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Excerpt:- It was five o'clock in the afternoon, In the month of March, and a sulky dusk coming over the sky out of the eastward, in the teeth of a brisk westerly breeze that was sufficiently mild in temperature, though you felt if it should veer but a point or two southerly, there was wet enough in its skirts to bring it along cold as hail. The Golden Hope, with Mr. Fortescue on board, had got under way from Gravesend that morning at ten o'clock, and under gaff and square-topsails, had sailed down the smooth river at a handsome pace, sweeping no more than a ripple or two aft, as she sheared through it with her keen stem. And now she was off the North Foreland, heading to the southwards of the Goodwins ; for it was pretty certain that the wind would fly into the south-west presently, and Captain Hiram Weeks and Mr. Stone had settled it that a "ratch" to the French coast and a board to the Ness would help them to abreast of the Wight with only a shift of helm, after which there was all the breadth of the Channel before them to the Cherbourg coast with the wind-up of a close-hauled run to the Lizard, whence departure would be taken for the island in the Indian Ocean; always supposing, of course, that the wind hung strong at south-west.