we therefore stood
boldly in after the Indiaman until we arrived within half a mile of the
entrance of the bay--at that point about two miles across--when two
batteries of six guns each, built upon opposite headlands forming the
entrance to the bay, opened fire upon us, and with such effect that
within five minutes we had been hulled seven times, and had lost two men
killed and five wounded. This afforded the skipper all the information
that he just then required, namely, the fact that batteries existed, and
also the exact position and strength of them--it now appearing that they
were armed with 32-pounders. We therefore hove about and got out of
range again as quickly as possible; for, as the Captain said, it was no
good returning the fire of earthwork batteries; we might have plumped
into them every shot we had on board without doing them a
farthing's-worth of damage, while, had we attempted to force a passage
into the bay with the frigate, they might easily have sunk us.

But the fun was not yet over; as a matter of fact it had really not
begun--the affair of the batteries was merely the overture of the little
drama which was taking shape in the skipper's brain. We stretched off
the land until we were about three miles distant from the mouth of the
bay, and then the ship was hove-to and preparation was made for the
dispatch of a cutting-out expedition; that is to say, an attack upon the
Indiaman by the frigate's boats, with the object of overpowering her
prize-crew, cutting her cables, and bringing her out of the harbour.

The launch, yawl, and the two cutters were the boats told off by the
Captain for this service, and as soon as the frigate was hove-to the
fighting crews of these boats--consisting of the very pick of the ship's
crew--were piped away, the boats hoisted out, and the preparation of the
craft for the service which they were about to undertake proceeded with.
Each of the boats named possessed, as part of her fighting equipment, a
gun mounted in the bows upon fore-and-aft slides, those belonging to the
launch and yawl being 18-pounder carronades, while the first and second
cutters each mounted a 12-pounder. As soon as the boats were in the
water they were taken charge of temporarily by their respective
coxswains--the best four men in the ship--who at once proceeded to
supervise the shipping and mounting of the guns, each coxswain assuring
himself, by personal inspection, that this important piece of