270 NIGHTS IN THE GALLEY. 



breeze sprung up, she'd grab all the marchantmen, so he determined 

 to bring her to action, as that was the only way he could save the 

 convoy ; her being double our size was nothing to him, for he would 

 have fought the devil if he had met the old ' feller' at sea. Well, 

 he turns the hands up, and orders us all aft to speak to us ; when we 

 corned up, he says, ' Now, lads/ says he, ' there's a French frigate with 

 as many guns on one side of the deck as we have altogether, and 

 every gun most likely double our weight (for we had only eighteen- 

 pounders, you know) ; all one for that/ says he, ' it makes us just 

 equal two French to one English is all right. It's ten o'clock 

 now, lads, we'll just take that craft/ says he, ' and then we'll pipe to 

 dinner, and splice the main-brace what do you say, lads ?' So we 

 answered him with three cheers ; and he turned the hands up, ' sweep 

 ship.' Out went our sweeps, and away we pulled towards the 

 enemy ; when we got just near enough to see her well, but not within 

 gunshot, we beat to quarters ; and when we were already, we 

 manned our sweeps again, and pulled up. Directly we came within 

 gunshot, she let fly a broadside, which did not do much damage, ex- 

 cept to our rigging. We soon laid our sweeps in ; we were close to 

 her now, and we began to pelt away; and by the time she had fired 

 three broadsides, we had fired eleven. It was devilish hot work ; 

 the skipper kept cheering us up, telling us he was determined to 

 fight the schooner as long as she would swim; and we knew he was 

 a sailor, and could manage her, so we kept at it, firing three broad- 

 sides to her one for an hour and a half, till our rigging was all cut to 

 pieces, and our masts shot through and through. At last we thought 

 it was all over the skipper was wounded in the left arm ; but no 

 matter for that, he would not leave the deck or haul the colours 

 down ; he still swore he'd go down with the buntin flying. How- 

 somnever, it didn't last much longer, for she'd had enough of it, and 

 down went her colours. The moment as we saw that, we knocked off 

 firing, and launched our boom-boat over the side, but she would not 

 live ; she was pierced all over with shot, and directly she was in the 

 water she filled. We then tried our quarter-boats- they were a 



d d sight worse ; so we could not take possession until we had 



repaired them. It was quite calm, and our rigging and hull were 

 so cut up that we couldn't have moved if there had been any 

 breeze ; she was not half so bad as we were. While we was repair- 

 ing damages as well as we could, a little breeze sprung up ; she set 

 sail, and away she went. We couldn't stir, tack or sheet ; we fired 

 at her, but it was no use she got safe off, and anchored at Vigo, 

 and we ran into Oporto that evening. All the convoy was English ; 

 and if we hadn't fought, they would have been nabbed every man 

 Jack of them ; there was fifty sail of convoy. We heard afterwards 

 that it was the famous Belloon (Belone) of Bordeaux, that took so 

 many prizes in the war time ; she had two hundred and fifty men on 

 board, and out of them twenty was killed, and forty-five wounded. 

 We had forty-seven men altogether, and out o' them five killed and 

 ten wounded ; she carried twenty-four long-eighteens, and eight 

 thirty-six pound carronades ; so she was a little bigger nor us, but we 

 thrashed her, and I believe we would have thrashed any thing we 



