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20 THE king's YARD
where press-gangs were not likely to fall in w^ith
them.
During the peace fewer than a thousand men were
employed in the Yard, but at this time, from
Southampton, from Bristol, and like places, men
were flocking into Portsmouth, and were being taken
on every day at the Commissioner's office. Yet,
notwithstanding these signs of what was coming,
French coasting vessels crossed the Channel just as
regularly for Portsmouth, and so there was nothing
strange in the coming into port of a little Havre
lugger
loaded with onions. This vessel at ten
o'clock one morning
ran round the Point into the
small branch of the harbour, where merchant ships
lie,
then presentl}'', by the aid of a light leading wind,
and with much shouting and caper-cutting on the
part of her crew of two men and a boy, got herself
made fast to the Town Quay.
But there was something unusual in His Majesty's
cutter Ferrety tender to the Port Admiral, which had
been following the lugger
from the moment that she
rounded Gilkicker, running into this part
harbour, and without any noise
dropping
of the
or cutting of capers,
the lieutenant who commanded her and a
couple of marines upon the quay, just as the
Frenchmen were recovering from the excitement
of making fast their lines.