, Captain Hollowell fell in with the old
`Billyruffian' (`Bellerophon'), with already two hundred dead and
wounded, and almost a wreck from the tremendous fire of `L'Orient' of
120 guns. The `Swiftsure' took her place, and soon made the Frenchman
pay dear for what she had done. I heard of this afterwards. A seaman
at his gun can know little more of an action than what he sees before
his nose, and that is chiefly smoke and fire, and part of the hull and
rigging of one ship, and men struck down, and timbers and splinters
flying about, and yards and blocks rattling down, while he hears alone
the roar of the guns, the shouts, and shrieks, and groans of those
around him. This sort of terrible work was going on for some time, when
the word got about that the admiral himself was desperately wounded in
the head. It made our hearts sink within us with sorrow, but it did not
cause us to fight less fiercely, or be less determined to gain the
victory. How anxiously we waited to hear what the surgeons would say
about the wound of our noble chief! and when we were told that it was
merely the skin of his head which was hurt, and which had almost blinded
him, how hearty the cheer we gave. It must have astonished the
Frenchmen, who could not tell the cause. Then at it again we went
blazing away like fury, the round-shot and chain-shot and bullets
whizzing and tearing along our decks, making the white splinters fly,
and sending many a poor fellow out of the world, when suddenly the
darkness, which had till now surrounded us, was lighted up by the bright
flames which darted out of every port and twisted round the masts of a
burning ship. We soon learned that she was a French ship, the big
`L'Orient,' with which the `Billyruffian' had been engaged. Never did I
see such a sight; in a few minutes she was just one mass of flame, from
her truck to the water's edge. Her miserable crew, from one end of her
to the other, were leaping into the water to avoid the scorching heat.
`Out boats!' was the order, and each of our ships near at hand sent as
many boats as could be manned to the rescue of our unfortunate enemies.
Had they been our own shipmates, we could not have exerted ourselves
more. Still the battle raged from one end of the line to the other.
Suddenly there was a sound as if the earth were rent asunder. In one
pointed mass of flame up went the tall masts, and spars, and the decks
of the huge `L'Orient.' They seemed, in one bo