It mastheads the topsail-yards, on making sail; it starts the anchor from the domestic or foreign mud; it "rides down the main tack with a will"; it breaks out and takes on board cargo; it keeps the pumps (the ship's,not the sailor's) going.

" It is one of the most spirited things imaginable, when well sung, and, when applied to the topsail-halyards, brings the yards up in grand style.

man of war &c (combatant) 726; transport, tender, storeship^; merchant ship, merchantman; packet, liner; whaler, slaver, collier, coaster, lighter; fishing boat, pilot boat; trawler, hulk; yacht; baggala^; floating hotel, floating palace; ocean greyhound. ship, bark, barque, brig, snow, hermaphrodite brig; brigantine, barkantine^; schooner; topsail schooner, for and aft schooner, three masted schooner;

there he lay, under his three topsails driver, and jib; and we, with studding sails alow and aloft, couldn't alter his bearing a foot.

It is your business to carry the vessel into the Capes of Virginia, and mine to cut the topsail adrift.

But the tack was instantly boarded again, and the topsail set.

The weather, which for several days had been cold and threatening, grew momentarily worse, and on the 22d the wind was blowing a close-reefed-topsail gale from the south-east, and rolling a tremendous sea into the unprotected gulf.

The evening was extremely dark, and it was blowing a treble-reefed topsail breeze.

The enemy was not slack in returning this warm salute, for almost before the shot escaped from our guns, a man standing on the forecastle bits, hauling on the topsail buntlines, received a musket bullet in his left arm, which broke the bone, and commenced the labours in the cockpit.