No. 2 men horribly. Afterwards Mr. Wallis came and
took some of No. 2's men to board. I tried to bring both guns to bear
with No. 1's crew. No. 2's crew did not come back. At half-past ten all
firing stopped on the upper deck. Mr. Wallis went up to see if the enemy
had struck. He did not come down,--but the master came down and said we
had struck, and the orders were to cease firing.

"We had struck to the Richard, 44, Commodore Jones, and the Alliance,
40, which was the vessel they saw from the quarter-deck. Our consort,
the Countess Scarborough, had struck to the enemy's ship Pallas. The
officers and crew of the Richard are on board our ship. The mids talk
English well, and are good fellows. They are very sorry for Mr. Mayrant,
who was stabbed with a pike in boarding us, and Mr. Potter, another
midshipman, who was hurt.

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Week-days.|Sept., 1779.|Wind. |Courses.|Dist.|Lat. |Long. |Bearings.
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Friday, \|24th, 25th. |S.S.W.| |None.|As |As |As above.
Saturday./| | | | |above. |above. |
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"The enemy's sick and wounded and prisoners were brought on board. At
ten on the 25th, his ship, the Richard, sank. Played chess with Mr.
Merry, one of the enemy's midshipmen. Beat him twice out of three.

"There is a little French fellow named Travaillier among their
volunteers. When I first saw him he was naked to his waist. He had used
his coat for a wad, and his shirt wet to put out fire. Plenty of our men
had their coats burnt off, but they did not live to tell it."

Then the diary relapses into the dreariness of most ship-diaries, till
they come into the Texel, when it is to a certain extent relieved by
discussions about exchanges.

* * * * *

Such a peep at the most remarkable frigate-action in history, as that
action was seen by a boy in the dark, through such key-hole as the
after-ports of one of the vessels would give him, stimulated us all to
"ask for more," and then to abuse Master Robert Heddart, "volunteer," a
little, that he had not gone into more detail. Ingham defended his
grandfather by saying that it was the way diaries always served you,
which is true enough, and that the boy had literally told what he saw,
which was also true