twelve o'clock
`` Pipe the boat 's crew away , and let them get their guns and ammunition on the gangway . '' It was about a quarter to eleven when we hove to , the breeze still continuing variable and light , and the French line-of-battle ship did not come up so fast as before . We sounded after we hove to , and found that we were in five and a half fathoms water . At twelve o'clock , in consequence of our having hove to , the relative positions of the vessels were as follows : -- The two merchant vessels which had been about four miles astern of us were now alongside of us ; the third was about three miles astern of us ; and the Frenchman was about the same distance astern of her ; so that our frigate was about six miles from the French line-of-battle ship . Captain Delmar had given orders to pipe to dinner at seven bells -LRB- half-past eleven o'clock -RRB- ; that in case the boats were required , the men might have dined before the were sent away . A few minutes after twelve o'clock it fell a dead calm ; the hands were turned up , the boats hoisted out and lowered down , the guns and ammunition put in them , and everything in readiness ; we keeping our glasses upon the enemy , and watching her manoeuvring , which , at the distance we were , was now easily to be distinguished . Captain Delmar was aware that he ran some risk in sending his boats away , for it might so happen that a breeze might spring up from the seaward , and the enemy have the advantage of it long before us ; if so , it might bring her up to the vessel astern , and the boats be captured : indeed it might bring her up nearly alongside of us before we caught the wind .