hides,
seal-skins, and sandal-wood to the Chinamen; and at last, having made a
successful voyage, we were on our homeward passage, when yonder
piratical craft fell in with us. Each man had been promised a share of
the profits, so that we had something to fight for. Fight our poor
fellows did, till there was scarcely one of them left unhurt. We none
of us thought of striking, though; but at last the rascally pirates ran
us aboard, and as they swarmed along our decks cut down every man who
still stood on his legs. How I escaped without a hurt I don't know. I
soon had other troubles; for, being uninjured, I was at once carried
aboard our captor, but before the Frenchmen could secure their prize,
she blew up, with every soul on board, and there was I left a prisoner
alone. I almost envied the fate of our crew. The loss of the prize,
which had cost them so many lives and so much trouble, made the
Frenchmen very savage, especially their captain, who is about as daring
a villain as ever ploughed salt water. This determined him, when he
fell in with your convoy, to try and cut one of them out. He fixed on
you because you were of a size which he thought he could tackle easily,
and he hoped to take you by surprise. Why he did not kill me outright I
do not know, for he treated me like a brute from the moment he got me in
his power; and when we ran you alongside he made me get into the rigging
that I might be shot at; and I thought to myself, The safest plan is to
jump aboard, and if I escape a knock on the head I may stow myself away
before any one sees me. Such is the end of my history at present."

The name of the vessel which had attacked us was the _Mignonne_,
privateer, of twenty guns and eighty men, Captain Jules La Roche, of the
port of Brest, we learned from the stranger. "And your own name, my
friend?" I asked, not feeling very sure that the truth had been told
us. "Dennis O'Carroll. My name will tell you where I hail from, and
you may look at me as a specimen of one of the most unfortunate men in
the world," he answered. If O'Carroll's account of the size of our
antagonist was correct, we had good reason to be thankful that we had
escaped so easily. Our chief anxiety was now about finding the fleet.
We had no business to have separated from them; for though we might
easily have run out to the East without encountering an enemy, yet,
should any accident have happened to us, our insurers might have
conside