Still this might be accounted for, by
her either wishing to make out what we were before she engaged us, or
she might be clearing for action. At this moment a whole cloud of
studdingsails were blown from the yards as if the booms had been
carrots; and to prove that the chase was keeping a bright look-out, she
immediately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, under
the impression, no doubt, that she would draw ahead of us, from her
gear being entire, before we could rig out our light sails again.

And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gunshot. The
American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on,
and the word passed to see all clear. Our shot was by this time flying
over and over her, and it was evident she was not a man-of-war. We
peppered away--she could not even be a privateer; we were close under
her lee quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large
swaggering Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled
down the next moment. Hurrah! a large cotton-ship from Charlestown to
Bordeaux--prize to H.M.S. _Torch_!

She was taken possession of, and proved to be the _Natches_, of four
hundred tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.

By the time we got the crew on board, and the second-lieutenant, with a
prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour
again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our
voyage for the next three days, without anything particular happening.
It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by
a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst
the breakers." I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and
a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale
had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence
was, that by some mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large
ship had suddenly hove the brig in the wind, and taken the sails aback.
We accordingly fetched stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there
we were, in a heavy sea, with our stern grinding against the
cotton-ship's high quarter.

The mainboom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck,
was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over
the taffrail; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the
ship's mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away. Officers
shouting