journal is the same as the ship’s, and we are going round to the northward of the island.” The question being discussed with considerable animation betwixt them, it excited observation among the crew, and reached the ears of the Captain. A sharp look-out for land was ordered, when, in brief space, the look-out on the forecastle shouted “Breakers a-head!” “Put down the helm—Let go the anchor!” cried the Captain. The manœuvre was just in time to save the ship from destruction. When she swung to her anchor it was in four-and-a-half fathoms water; the breakers were close by the stern, and the stern not above twenty fathoms from the shore,—and the shore, as had been predicted, was that of the island of Bornholm!

The weather soon cleared up, when they found themselves in a sandy bay on the south-east side of the island. The sea not being considerable they soon got under weigh, and sailing round the island to the southward, they reached Elsinore the next day. “It was to this private reckoning kept by Mr. Scoresby,” observes the writer of the Memoir of which I have here and elsewhere availed myself, “and the debate to which it led, that the preservation of the ship and cargo may evidently be ascribed.”

“The reward which Mr. Scoresby received for this piece of essential service was such,” adds the biographer, “as the deserving too frequently obtain from their superiors in office, who feel themselves insulted when their deficiencies are exposed by the efforts of their superiors in merit. The preservation of the ship and cargo,” by the superiority of a mere tyro in seamanship—a young apprentice, “drew upon him, especially, the envy of the mate, who, it will be remembered, had aforetime shown a painful measure of ill-will, and the disapprobation of some of the inferior officers. These ungenerous influences, in their combined effect, rendered his situation so uncomfortable that, on reaching the Thames, he left the ship, and engaged in an Ordnance-armed storeship, the Speedwell cutter, destined to carry out stores to Gibraltar.”

This step, which it is to be apprehended had not the sanction of the parties to whom he was apprenticed, was attended with consequences which, with one whose mind was early directed to regard a Providential hand perpetually engaged in guiding, controlling, or, for merciful ends, rebuking the affairs of man, could hardly fail to be impressive, and to yield salutary convictions of the error into which a manly indignation at ungenerous usage and jealous antipathy had urged him.

Section IV.—Capture by the Enemy, and Escape from a Spanish Prison.

The Speedwell was soon equipped, and, the service being urgent,—the relief of the garrison at Gibraltar,—with all haste got to sea. But admirably as this fast-sailing cutter was adapted for a service requiring all possible despatch, the weather proved very unfavourable for making a satisfactory, much less a rapid, progress.

The delay was additionally trying to those on board the cutter, from the deprivations in which the unexpected length of the voyage, by reason of calms and adverse winds, involved them. For, economical of room for the requisite stores whilst on the passage to the Straits, the Speedwell was sent out so inadequately supplied with water, that the crew were reduced to a distressingly short allowance.

This incident, however, afforded occasion and opportunity for the development of my Father’s peculiar acuteness of intellect, and the exercise of his natural science. Whilst suffering greatly from thirst, the idea occurred to him that some refreshment might possibly be derived through the medium of the pores of the skin by bathing—an idea which the calmness of the weather enabled him to put to the test and satisfactorily to verify. For on undressing and taking a rope for his security, and jumping overboard, he realized, even beyond his expectations, a decidedly refreshing influence—such as, under his report, to induce most of the officers and crew not only to try the same experiment, but to render it a prevailing practice, whenever the state of the weather would permit.

But a new incident soon substituted for this another species of deprivation and suffering. They had advanced within sight of the Spanish coast, when, on the 26th of October 1781, being off Cape Trafalgar, they fell in with a force so overwhelmingly superior, as to render resistance useless. The cutter became a prize to the enemy, and my Father, with his associates, prisoners of war. They were taken into Cadiz Bay, and he, with some others, were marched into the interior of the country, to St. Lucar la Major, a small town of Andalusia, seated on the river Guadiana, a tributary of the Quadalquiver.

Here, they were not ungenerously treated; whilst the rigour of imprisonment, as at first practised, became gradually relaxed under the imagined security of the captives. The degree of liberty, indeed, after awhile became such, that the prisoners were entrusted to go unguarded, to some distance from their quarters, to fetch water. In this indulgence my Father saw a chance of escape, which, being participated in by one of his associates, a spirited young sailor and friend, they privately conferred thereon, and ultimately arranged to encounter the difficulties and risks of the adventure.

Availing themselves of an occasion when various circumstances gave favour to the experiment, they proceeded, in their usual manner, to the place where water was procured; and, finding themselves unobserved, they walked away, as if incidently strolling about, until they had obtained shelter, I believe, from a wood. Here they pushed rapidly on, dropping their water-vessels in a place of concealment, until having made what they deemed a sufficient progress to baffle an ordinary pursuit, they hid themselves for the remainder of the day. Then, with the stars only for their guidance, they travelled, as by a steeple-chase route, throughout the night towards the coast. This, indeed, became their prevalent plan of proceeding, to rest in some concealment by day, and to travel by night.

Their progress proved, indeed, fully as adventurous, consistently with their safety, as the liveliest imagination could have pictured. The perils and difficulties they encountered from native Spaniards, or from the pursuit of troops sent after them; from their imperfect concealment during the day, or critical exposure in their progress during the night; from the applications which they were necessitated to make on the generosity of the enemies of their country for relief and sustenance,—for they had been deprived of everything they possessed except two little bundles of clothing which, in contemplation of the adventure, they had previously concealed beyond their prison; from their suspicious appearance in the dress, and with the language of foreigners, inducing attempts to give them up to the public authorities; with the aid and consolations, on the other hand, which they occasionally met with from the sympathies of the gentler sex, even whilst others were seeking their recapture,—yielded altogether a series of exciting and anxious incidents, which, if the particulars could be thoroughly recalled, might afford materials for a history of really romantic interest. The fact of kind and generous sympathy, and effective aid from women, I well remember as constituting a touching element in the relation of their perilous undertaking. As Mungo Park, in his varied and perilous travels, ever found kindness, in the instinct of a sympathising nature, from women, savage though their race might be, so did my Father and