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the winds, as if determined to shew their contempt for the ambitious, and too often short-sighted views of man, suddenly changed to the westward, and blew with a degree of violence that left no hopes of succeeding, should we attempt to beat down Channel. Perhaps no situation can be more irksome than this to a sailor; when his mind is made up for departure, every delay that impedes it, is felt as a misfortune; and yet such is the contradiction in the mind of man, that while he wishes, he fears the removal of these impediments, and would still linger out another day, to accomplish something which is yet undone, or perhaps to take another last farewell of friends, to whom he has already bidden fifty times adieu. The first moment of a favourable wind we
