There the frigate went, sure enough, without the smallest sign of any alarm having been given on board her.  The vessels had actually passed each other, and the mist was thickening again.  Presently, the veil was drawn, and the form of that beautiful ship was entirely hid from sight.  Marble rubbed his hands with delight; and all our people began to joke at the expense of the Englishman.  ‘If a merchantman could see a man-of-war,’ it was justly enough said, ’a man-of-war ought certainly to see a merchantman.’  Her look-outs must have all been asleep, or it would not have been possible for us to pass so near, under the canvass we carried, and escape undiscovered.  Most of the Dawn’s crew were native Americans, though there were four or five Europeans among them.  Of these last, one was certainly an Englishman, and (as I suspected) a deserter from a public ship; and the other, beyond all controversy, was a plant of the Emerald Isle.  These two men were particularly delighted, though well provided with those veracious documents called protections, which, like beggars’ certificates, never told anything but truth; though, like beggars’ certificates, they not unfrequently fitted one man as well as another.  It was the well-established laxity in the character of this testimony, that gave the English officers something like a plausible pretext for disregarding all evidence in the premises.  Their mistake was in supposing they had a right to make a man prove anything on board a foreign ship; while that of America was, in permitting her citizens to be arraigned before foreign judges, under any conceivable circumstances.  If England wanted her own men, let her keep them within her own jurisdiction; not attempt to follow them into the jurisdiction of neutral states.

Well, the ship had passed; and I began myself to fancy that we were quit of a troublesome neighbour, when Neb came down the rigging, in obedience to an order from the mate.

“Relieve the wheel, Master Clawbonny,” said Marble, who often gave the negro his patronymic, “we may want some of your touches, before we reach the foot of the danse.  Which way was John Bull travelling when you last saw him?”

“He goin’ eastward, sir.”—­Neb was never half as much “nigger” at sea, as when he was on shore,—­there being something in his manly calling that raised him nearer to the dignity of white men.—­“But, sir, he was gettin’ his people ready to make sail.”

“How do you know that?—­No such thing, sir; all hands were asleep, taking their second naps.”

“Well, you see, Misser Marble; den you know, sir.”

Neb grinned as he said this; and I felt persuaded he had seen something that he understood, but which very possibly he could not explain; though it clearly indicated that John Bull was not asleep.  We were not left long in doubt on this head.  The mist opened again, and, distant from us about three-quarters of a mile, bearing on our lee quarter, we got another look at the frigate, and a look that satisfied everybody what she was about.  The Englishman was in stays, in the very act of hauling his head-yards, a certain sign he was a quick and sure-working fellow, since this manoeuvre had been performed against a smart sea, and under double-reefed top-sails.  He must have made us, just as we lost sight of him, and was about to shake out his reefs.