Captain Rowley did not alter his course, or fire a gun, in answer to the salute he received, though the two ships were scarcely a cable’s-length asunder when the Frenchman began.  The Briton stood steadily on, and the two ships passed each other, within pistol-shot, a minute or two later, when we let fly all our larboard guns.  This was the beginning of the real war, and warm enough it was, for half an hour or more,—­our ship coming round as soon as she had fired, when the two frigates closed broadside and broadside, both running off nearly dead before the wind.  I do not know how it happened, but when the head-yards were swung, I found myself pulling at the fore-brace, like a dray horse.  The master’s mate, who commanded these braces, thanked me for my assistance, in a cheerful voice, saying, “We’ll thrash ’em in an hour, Captain Wallingford.”  This was the first consciousness I had, that my hands had entered into the affair at all!

I had now an opportunity of ascertaining what a very different thing it is to be a spectator in such a scene, from being an actor.  Ashamed of the forgetfulness that had sent me to the brace, I walked on the quarter-deck, where blood was already flowing freely.  Everybody, but myself, was at work, for life or death.  In 1803, that mongrel gun, the carronade, had come into general use, and those on the quarter-deck of the Briton were beginning to fly round and look their owners in the face, when they vomited their contents, as they grew warm with the explosion.  Captain Rowley, Clements, and the master, were all here, the first and last attending to the trimming of the sails, while the first-lieutenant looked a little after the battery, and a little at everything else.  Scarce a minute passed, that shot did not strike somewhere, though it was principally aloft; and the wails of the hurt, the revolting part of every serious combat, began to mingle in the roar of the contest.  The English, I observed, fought sullenly, though they fought with all their hearts.  Occasionally, a cheer would arise in some part of the ship; but these, and the cries of the hurt, were fire on the Briton, as well as the manner in which the English repaid all they received.  While standing near the main-mast, in the battery that was not engaged, Marble made me out in the smoke, and came-up to speak to me.

“Them Frenchmen are playing their parts like men,” he said.  “There’s a shot just gone through the cook’s coppers, and another through the boats.  By the Lord Harry, if the boys on this deck do not bestir themselves, we shall get licked.  I wouldn’t be licked by a Frenchman on any account, Miles.—­Even little Kitty would point her finger at me.”

“We are only passengers, you know, Moses; and can have little concern with victory, or defeat, so long as the striped and starred bunting has nothing to do with the credit of the thing.”

“I am not so sure of that, Miles.—­I do not like being flogged, even as a passenger.  There! just look at that, now!  Two or three more such raps, and half our guns will be silenced!”