midnight
He had been a dashing smuggler in his day , and could tell of a long nine-pounder rammed home with wads of French silks ; of cartridges stuffed with the finest gunpowder tea ; of cannister-shot full of West India sweetmeats ; of sailor frocks and trowsers , quilted inside with costly laces ; and table legs , hollow as musket barrels , compactly stowed with rare drugs and spices . He could tell of a wicked widow , too -- a beautiful receiver of smuggled goods upon the English coast -- who smiled so sweetly upon the smugglers when they sold her silks and laces , cheap as tape and ginghams . She called them gallant fellows , hearts of game ; and bade them bring her more . He could tell of desperate fights with his British majesty 's cutters , in midnight coves upon a stormy coast ; of the capture of a reckless band , and their being drafted on board a man-of-war ; of their swearing that their chief was slain ; of a writ of habeas corpus sent on board for one of them for a debt -- a reserved and handsome man -- and his going ashore , strongly suspected of being the slaughtered captain , and this a successful scheme for his escape . But more than all , Jack could tell of the battle of Navarino , for he had been a captain of one of the main-deck guns on board Admiral Codrington 's flag-ship , the Asia . Were mine the style of stout old Chapman 's Homer , even then I would scarce venture to give noble Jack 's own version of this fight , wherein , on the 20th of October , A. D. 1827 , thirty-two sail of Englishmen , Frenchmen , and Russians , attacked and vanquished in the Levant an Ottoman fleet of three ships-of-the line , twenty-five frigates , and a swarm of fire ships and hornet craft . `` We bayed to be at them , '' said Jack ; `` and when we _ did _ open fire , we were like dolphin among the flying-fish .