As the size of the estuaries is so great, it is scarcely necessary to explain that the pressure of so wide sheets of water causes the currents, at all the narrow passes, to be exceedingly rapid; since that equal diffusion of the element, which depends on a natural law, must, wherever there is a deficiency of space, be obtained by its velocity.  There is, consequently, a quick tide throughout the whole distance between the harbor and Throgmorton; while it is permitted to poetic license to say, that at the narrowest part of the channel, the water darts by the land like an arrow parting from its bow.  Owing to a sudden bend in the course of the stream, which makes two right-angles within a short distance, the dangerous position of many rocks that are visible and more that are not, and the confusion produced by currents, counter-currents, and eddies, this critical pass has received the name of “Hell-Gate.”  It is memorable for causing many a gentle bosom to palpitate with a terror that is a little exaggerated by the boding name, though it is constantly the cause of pecuniary losses, and has in many instances been the source of much personal danger.  It was here, that a British frigate was lost, during the war of the Revolution, in consequence of having struck a rock called ‘the Pot,’ the blow causing the ship to fill and to founder so suddenly, that even some of her people are said to have been drowned.  A similar but a greatly lessened effect is produced in the passage among the islands, by which vessels gain the ocean at the eastern extremity of the sound; though the magnitude of the latter sheet of water is so much greater than that of Raritan-bay and the harbor of New-York, that the force of its pressure is diminished by a corresponding width in the outlets.  With these explanations, we shall return to the thread of the narrative.

When the person, who has so long been known in our pages by the nom de guerre of Tiller, gained the open street, he had a better opportunity of understanding the nature of the danger which so imminently pressed upon the brigantine.  With a single glance at the symmetrical spars and broad yards of the ship that was sweeping past the town, he knew her to be the Coquette.  The little flag at her fore-top-gallant mast sufficiently explained the meaning of the gun; for the two, in conjunction with the direction the ship was steering, told him, in language that any seaman could comprehend, that she demanded a Hell-Gate pilot.  By the time the Skimmer reached the end of a lone wharf, where a light and swift-rowing boat awaited his return, the second report bespoke the impatience of his pursuers to be furnished with the necessary guide.

Though the navigation in this Republic, coastwise, now employs a tonnage equalling that used in all the commerce of any other nation of Christendom, England alone excepted, it was of no great amount at the commencement of the eighteenth century.  A single ship, lying at the wharves, and two or three brigs and schooners at anchor in the rivers, composed the whole show of sea vessels then in port.  To these were to be added some twenty smaller coasters and river-craft, most of whom were the shapeless and slow-moving masses which then plied, in voyages of a month’s duration, between the two principal towns of the colony.  The appeal of the Coquette, therefore, at that hour and in that age, was not likely to be quickly answered.