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    work : guns cast loose ,, crow-bars for pointing the guns lying at hand on the deck , tompions out , all ready for a game at thunder . By jingo ! but old Loo will get it roundly presently ; how the stones will rattle about his ears . A hundred and twenty-six guns will bang at once three thousand pound weight of iron wcrdges right into his ribs : why the very wind of it will make him reel

    and stagger ! But don ' t you imagine , reader , that I was not frightened in all this . ' Faith , there was something in the orderly stillness of lying there for half an hour with all this preparation for destruction and death , that made me think there might be worse places than the counting-house after all . There was no noise , no laugh , no show of hilarity , yet was there some

    interjectional jesting banded about , which called up grim smiles , but no laugh , no cachination , no chirruping . Men , shirtless , with handkerchiefs bandaged tightly round their loins and heads , stood with naked brawny arms folded on their hairy and heaving chests , looking pale and stern , but still , hushed ; or glancing , with a hot eye , through the ports to the battery on which the Portuguese flag flaunted , very innocently , while those black looking

    monsters , the guns , were creepingly shifting the position of their heads , and looking open mouthed upon us . All these matters were to me ugly , dismal , throat pinching ; I felt a difficulty in swallowing . Now if we had gone at it at once , without this chilling prelude , why I dare say I should have known very little about that thing which we call fear . I shall have plenty of these matters to talk of by and bye . e Stand to your guns ! ' at last came

    in a peal , through the perfect stillness , from the captain ' s speaking trumpet ; it swept fore and aft with such clear force , as though it had been spoken within a foot of the ear , and seemed to dash down into the holds and penetrate to the very keel . The instant change this produced was magical . ' Take good aim , ready the first platoon / ' Ready ? aye , every one was ready : stern , fixed , rigid in soul , pliant , elastic in body . ' Captains of the guns

    watch the falling of the first shot , and point accordingly . ' Not a ward was replied , even the everlasting Ay , ay , sir , ' was refused now . Now then , no firing yet ? No : a boat with a white flag is rowing out from under tne Loo rock ; and ho ! humbug ; there is to be no rumpus after all . That boat brought terms of capitulation : indeed , there had been no occasion for the * expedition , '

    its chief objects had already been secured by Sir Sidney Smith , a week or two before . Well , I was at once glad and sorry ; glad that I had escaped the danger of a battle ; and sorry that I had missed the seeing and knowing what it was like . Hem ! I thirsted for knowledge , reader . Well , the transports stood in and anchored , hundreds of boats were in requisition , and cargoes of red-coated , knapsacked , musketed , belted , curtouchboxed , and bayoneted bodies , floated in towards the beach , and round Loo ' base , and disembarked ; and L the British Hag waved , proudly' (?) over Loo Castle , and Funchal , &c . &c .

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    Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 30

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/39/