At first I only laughed, but knowing the man who spoke to me to be of great veracity, and hearing him repeat his information, I flew upon deck, on which I had barely set my foot, when the cry of "another sail" struck on my astonished ear.
Confounded by a thousand ideas which arose in my mind in an instant, I sprang upon the barricado and plainly descried two ships of considerable size, standing in for the mouth of the Bay.

By this time the alarm had become general, and every one appeared lost in conjecture.

Now they were Dutchmen sent to dispossess us, and the moment after storeships from England, with supplies for the settlement.

The improbabilities which attended both these conclusions, were sunk in the agitation of the moment.

It was by Governor Phillip, that this mystery was at length unravelled, and the cause of the alarm pronounced to be two French ships, which, it was now recollected, were on a voyage of discovery in the southern hemisphere.