fired the great guns and were on deck
again. This last fire, being with ball, raked the privateer miserably.
Then we fired the small arms, and away to the ship's guns. This we did
three times successively without loss of a man, and I believe if
we could have held it once more, and no assistance had come to the
privateer, she had sheered quite off: but our captain spying a sail
at some distance behind the privateer, who lay to windward of us, and
seeing by his glass it was a Frenchman, was almost dismayed; the same
sight put courage into our enemies, who thereupon redoubled the attack,
and the first volley of their small arms shot our captain in the breast,
upon which he dropped dead without stirring. I need not say that sight
shocked me exceedingly. Indeed it disconcerted the whole action; and
though our mate, a man of good courage and experience, did all that a
brave man could do to animate the men, they apparently drooped, and
the loss of the ship became inevitable; so we struck, and the Frenchman
boarded us.

During the latter part of the engagement we had two men killed and five
wounded, who died afterwards of their wounds. We, who were alive, were
all ordered on board the Frenchman, who, after rifling us, chained us
two and two and turned us into the hold. Our vessel was then ransacked;
and the other privateer, who had suffered much the day before in an
engagement with an English twenty-gun ship of war, coming up, the prize
was sent by her into port, where she herself was to refit. In this
condition did I and fourteen of our crew lie for six weeks, till the
fetters on our legs had almost eaten to the bone, and the stench of the
place had well-nigh suffocated us.

The "Glorieux" (for that was the name of the privateer who took us)
saw nothing farther in five weeks worth her notice, which very much
discouraged the men; and consulting together, it was agreed to cruise
more northward, between Sierra Leone and Cape de Verde; but about noon
next day they spied a sail coming west-north-west with a fresh gale.
The captain thereupon ordered all to be ready, and lie by for her. But
though she discerned us, she kept her way, bearing only more southward;
when the wind shifting to northeast, she ran for it, full before the
wind, and we after her, with all the sail we could crowd; and though
she was a very good sailer, we gained upon her, being laden, and before
night came pretty well up with her; but being a large ship, and t