The first ship, Captain Cuffe, brags of being able to travel faster than anything within the Straits!" "I'll bet a month's pay the Few-Folly walks away from her on a bowline, ten knots to her nine.

If she can do that with the Proserpine, she'll at least do that with Mistress Terpsichore.

There goes a signal from the frigate now, Mr.Griffin, though a conjuror could hardly read it, tailing directly on as it does.

Well, quartermaster, what do you make it out to be ?" "It's the Terpsichore's number, sir; and the other ship has just made the Ringdove's." "Show ours, and keep a sharp lookout; there'll be something else to tell us presently." In a few minutes the Terpsichore expressed a wish to speak the Proserpine, when Cuffe filled his main-topsail and hauled close upon a wind.

An hour later the three ships passed within hail of each other, when both the junior commanders lowered their gigs and came on board the Proserpine to report.
Roller followed in the first cutter, which had been towed down by the Terpsichore.
The Terpsichore was commanded by Captain Sir Frederick Dashwood, a lively young baronet, who preferred the active life of a sailor to indolence and six thousand a year on shore; and who had been rewarded for his enterprise by promotion and a fast frigate at the early age of two and twenty.