Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/122

 might travel up by telegraph to London, and conscious, perhaps, that he had left a little too much to the first-lieutenant, "tore the ship away by the hair of the head"—unmoored, bundled every thing in upon deck out of the lighters—turned all the women out of the ship, except five or six of the most abandoned—and, with a strong northerly wind, ran down to Yarmouth-roads, and through the Needles to sea, in a state of confusion and disaster which I hope never to see again.

The rear-admiral, Sir Hurricane Humbug, stood on the platform looking at us, (I was was afterwards told,) and was heard to exclaim, "D—n his eyes," (meaning our captain,) " there he goes at last! Iwas afraid that that fellow would have grounded on his beef bones before we should have got him out!"

"The more haste, the less speed," is oftener true in naval affairs than in any other situation of life. With us it had nearly proved fatal to the ship. Had we met with an enemy, we must