es,
with seventy-eight men. We now had nearly two hundred prisoners on board,
and thought it prudent to retrace our steps to Port Royal, when on the
following morning we fell in with two more schooner-rigged privateers. The
first we captured mounted a long brass twelve-pounder and two
six-pounders, with sixty-eight men. The other during the time we were
exchanging prisoners had got considerably to windward of us. Fortunately
towards the evening it fell calm, when we manned and armed three of the
boats. I had command of the six-oared cutter with eight seamen and three
marines. In the launch were the lieutenant, a mid, and eighteen men, and
in the other cutter as many as my boat held. We were two hours on our oars
before we got within musket-shot of her. She had several times fired at us
from her long gun charged with grape-shot, but without effect. We cheered
and gave way, when her last charge knocked down the coxswain of the cutter
I was in, who died a few hours afterwards, being shot in the head. The
lieutenant and one man were slightly wounded in the launch. We were soon
under the depression of her gun and alongside, when, on boarding her, one
half of her motley crew ran below. The captain and the remainder made a
show of resistance, when we ordered the marines to present. As soon as
they saw we had possession of her decks and were advancing with our
pistols cocked and our cutlasses upraised, they threw down their arms and
surrendered. She proved a French privateer with a long six-pounder on a
traverse and eight one-pound swivels, with fifty-two men. We took her in
tow and soon regained the ship. We made all sail for Port Royal with our
four prizes, and on our arrival next morning astonished our black and
yellow-faced acquaintances, who, as before, came off with boats and banjos
to welcome our return, not a little by our success. The following morning
we sent fifty men to the hospital. We had buried during the cruise
forty-three seamen, besides two mids and another of the lieutenants. The
most healthy were the first attacked, and generally died on the third day.
Out of the five hundred and sixty men we brought from England, we had only
now two hundred to do the duty of the ship.

CHAPTER V.

WEST INDIES AGAIN.

Owing to ravages of yellow fever go to Jamaica to obtain more
seamen--Difficulties and humours of impressment--Author attacked