``Main topsail haul!'' shouts the captain; the braces are let go;
and if he has chosen his time well, the yards swing round like a
top; but if he is too late, or too soon, it is like drawing teeth.
The after yards are then braced up and belayed, the main sheet
hauled aft, the spanker eased over to leeward, and the men from
the braces stand by the head yards. ``Let go and haul!'' says the
captain; the second mate lets go the weather fore braces, and the
men haul in to leeward. The mate, on the forecastle, looks out for
the head yards. ``Well the fore topsail yard!'' ``Top-gallant
yard's well!'' ``Royal yard too much! Haul in to windward! So!
well that!'' ``Well all!'' Then the starboard watch board the main
tack, and the larboard watch lay forward and board the fore tack
and haul down the jib sheet, clapping a tackle upon it if it blows
very fresh. The after yards are then trimmed, the captain
generally looking out for them himself. ``Well the cross-jack[2]
yard!'' ``Small pull the main top-gallant yard!'' ``Well that!''
``Well the mizzen topsail yard!'' ``Cross-jack yards all well!''
``Well all aft!'' ``Haul taut to windward!'' Everything being now
trimmed and in order, each man coils up the rigging at his own
station, and the order is given, ``Go below the watch!''
During the last twenty-four hours of the passage, we beat off and
on the land, making a tack about once in four hours, so that I had
sufficient opportunity to observe the working of the ship; and
certainly it took no more men to brace about this ship's lower
yards, which were more than fifty feet square, than it did those
of the Pilgrim, which were not much more than half the size; so
much depends upon the manner in which the braces run, and the
state of the blocks; and Captain Wilson, of the Ayacucho, who was
afterwards a passenger with us, upon a trip to windward, said he
had no doubt that our ship worked two men lighter than his brig.
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