midnight
With this head sail we were also enabled to give the frigate her close-reefed mizzen-topsail and spanker ; with which canvas we began to move through the water at quite a respectable pace -- that is to say about four knots per hour . This , however , was not all ; for the carpenter had been hard at work all through the night preparing a jury fore-topmast and jib-boom ; while we had got a spare main-yard swung aloft and slung ; by mid-day , therefore , we were enabled to set a fore - topsail , jib , and mainsail , which further increased our speed . By four bells in the afternoon watch the island of Jersey was in sight , broad upon our lee bow , some six miles distant ; and at eight bells we tacked ship , being anxious not to draw too close in with the French coast in our then disabled condition . As the sun went down that night the weather manifested a tendency to improve , and by midnight the wind had softened down to a gentle breeze that barely gave us steerage-way through the water . Finally it died away altogether , and when the sun rose next morning , clear and bright , the _ Dolphin _ and ourselves were boxing the compass , not half a cable 's length apart . This in itself was rather provoking , as we were exceedingly anxious to get our prize into port , and off our hands ; but the delay was as nothing compared with the disagreeable circumstance that there were three exceedingly suspicious-looking sails in sight , about ten miles to the westward of us , apparently consorts , for we could see a good deal of signalling going on between them , of which we could make nothing . They were a ship , a brig , and a large lugger , and the cut of their canvas left us little room to doubt that they were French .