showed him to be master of his profession.

The helm was

kept fast, the head yards swung up heavily against the wind, and the vessel was soon whirling round on her heel, with a retrograde movement.

Griffith was too much of a seaman, not to perceive that the pilot had seized, with a perception almost intuitive, the only method that promised to extricate the vessel from her situation. He was young, impetuous, and proud; but he was also generous. Forgetting his resentment and his mortification, he rushed forward among the men, and, by his presence and example, added certainty to the experiment. The ship fell off slowly before the gale, and bowed her yards nearly to the water, as she felt the blast pouring its fury on her broadside, while the surly waves beat violently against her stern, as if in reproach at departing from her usual manner of moving.

The voice of the pilot, however, was still heard, steady and calm, and yet so clear and high as to reach every ear; and the obedient seamen whirled the yards at his bidding, in despite of the tempest, as if they handled the toys of their childhood. When the ship had fallen off dead before the wind, her head sails were shaken, her after yards trimmed, and her helm shifted, before she had time to run upon the danger that had threatened, as well to leeward as to windward. The beautiful fabric, obedient to her government, threw her bows up gracefully towards the wind again, and, as her sails were trimmed, moved out from amongst the dangerous shoal, in which she had been embayed, as steadily and swiftly as she had approached them.

A moment of breathless astonishment succeeded the accomplishment of this nice manœuvre, but there was no time for the usual expressions of surprise. The stranger still held the trumpet, and continued to lift his voice amid the howlings of the blast, whenever prudence or skill directed any change in the management of the ship. For an hour longer, there was a fearful struggle for their preservation, the channel becoming, at each step, more complicated, and the shoals thickening around the mariners, on every side. The lead was cast rapidly, and the quick eye of the pilot seemed to pierce the darkness, with a keenness of vision that exceeded human power. It was appa

rent to all in the vessel, that they were under the guidance of one who understood the navigation thoroughly, and their exertions kept pace with their reviving confidence. Again and again the frigate appeared to be rushing blindly on shoals, where the sea was covered with foam, and where destruction would have been as sudden as it was certain, when the clear voice of the stranger was heard warning them of the danger, and inciting them to their duty. The vessel was implicitly yielded to his government, and during those anxious moments, when she was dashing the waters aside, throwing the spray over her enormous yards, each ear would listen eagerly for those sounds that had obtained a command over the crew, that can only be acquired, under such circumstances, by great steadiness and consummate skill. The ship was recovering from the inaction of changing her course, in one of those critical tacks that she had made so often, when the pilot, for the first time, addressed the commander of the frigate, who still continued to superintend the all-important duty of the leadsman.

"Now is the pinch," he said; " and if the ship behaves well, we are safe-but if otherwise, all we have yet done will be useless."

The veteran seaman whom he addressed left the chains, at this portentous notice, and, calling to his first lieutenant, required of the stranger an explanation of his warning.

"See you yea light on the southern Headland?" returned the pilot; "you may know it from the star near it by its sinking, at times, in the ocean. Now observe the hummoc, a little north of it, looking like a shadow in the horizon-'tis a hill far inland. If we keep that light open from the hill, we shall do well-but if not, we surely go to pieces.'

"Let us tack again!" exclaimed the lieutenant. The pilot shook his head, as he replied

"There is no more tacking or box-hauling to be done tonight. We have barely room to pass out of the shoals on this course, and if we can weather the Devil's-Grip,' we clear their outermost point-but if not, as I said before, there is but an alternative."

"If we had beaten out the way we entered," exclaimed Griffith, "we should have done well."

"Say, also, if the tide would have let us do so," returned the pilot calmly. "Gentlemen, we must be prompt; we have but a mile to go, and the ship appears to fly. That topsail is not enough to keep her up to the wind; we want both jib and mainsail."

""Tis a perilous thing to loosen canvass in such a tempest!" observed the doubtful captain.

"It must be done," returned the collected stranger; "we perish, without it-see! the light already touches the edge of the hummoc; the sea casts us to leeward!"

"It shall be done!" cried Griffith, seizing the trumpet from the hand of the pilot.

