The Briton manoeuvred all night to close with the stranger, and with success, as he was only a league distant, and a very little to windward of her, when I went on deck early the next morning.  I found the ship clear for action, and a degree of animation pervading the vessel, that I had never before witnessed.  The people were piped to breakfast just as I approached the captain to salute him with a ‘good morning.’

“Good morning to you, Wallingford,” cried the old man, in a cheerful way; “you are just in time to take a look at yonder Frenchman in his glory.  Two hours hence I hope he’ll not appear quite as much of a beau as he is a’ this moment.  She’s a noble craft, is she not, and quite of our own force.”

“As for the last, sir,” I answered, “there does not seem much to choose—­she is what you call a thirty-eight, and mounts fifty guns, I dare say.  Is she certainly French?”

“As certainly as this ship is English.  She can do nothing with our signals, and her rig is a character for her.  Whoever saw an Englishman with such royal-masts and yards?  So, Master Wallingford, you must consent to take your breakfast an hour earlier than common, or go without it, altogether.  Ah—­here is the steward to say it waits for us.”

I followed Captain Rowley to the cabin, where I found he had sent for Marble, to share our meal.  The kind-hearted old gentleman seemed desirous of adding this act of civility to the hundred others that he had already shown us.  I had received much generous and liberal treatment from Captain Rowley, but never before had he seemed so much disposed to act towards me as a father would act to a son as on that morning.

“I hope you have done justice to Davis’s cookery, gentlemen,” he said, after the assault on the eatables began to abate a little in ardour, “for this may be the last opportunity that will offer to enjoy it.  I am an Englishman, and have what I hope is a humble confidence in the superiority of an English over a French ship; but I very well know we never get even a French ship without working for it; and yonder gentleman may not leave us any crockery, for to-morrow.  He evidently means to fight us, and I think will do himself credit.”

“I believe you English always go into action against the French with a confidence of victory,” I remarked.

“Why, we have brought our lads up to that feeling, certainly, though I would not have you fancy I am quite of that way of thinking.  I am too old, and have seen too much service, Wallingford, not to know that every battle is liable to accidents and vicissitudes.  There is some difference in service, I must suppose, though not half as much in men as is vulgarly imagined.  The result is in the hands of God, and I do think we are fighting his battles, in this fearful war:  therefore, I trust he will take care of us.”