chman's whole broadside crashing aboard us.

"We then began pounding away at each other as close as we could get. It
seemed wonderful to me that we were not both of us blown out of the
water. Our men were falling pretty thickly, some killed and many more
wounded, while our sails and rigging were getting much cut up.

"You see the enemy had twenty guns on a side to our sixteen, but we
tossed ours in and out so sharply that we made up for the difference.
For two mortal hours we kept blazing away, getting almost as much as we
gave, till scarcely a stick could stand aboard us; but our captain was
not the man to give in, and while he could he kept at it. At last, our
rigging and canvas being cut to pieces, and our masts ready to fall, so
that we could not make sail, the _Belle Poule_ having had enough of it,
shot ahead, and succeeded in getting under the land where we were unable
to follow her.

"The song says that we drove her ashore; but though we did no exactly do
that, we knocked her well about, and she had forty-eight men and
officers killed and fifty wounded. As it was, as I have said, the first
action in the old war, it was more talked about than many others. We
lost our captain, not from his being killed, but from his getting a
bigger ship, and Captain Everitt was appointed in his stead.

"The old _Arethusa_, after this, continued a Channel cruiser. We had
pretty sharp work at different times, chasing the enemy, and capturing
their merchantmen, and cutting-out vessels from their harbours; but we
had no action like the one the song was wrote about.

"At last, in the March of the next year, when some fifty leagues or more
off Brest, we made out a French frigate inshore of us. Instead of
standing bravely out to fight the saucy _Arethusa_, she squared away her
yards and ran for that port. We made all sail in chase, hoping to come
up with her before she could get into harbour. We were gaining on her,
and were expecting that we should have another fight like that with the
_Belle Poule_, when, as we came in sight of the outer roads of Brest,
what should we see but a thumping seventy-four, which, guessing what we
were, slipping her cable, stood out under all sail to catch us.

"We might have tackled the seventy-four alone, with a good breeze; but
we well knew that if we did not up stick and cut, we should either be
knocked to pieces or be sent to the bottom; so our captain, as in duty
bound, ordered us to brace