Read "Captain Canot" by Brantz Mayer online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Disastrous as was this enterprise, both on the sea and in the counting-house, a couple of months found me on board a splendid clipper, -- born of the famous waters of the Chesapeake, -- delighting in the name of "AGUILA DE ORO," or "Golden Eagle," and spinning out of the Cape de Verds on a race with a famous West Indian privateer.
The "Montesquieu" was the pride of Jamaica for pluck and sailing, when folks of her character were not so unpopular as of late among the British Islands; and many a banter passed between her commander and myself, while I was unsuccessfully waiting till the governor resolved his conscientious difficulties about the _exchange of flags_. At last I offered a bet of five hundred dollars against an equal sum; and next day a bag with the tempting thousand was tied to the end of my mainboom, with an invitation for the boaster to "follow and take. " It was understood that, once clear of the harbor, the "Aguila" should have five minutes' start of the Montesquieu, after which we were to crowd sail and begin the race.