The lookout aloft soon reported that the leading ship was under short canvas, while those which immediately followed her were covered to their trucks, and showing studdingsails as well, from which piece of information it was not difficult for me to guess that the strangers to windward consisted of a convoy of merchantmen, with its escort of men-o'-war.  This conjecture of mine soon proved to be correct, for within half-an-hour of their first appearance the leading ships were in sight from the deck, and we made out the biggest of them to be a 74-gun ship, the others in sight obviously being merchantmen.  As we closed, with ensign and pennant hoisted, the commodore signalled me to come alongside and send a boat aboard, which I did, going in the boat myself to see what news I could pick up.  I thus learned that the ship I had boarded was the _Goliath_, the captain of which was the commodore of the squadron of convoying ships, consisting of--in addition to the _Goliath_--the frigates _Tourmaline_ and _Spartiate_, and the gun-brigs _Vulcan, Wolverine, Spitfire_, and _Tortoise_; the convoy consisting of three hundred and eighty-seven sail of all sorts, bound to the various West Indian ports.  I informed the commodore of the nature of the duty upon which I had been sent out by the Admiral on the station, and inquired whether any suspicious craft had been sighted during the passage; to which he grimly replied in the affirmative, but added that they had all been accounted for, and would be found, with prize-crews aboard them, in the main body of the fleet.  I stayed on board the seventy-four for a couple of hours, gathering what news the inmates of the ward-room could give me; during which the _Wasp_, under boom-foresail and fore-staysail only, easily kept company with the ponderous two-decker, looking in comparison with her "no bigger as my thumb," as the negroes would say.  She excited a great deal of curiosity, on account of her very peculiar model, and likewise a very considerable amount of admiration as she swept along lightly and buoyantly as a seagull over the long undulations of the heavy swell that was running.  It was the first time that I had ever beheld her under sail, from outside her own bulwarks, and although, looked down upon from the lofty poop of the _Goliath_, she seemed to be the merest cockle-shell, small enough to be hoisted inboard and stowed upon the two-decker's main hatch, there was still a look of staunchness about her that, coupled with the beauty of her form and the rakish sauciness of her entire appearance, made me feel very proud of the fact that I commanded her, as well as very anxious for an opportunity to show of what she and her crew were capable.