The orders of the lieutenant were executed almost as soon as issued, and, every thing being ready, the enormous folds of the mainsail were trusted, loose, to the blast. There was an instant when the result was doubtful; the tremendous threshing of the heavy sails, seeming to bid defiance to all restraint, shaking the ship to her centre; but art and strength prevailed, and gradually the canvass was distended, and, bellying as it filled, was drawn down to its usual place, by the power of a hundred men. The vessel yielded to this immense addition of force, and bowed before it, like a reed bending to a breeze. But the success of the measure was announced by a joyful cry from the stranger, that seemed to burst from his inmost soul.

"She feels it! she springs her luff! observe," he said, "the light opens from the hummoc already; if she will only bear her canvass, we shall go clear!"

A report, like that of a cannon, interrupted his exclamation, and something resembling a white cloud was seen drifting before the wind from the head of the ship, till it was driven into the gloom far to leeward.

'Tis the jib, blown from the bolt-ropes," said the commander of the frigate. "This is no time to spread light duck-but the mainsail may stand it yet."

"The sail would laugh at a tornado," returned the lieutenant; "but that mast springs like a piece of steel."

"Silence all!" cried the pilot. "Now, gentlemen, we shall soon know our fate. Let her luff-luff you can!"

This warning effectually closed all discourse, and the hardy mariners, knowing that they had already done all in the power of man to ensure their safety, stood in breathless anxiety, awaiting the result. At a short distance ahead of them, the whole ocean was white with foam, and the waves, instead of rolling on, in regular succession, appeared to be tossing about in mad gambols. A single streak of dark billows, not half a cable's length in width, could be discerned running into this chaos of water; but it was soon lost to the eye, amid the confusion of the disturbed element. Along this narrow path the vessel moved more heavily than before, being brought so near the wind as to keep her sails touching. The pilot silently proceeded to the wheel, and, with his own hands, he undertook the steerage of the ship. No noise proceeded from the frigate to interrupt the horrid tumult of the ocean, and she entered the channel among the breakers, with the silence of a desperate calmness. Twenty times, as the foam rolled away to leeward, the crew were on the eve of uttering their joy, as they supposed the vessel past the danger; but breaker after breaker would still rise before them, following each other into the general mass, to check their exultation. Occasionally, the fluttering of the sails would be heard; and, when the looks of the startled seamen were turned to the wheel, they beheld the stranger grasping its spokes, with his quick eye glancing from the water to the canvass. At length the ship reached a point, where she appeared to be rushing directly into the jaws of destruction, when, suddenly, her course was changed, and her head receded rapidly from the wind. At the same instant, the voice of the pilot was heard, shouting

Square away the yards!-in mainsail!"

Square away

A general burst from the crew echoed, " the yards!" and, quick as thought, the frigate was seen gliding along the channel, before the wind. The eye had hardly time to dwell on the foam, which seemed like clouds driving in the heavens, and directly the gallant vessel issued from her perils, and rose and fell on the heavy waves of the open sea.

Lafayette's first Visit to America.-TICKNOR.

WHEN only between sixteen and seventeen, Lafayette was married to the daughter of the Duke d'Ayen, son of the Duke de Noailles, and grandson to the great and good Chancellor d'Aguesseau; and thus his condition in life seemed to be assured to him among the most splendid and powerful in the empire. His fortune, which had been accumulating during a long minority, was vast; his rank was with the first in Europe; his connexions brought him the support of the chief persons in France; and his individual character-the warm, open and sincere manners, which have distinguished him ever since, and given him such singular control over the minds of men-made him powerful in the confidence of society wherever he went. It seemed, indeed, as if life had nothing further to offer him, than he could surely obtain by walking in the path that was so bright before him.

It was at this period, however, that his thoughts and feelings were first turned towards these thirteen colonies, then in the darkest and most doubtful passage of their struggle for independence. He made himself acquainted with our agents at Paris, and learned from them the state of our affairs. Nothing could be less tempting to him, whether he sought military reputation, or military instruction; for our army, at that moment retreating through New Jersey, and leaving its traces of blood from the naked and torn feet of the soldiery, as it hastened onward, was in a state too humble to offer either. Our credit, too, in Europe was entirely gone, so that the commissioners, (as they were called, without having any commission,) to whom Lafayette still persisted in offering his services, were obliged, at last, to acknowledge, that they could not even give him decent means for his conveyance. Then," said he, "I shall purchase and fit out a vessel for myself." He did so. The vessel was prepared at Bordeaux, and sent round to one of the nearest ports in Spain, that it might be beyond the reach of the French government. In order more effectually to conceal his purposes, he made, just before his embarkation, a visit of a few weeks in England, (the only