In little more than an hour’s time, the Dawn began to shorten sail, hauling up her courses and top-gallant-sails, rocks showing themselves within half a mile of her.  A large boat met as here, coming alongside, as soon as certain who we were.  The people in this boat were fishermen, and were so much accustomed to all the movements of the coast, that they understood the nature of the affair as soon as they were apprised of our character.  Of course they were eagerly questioned touching the possibility of the Dawn’s being carried in through any of the rocky-looking passages that lay before us.  Monsieur Le Gros looked very blank when he was told that all his hopes lay in there being sufficient water in one channel, and of that the fishermen confessed their own ignorance.  If the noise and confusion were annoying before these men came alongside, it was astounding afterwards.  All this time the frigate was drawing near, fast, and half an hour would certainly bring her within gun-shot.  There is something intoxicating in a race.  I felt a strong desire to get away from the Englishman at the very moment I believed my chances for justice would be worst in the hands of the French.  Feeling the necessity of losing no time, I now made a lively appeal to Monsieur Le Gros, myself, proposing that we should both go in with the fishing-boat and examine the passage ourselves.  By using proper activity, the whole might be done in a quarter of an hour; we should then know whether to carry the ship in, or to run on the rocks and save what we could of the cargo, by means of lighters.

Order on board ship is out of the question without coolness, silence and submission.  A fussy sailor is always a bad sailor; calmness and quiet being the great requisites for the profession, after the general knowledge is obtained.  No really good officer ever makes a noise except when the roar of the elements renders it indispensable, in order to be heard.  In that day, French ships of war did not understand this important secret, much less French privateers.  I can only liken the clamour that was now going on in the Dawn’s lee-gangway, to that which is raised by Dutch fish-women, on the arrival of the boats from sea with their cargoes.  To talk of Billingsgate in comparison with these women, is to do the Holland and Flemish ladies gross injustice, English phlegm being far more silent than Dutch phlegm.  No sooner was my proposition made than it was accepted by acclamation, and the privateersmen began to pour into the boat, heels over head, without order, and I may say without orders.  Monsieur Le Gros was carried off in the current, and, when the fishermen cast off, but three Frenchmen were left in the ship; all the others had been swept away by a zeal to be useful, that was a little quickened, perhaps, by the horrors of an English prison-ship.

Even Diogenes laughed at the random manner in which we were thus left in possession of our own.  There is no question that the French intended to return; while there is no question it was also their intention to go.  In short, they were in a tumult, and acted under an impulse, instead of under the government of their reasons.