34 
SEA MOXSTERS UNMASKED. 
storm, during which some of them unfortunately foundered. 
The various accidents which preceded the loss of these 
vessels was related in evidence to the Admiralty by the 
sur\-ivors, and official documents prove that De ]\Iontfort's 
fleet-destroying poiilpe was an invention of his own, and 
had no part whatever in the disaster that he attributed 
to it. 
I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of 
the report, that De ^lontfort's propensity to write that 
which was not true culminated in his committing forgery, 
and that he died in the galleys. But he records a state- 
ment of Captain Jean Magnus Dens, said to have been 
a respectable and veracious man, who, after having made 
several voyages to China as a master trader, retired from a 
seafaring life and lived at Dunkirk. He told De ]Montfort 
that in one of his voyages, whilst crossing from St. Helena 
to Cape Xegro, he was becalmed, and took advantage of 
the enforced idleness of the crew to have the vessel scraped 
and painted. Whilst three of his men were standing on 
planks slung over the side, an enormous cuttle rose from 
the water, and threw one of its arms around two of the 
sailors, whom it tore away, with the scaffolding on which 
they stood. With another arm it seized the third man, who 
held on tightly to the rigging, and shouted for help. His 
shipmates ran to his assistance, and succeeded in rescuing 
him by cutting away the creature's arm with axes and 
knives, but he died delirious on the following night. The 
captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the 
animal, and drove several harpoons into it ; but they broke 
away, and the men were carried down by the monster. 
The arm cut off was said to have been twenty-five feet 
long, and as thick as the mizen-yard, and to have had on it 
suckers as big as saucepan-lids. I believe the old sea- 
