midnight
The signal for sailing was enforced by gun after gun ; the anchor was hove up , and , with all her stores on deck , her guns not even mounted , in a state of confusion unparalleled from her being obliged to hoist in faster than it was possible she could stow away , she was driven out of harbour to encounter a heavy gale . A few hours more would have enabled her to proceed to sea with security , but they were denied ; the consequences were appalling , they might have been fatal . In the general confusion some iron too near the binnacles had attracted the needle of the compasses ; the ship was steered out of her course . At midnight , in a heavy gale at the close of November , so dark that you could not distinguish any object , however close , the _ Impérieuse _ dashed upon the rocks between Ushant and the Main . The cry of terror which ran through the lower decks ; the grating of the keel as she was forced in ; the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame of the vessel ; the hurrying up of the ship 's company without their clothes ; and then the enormous wave which again bore her up , and carried her clean over the reef , will never be effaced from my memory . '' This , after all , was not an inappropriate introduction to the stormy three years which followed it . The story is written in the novels , particularly _ Frank Mildmay -LSB- 1 -RSB- _ where every item of his varied and exciting experience is reproduced with dramatic effect .