Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/164

 was no reasoning; and they got drunk, and continued drunk during the whole passage.

Good luck often attends us when we don't deserve it:

as Dibdin says, had an eye upon us. I knew we could not easily get out of the Gut of Gibraltar without knowing it; and accordingly, on the third.day after leaving the frigate, we made the rock early in the morning, and, by two o'clock, rounded Europa Point. I had ordered the men to bend the cable, and, like many other young officers, fancied it was done because they said it was, and because | had ordered it. It never once occurred to me to go and see if my orders had been executed: indeed, to say the truth, I had quite as much as I could turn my hand to: I was at the helm from twelve o'clock at night till six in the morning, looking out for the land; and when I ordered one of the men to relieve me, I directed