Precaution

Chapter 41

It was at the close of that war which lost this country the wealthiest and

most populous of her American colonies, that a fleet of ships were

returning from their service amongst the islands of the New World, to seek

for their worn out and battered hulks, and equally weakened crews, the

repairs and comforts of England and home.

The latter word, to the mariner the most endearing of all sounds, had, as

it were, drawn together by instinct a group of sailors on the forecastle

of the proudest ship of the squadron, who gazed with varied emotions on

the land which gave them birth, but with one common feeling of joy that

the day of attaining it was at length arrived.

The water curled from the bows of this castle of the ocean, in increasing

waves and growing murmurs, that at times drew t