170 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
de Luz that one can pass from the house where Your Majesty lodged, 
to Ciboure, upon a bridge of ships attached to each other.’’! 
Another famous exploit of Croisic is related in 1692. In February 
of that year he went on a filibustering expedition. Being off the har- 
bour of San Antonio in the Bay of Biscay in his light frigate La Légère, 
of only 24 guns, he discovered two Spanish vessels making towards 
San Sebastian. He gave chase at once and followed them for two days. 
On the 16th he perceived one of them to be a vessel very much larger 
than his own; of 500 tons carrying 36 guns and 100 men. On the 17th 
he overhauled her at about 9 a.m., gave her a broadside, then boarded _ 
her. But he was repulsed twice and obliged to withdraw to some 
distance, so fierce was the fire she kept up. He was struck himself in 
the shoulder by a musket-ball but he still kept the deck and commanded 
and encouraged his brave Basques. They again boarded her for the 
third time and after a desperate fight they made themselves masters 
of the deck. The Spaniards had prepared chests filled with powder 
(coffres à poudre) to blow up the attacking party. Two of Croisic’s 
crew were blown up. The Spaniards retired to the castles, or deck- 
houses, at the poop and stern (chateaux d’arriére et d’avant) whence they 
kept up a tremendous fire. After three quarters of an hour of most 
bloody combat, of all his crew only eighteen men remained and these 
nearly all dangerously wounded. The Spanish captain though severely 
wounded (S’était trainé jusqu'a Ste. Barbe) was found crawling towards 
the magazine or gun room, (Ste. Barbe) with the intention of blowing 
up the ship. He was stopped, and died just at the moment! Probably 
the means taken to stop him may have been so efficacious as to stop 
also the beating of his heart. 
The prize was laden with cordage, sails, masts, powder and all 
sorts of munitions of war, and supplies for a new galley being built at 
Passages near San Sebastian, which was to be the Admiral ship of the 
Spanish Fleet. The prize was brought to Bayonne. The fight had 
lasted five hours, 35 Basques were wounded and five killed. 
A few days after, this intrepid and irrepressible warrior was again 
at sea. Just after leaving the mouth of the river Adour (the river on 
which Bayonne is built) an English man-o-war, the Princess a cruiser 
of 64 guns, and 120 men attacked him without his having time to re- 
connoitre. Notwithstanding the great inferiority of his ship both in 
tonnage and men, Le Croisic immediately returned fire. A desperate 


1Tt is rather a curious coincidence that Prowse in his History of Newfoundland 
(p. 387) tells the same thing of the Harbour of St. John’s during American war of 
1812. . . . .” I have heard” he says, “a gentleman describe his walking 
across from Bennett’s (now Duder’s) to Alsop’s on the south side, on American prizes 
chained together.” 
