the Frenchman, who was our most serious opponent, must
board us on our weather-bow, we traversed over four of our guns, loaded
to the muzzle with musket-balls, to receive him, and being all ready
with our pateraroes and hand grenades we waited for the attack. As he
bore down for our bows, with all his men clinging like bees, ready for
the spring, our guns were discharged and the carnage was terrible. The
men staggered back, falling down over those who had been killed or
wounded, and it required all the bravery and example of the French
captain, who was really a noble fellow, to rally the remainder of his
men, which at last he succeeded in doing, and about forty of them gained
our forecastle, from which they forced our weak crew, and retained
possession, not following up the success, but apparently waiting till
they were seconded by the Spaniard's boarding us on our lee quarter,
which would have placed us between two fires, and compelled us to divide
our small force.

By this time the wind, which had been light, left us, and it was nearly
a calm, with a swell on the sea which separated the two vessels; the
Spaniard, who was ranging up under our lee, having but little way, and
not luffing enough, could not fetch us, but fell off and drifted to
leeward. The Frenchmen who had been thrown on board, and who retained
possession of our forecastle, being thus left without support from their
own vessel, which had been separated from us by the swell, or from the
Spaniard, which had fallen to leeward, we gave three cheers, and
throwing a number of hand grenades in among them we rushed forward with
our half-pikes, and killed or drove every soul of them overboard, one
only, and he wounded in the thigh, escaped by swimming back to his own
vessel. Here, then, was a pause in the conflict, and thus ended, I may
say, the second act.

Hitherto the battle had been fought with generous resolution; but after
this hand-to-hand conflict, and the massacre with which it ended, both
sides appeared to have been roused to ferocity. A most infernal
cannonade was now renewed by both our antagonists, and returned by us
with equal fury; but it was now a dead calm, and the vessels rolled so
much with the swell that the shot were not so effective. By degrees we
separated more and more from our enemies, and the firing was now reduced
to single guns. During this partial cessation our antagonists had drawn
near to each other, although at a considerab