Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands we’re sent below, and our watch remained on deck.  Two men at the wheel had as much as they could do to keep her within three points of her course, for she steered as wild as a young colt.  The mate walked the deck, looking at the sails, and then over the side to see the foam fly by her,—­slapping his hands upon his thighs and talking to the ship—­“Hurrah, you jade, you’ve got the scent! you know where you’re going!” And when she leaped over the seas, and almost out of the water, and trembled to her very keel, the spars and masts snapping and creaking, “There she goes!—­There she goes—­handsomely!—­As long as she cracks, she holds!”—­while we stood with the rigging laid down fair for letting go, and ready to take in sail and clear away if anything went.

At four bells we have the log, and she was going eleven knots fairly; and had it not been for the sea from aft which sent the chip home, and threw her continually off her course, the log would have shown her to have been going somewhat faster.  I went to the wheel with a young fellow from the Kennebec, who was a good helmsman; and for two hours we had our hands full.  A few minutes showed us that our monkey jackets must come off; and, cold as it was, we stood in our shirt sleeves in a perspiration, and were glad enough to have it eight bells and the wheels relieved.  We turned in and slept as well as we could, though the sea made a constant roar under her bows, and washed over the forecastle like a small cataract.

Notes.—­The Falkland Islands are a group in the Atlantic just east of Cape Horn.

Bells.  On shipboard time is counted in bells, the bell being struck every half hour.

CVII.  IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS. (375)

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800-1859, was born in the village of Rothley, Leicestershire.  On his father’s side, he descended from Scotch Highlanders and ministers of the kirk.  His education began at home, and was completed at Trinity College, Cambridge.  While a student, he gained much reputation as a writer and a debater.  In 1826 he was admitted to the bar.  In 1825 began his connection with the “Edinburgh Review,” which continued twenty years.  Some of his most brilliant essays appeared first in its pages.  He was first chosen to Parliament in 1830, and was reelected several times.  In 1840 his essays and some other writings were collected and published with the title of “Miscellanies.”  His “Lays of Ancient Rome” was published in 1842.  His “History of England” was published near the close of his life.  In 1857 he was given the title of Baron Macaulay.  “His style is vigorous, rapid in its movement, and brilliant; and yet, with all its splendor, has a crystalline clearness.  Indeed, the fault generally found with his style is, that it is so constantly brilliant that the vision is dazzled and wearied with its excessive brightness.”  He has sometimes been charged with sacrificing facts to fine sentences.