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the Queen's Cups. The Squadron's Queen's Cup was in 1851, as it always is, limited to vessels of the R.Y.S.; and that year further confined to cutters of under 100 tons. It was won by the Bacchante.
The interest felt in the coming race was indescribable. Men left their grouse unshot, their moors untrodden, and crowded to Cowes. Accommodation was as difficult to obtain, and as costly and unsatisfactory when obtained, at the little town on the banks of the Medina, as it was last August, when the broad folds of the black-and-yellow standard of Imperial Germany streamed out in the roadstead. Eighteen vessels entered against the stranger; fifteen—eight cutters and seven schooners—started. All the fastest fliers of the English fleet, with the exception, perhaps, of the Musquito, were engaged—the Volante, Mona, Arrow, Alarm, Bacchante, Aurora, and Gipsy amongst them. The cutters, of course, were smaller than the Yankee; but many of the schooners were bigger, notably the square-rigged Brilliant of 393 tons. The vessels were got away at ten o'clock on the morning of the 22d August, with the wind from the westward, and described as a "five-knot breeze." A drizzly rain proved totally insufficient to damp the ardour of the coast watchers all around the island. The race is soon described. The Yankee stole through the entire fleet like a witch. One by one she dropped them, the cutter Volante alone giving her any trouble. Reaching out to the back of the Wight, she simply squandered her foes. Off Shanklin, the ridiculous little jib-boom, which she had adopted since she entered our waters, "snapped off short like a carrot"; not that it was any loss to her. To be brief with the tale, at 8.35 she got her gun at the Castle, the length of the race being a proof of the lightness of the breeze during the greater part of the day. Coming up from Hurst Castle to the winning line had been a most tedious affair; but no sooner had the cannon sounded than the wind freshened, and the Aurora, which happened to be the next vessel, came home with a flowing sheet, and was clocked seventeen minutes after the America—that is to say, her luck brought her near enough to the stranger to have been only beaten by two minutes had they been racing on the time allowance scale then in vogue. The rest of the flotilla came in—sometime. So was the famous America Cup won. And it has yet to be brought back to Europe.
About a week later the formal duel came off between the America and the Titania. As a matter of fact two races were sailed, the prize for each bout being a £20 stake. The first turn was twenty miles to the south-east of the Nab light, with the wind "large"; and the second twenty miles home right in the teeth of a stiff breeze. On the outward journey Mr Stevens only beat his rival by 4 min. 12 sec.; but coming back it blew hard enough to put the Englishman under very snug canvas, whilst the American was always the drier ship and the better sea-boat, sailing points nearer the wind, making fewer tacks, and winning by 47 min. 12 sec. These were the only races the terrible schooner actually sailed; but she was frequently under way, and many an English vessel slily verified the truth of the double verdict.
A few words of description of this clipper may not be out of