As for English ships, it was a time of war, and none durst show their prows in the harbour, save under a false flag.

Yet the longing for home was so strong in me, that I think, had I found one, I would even have seized a small rowing-boat and attempted to cross the Channel in it single- handed.
For two days I prowled hither and thither, vainly looking for a chance of escape, and was beginning to wonder whether after all I should have to return to Benoit, when I chanced one evening on a fellow who, for all his French airs and talk, I guessed the moment he spoke to be an Irishman.

He was, I must confess, not quite sober, which perhaps made him less careful about appearances than he should have been.
It was on the cliffs of La Heve we foregathered.

He was walking so unsteadily on the very margin that I deemed it only brotherly to lend him an arm.
"Thank you, my lad," said he, beginning the speech in French, but relapsing into his native tongue as he went on; "these abominable French cliffs move about more than the cliffs at Bantry.

Nothing moves there-- not even custom-house runners.