The disappointed invader was obliged to turn before the gale, and renounce his project.
To this hour, on the shores of the Firth of Forth, it is the popular persuasion, that the Rev.Mr.Shirrer's (of Kirkaldy) powerful intercession was the direct cause of the elemental repulse experienced off the endangered harbor of Leith.
Through the ill qualities of Paul's associate captains: their timidity, incapable of keeping pace with his daring; their jealousy, blind to his superiority to rivalship; together with the general reduction of his force, now reduced by desertion, from nine to three ships; and last of all, the enmity of seas and winds; the invader, driven, not by a fleet, but a gale, out of the Scottish water's, had the mortification in prospect of terminating a cruise, so formidable in appearance at the onset, without one added deed to sustain the reputation gained by former exploits.

Nevertheless, he was not disheartened.

He sought to conciliate fortune, not by despondency, but by resolution.

And, as if won by his confident bearing, that fickle power suddenly went over to him from the ranks of the enemy--suddenly as plumed Marshal Ney to the stubborn standard of Napoleon from Elba, marching regenerated on Paris.

In a word, luck--that's the word--shortly threw in Paul's way the great action of his life: the most extraordinary of all naval engagements; the unparalleled death-lock with the Serapis..