As This Kept Us Running
Up And Down The Rigging All The Time, One Hand Was Sent Aloft At
Each Mast-Head, To Stand-By To Loose And Furl The Sails, At The
Moment Of The Order.
I took my place at the fore, and loosed
and furled the royal five times between Rainsford Island and the
Castle.
At one tack we ran so near to Rainsford Island, that,
looking down from the royal yard, the island, with its hospital
buildings, nice gravelled walks, and green plats, seemed to lie
directly under our yard-arms. So close is the channel to some of
these islands, that we ran the end of our flying-jib-boom over
one of the out-works of the fortifications on George's Island;
and had an opportunity of seeing the advantages of that point as
a fortified place; for, in working up the channel, we presented
a fair stem and stern, for raking, from the batteries, three or
four times. One gun might have knocked us to pieces.
We had all set our hearts upon getting up to town before night
and going ashore, but the tide beginning to run strong against us,
and the wind, what there was of it, being ahead, we made but little
by weather-bowing the tide, and the pilot gave orders to cock-bill
the anchor and overhaul the chain. Making two long stretches,
which brought us into the roads, under the lee of the castle,
he clewed up the topsails, and let go the anchor; and for the
first time since leaving San Diego, - one hundred and thirty-five
days - our anchor was upon bottom.
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