; and he feemed to conclude, that it conveyed to all the officers fuch a degree of public notoriety and importance, that it intitled him, like the head of a profes fion, or a first minister, to be the subject of converfation

liable to converse familiarly with a lieute nant, than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool; which was not, perhaps, fo certainly the cafe of the worthy lieutenant, who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his countenance and converfation, as well as what effectually fet a bar to all hopes of that honour, exclaimed, No, Sir, by the D-, I hate all fools-No, d-n C me, excufe me for that. That's a little too much, old Dick. There are two or three officers of our regiment, whom I know to be fools; but d-n me if I am ever feen in their company. If a man hath a fool of a relation, Dick, you know he can't help that, old boy."

SUCH jokes as thefe the old man not only took in good part, but glibly gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, I am convinced, in the leaft doubt of our as readily fwallowing the fame." This made him fo charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north-wind, dearer to our feacaptain, even than this glory of his family, fprung fuddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor.

WHILE this ceremony was performing, the fea-captain ordered out his boat to row the land-captain to fhore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not prefenting us the view of a fingle houfe. Indeed, our old friend, when his boat returned on fhore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of the fuperiority of his nephew, told us, with a fmile, that the young man had a good five mile to walk, before he could be accommodated with a paffage to Portsmouth.

Ir appeared now, that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for the wind which now arofe, was not only favourable but brifk, and was no fooner in reach of our fails than it swept us away by the back of the Ife of Wight, and having in the night carried us by Chrift-church and Peveral-point, brought us the next noon, Saturday, July 29. off the ifland of Portland, fo famous for the fmallness and fweetnefs of its mutton, of which a leg feldom weighs four pounds. We would have bought a fheep, but our captain would

I

not

not permit it; though he needed not have been in fuch a hurry, for prefently the wind, I will not pofitively affert in refentment of his furlinefs, fhewed him a dog's trick, and flily flipt back again to his fummer-house in the fouth-welt.

THE captain now grew outrageous, and declaring open war with the wind, took a refolution, rather more bold than wife, of failing in defiance of it, and in its teeth. He swore he would let go his anchor no more, but would beat the fea while he had either yard or fail left. He accordingly ftood from the fhore, and made fo large a tack, that before night, though he feemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of fight of land.

TOWARDS the evening, the wind began, in the captain's own language, and indeed it frefhned fo much, that before ten it blew a perfect hurricane. The captain having got, as he fuppofed, to a fafe diftance, tacked again towards the English shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his favour, and continued to blow with fuch violence, that the fhip ran above eight knots or miles an hour, during this whole day and tempeftuous night, till bed-time.

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obliged