Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/179

 We recovered the fihing ground after having been driven off during four days, and found as great plenty of whales as when we left it. We now aw a hip in hore, who ailed well, and was heavy mettled as we conjectured from the report of a gun. I dicovered with the telecope that he was French built, and from the intelligence communicated by the Spaniard we fell in with off the Gulf of Guatamala, on the Coat of Mexico, we had every reaon to believe that he was one of the French hips which he mentioned as being in thee eas. We kept tanding in with the hore to reconnoitre her, having great confidence in the ailing of our own veel. During the evening, night and morning, we had alternately heavy fogs, light winds and calms. At nine A. M. the weather became clear. I now tood towards the ail, but the nearer I approached the more I upected her to be an enemy. I then tretched away to the Southward, when he carried everything after us, and getting a trong Northerly breeze, which he brought up with her, over-reached us very fat. We made all the ail we could from her, (our Latitude at noon 0° 19′ 52″ North) but I entertained little or no hope of ecaping: we therefore cut down the tern, in order to get out two threepounders, which were all the great guns we had, and put