down, singly and without order, on to the deck
crowded with foes. Or, perhaps, the ship to be cut out lies in a
hostile port under the guard of powerful batteries, and the boats must
dash in through the darkness, and their crews tumble, at three or four
separate points, on to the deck of the foe, cut her cables, let fall
her sails, and--while the mad fight still rages on her deck and the
great battery booms from the cliff overhead--carry the ship out of the
harbour. These, surely, are deeds of which only a sailor's courage is
capable! Let a few such stories be taken from faded naval records and
told afresh to a new generation.

In July 1800 the 14-gun cutter _Viper_, commanded by acting-Lieutenant
Jeremiah Coghlan, was attached to Sir Edward Pellew's squadron off Port
Louis. Coghlan, as his name tells, was of Irish blood. He had just
emerged from the chrysalis stage of a midshipman, and, flushed with the
joy of an independent command, was eager for adventure. The entrance
to Port Louis was watched by a number of gunboats constantly on
sentry-go, and Coghlan conceived the idea of jumping suddenly on one of
these, and carrying her off from under the guns of the enemy's fleet.
He persuaded Sir Edward Pellew to lend him the flagship's ten-oared
cutter, with twelve volunteers. Having got this reinforcement, and
having persuaded the _Amethyst_ frigate to lend him a boat and crew,
Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proceeded to carry out another and very different
plan from that he had ventured to suggest to his admiral. A French
gun-brig, named the _Cerbere_, was lying in the harbour of St. Louis.
She mounted three long 24 and four 6-pounders, and was moored, with
springs in her cables, within pistol-shot of three batteries. A French
seventy-four and two frigates were within gunshot of her. She had a
crew of eighty-six men, sixteen of whom were soldiers. It was upon
this brig, lying under three powerful batteries, within a hostile and
difficult port, that Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proposed, in the darkness of
night, to make a dash. He added the _Viper's_ solitary midshipman,
with himself and six of his crew, to the twelve volunteers on board the
flagship's cutter, raising its crew to twenty men, and, with the
_Amethyst's_ boat and a small boat from the _Viper_, pulled off in the
blackness of the night on this daring adventure.

The ten-oared cutter ran away from the other two boats, reached the
_Cerbere_, found her with battle lant