After the carpenters, as well as Capt. de Cottineau, and other men of sense, had well examined and surveyed the ship (which was not finished before five in the evening), I found every person to be convinced that it was impossible to keep the Bon Homme Richard afloat so as to reach a port if the wind should increase, it being then only a very moderate breeze. I had but little time to remove my wounded, which now became unavoidable, and which was effected in the course of the night and next morning. I was determined to keep the Bon Homme Richard afloat, and, if possible, to bring her into port. For that purpose the first lieutenant of the Pallas continued on board with a party of men to attend the pumps, with boats in waiting ready to take them on board in case the water should gain on them too fast. The wind augmented in the night and the next day, on the 25th, so that it was impossible to prevent the good old ship from sinking. They did not abandon her till after 9 o'clock. The water was then up to the lower deck, and a little after ten I saw with inexpressible grief the last glimpse of the Bon Homme Richard.
THE CHASE AND THE CAPTURE
J. Cobb
I
THROUGHOUT the night of the seventh day from port, we had but little rest, the vessel requiring all the aid the crew were enabled to render her. The one watch was kept on deck in readiness to lend assistance, whilst the other went below, without knowing what moment they might be called, or when help would most be needed. The sea broke across the deck at times, with terrific violence. One came curling over our larboard quarter, and after carrying away the bulwark, over which it mounted with its avalanche of waters, swept everything of a light nature in its course — blocks, buckets, water casks, and cordage was cleared from the deck in its rush, and so damaging the long-boat and straining her lashings, it was feared at the next sweep, that would likewise be carried overboard.
The morning of the 28th December broke, with no prospect of the gale ceasing, and the brig looked more like a wreck, than the staunch and proud craft of the week previous. She was stripped to her stumps, all her yards except her fore and foretopsail, were on deck, her rigging in disorder, and the decks lumbered and in confusion from the effects of the seas, which had so often broken over them during the past night.
The third lieutenant had been the officer of the watch, from four o'clock in the morning, till eight, and was rather harshly spoken to by the first, who succeeded him, for not keeping things in better trim. One, among the other questions put to the officer whose watch had just expired, was, whether he had kept a good look out aloft; to which he replied, he had, but that the last man he had sent to the mast-head, had left his post without being relieved, and, till some time after the other watch was called, without his knowledge.
I saw the fire, or what was its equal, anger, flash from the first lieutenant's eyes at this remissness of duty; and he instantly gave an order for the best man on board to go to the mast-head, there to remain till ordered down. The order was obeyed by one of the quarter-masters, who had not been there ten minutes before he sang out,
"Sail ho! — on the weather quarter." But he could discern nothing except her upper sails, on account of the heavy mist and rain, which obscured the lower view, as it likewise did that of the sail he first saw, by the time he could make out her bearings from the brig.
All hands were now called to make sail, and the men went cheerily to their work, with that animating spirit, a prize in sight always infuses into a crew; many bantering their mess-mates to club for the prize money, or to draw lots which should have the other's, when again from the mast-head came
"Sail ho!"
"Where away?"
"A little farther a-beam than the first."
But as the quarter-master aloft, could only see the one, and make nothing out of her, except "she has top-gallant-sails set, and apparently on tall masts," it was thought the look-out must have mistaken the bearings of the first sail he discovered, while she was obscured in the mist, and on her re-appearance, he had announced her as a second vessel. None felt the least alarm, at the supposition that two sails were in sight; yet all bestirred themselves to get the spars aloft, and other sails bent in the places of those damaged during the gale, to be in readiness to give chase to the prize to windward, which many accounted to be "nothing less than an Indiaman, if Old Snaggletooth aloft has reported aright about her top-gallantsails, for none but an Indiaman or a man-of-war would carry her upper sails with this gale and thick weather; and she must be a stiff craft at that; or be in a hurry to get out of this latitude of blustering gales, angry cross-seas, hard rains, and mists, that will stop a leak when oakum is scarce."
The first lieutenant, when hearing the second sail announced, pondered a moment, muttering to himself "top-gallantsails — top-gallantsails set!"— seized the glass, and was proceeding up the rigging, to ascertain for himself the character of the sail in sight; but before he had reached a dozen rattlings of the shrouds, the quarter-master bellowed out a third time his "sail ho!" with renewed strength of voice, accompanied with,
"The mist has settled, so that I can plainly see the three — all to the windward, bearing down towards us, with as much sail set as each can carry, and evidently men-of-war, by the tautness of their rig, and high towering masts."
The lieutenant was on deck issuing his orders, long before the quarter-master had finished the unwelcome intelligence, that three frigates of the enemy were in sight.
We had been discovered, as it afterwards appeared, by the enemy, time enough for them to get sail on, before we espied them, altogether through the carelessness of the officer of the previous watch, by his not keeping a proper look-out from the mast-head. For this misconduct and remissness of duty, he was disfranchised instanter, from farther command as an officer in the brig.
Our situation was perilous in the extreme, even to the most inexperienced hand on board; for up to this time we had nothing set, except a double reefed foresail, fore-and-aft-mainsail, and jib, both likewise closely reefed, consuming about twenty minutes in setting these and getting the brig before the wind; the whilst the enemy were coming down with as much canvas as their heavy ships could stagger under, and at a distance the most nearsighted on board could view them, without the aid of the glass: and with a velocity that was anything but pleasant, for those who wished either welfare to the brig or safety to themselves.
If I thought before, that our craft was barely able to stand under the little sail kept on her for the last two days, it only went to prove my incapacity to judge in these matters; for sail upon sail was set, in an inconceivable short space of time, till she careened and plunged, as though each plunge would be her last. When her spars were all in their proper places, she was put on the wind, hauling it as closely as possible, the enemy at the same time changing their position to correspond with ours. The fog and mist cleared away occasionally, affording us a full view of them, about three and a half miles distant, at the time of our tacking.