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We found her a ship of Bristol bound home from Barbadoes, but had been blown out of the road at Barbadoes, a few days before she was ready to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were both gone on shore; so that beside the terror of the storm, they were but in an indifferent case for good artists to bring the ship home; they had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible storm after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of their knowledge to the westward, and in which they had lost their masts, as above; they told us, they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then driven away again to the south-east by a strong gale of wind at N.N.W. the same that blew now, and having no sails to work the ship with, but a main-course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury-foremast, which they had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to stand away for the Canaries.
"And yet, Earing, with all this press of canvas, by the compass we have not left her a foot." "Lord, sir," returned the mate, shaking his head, like one who was well convinced of the folly of such efforts, "if you should split every cloth in the main-course, by carrying on the ship you will never alter the bearings of that craft an inch, till the sun rises!
How bravely did they stand to their pan-puddings, and paid off their dust! How merrily did they soak their noses! The fruit was not yet brought in, when a fresh gale at west and by north began to fill the main-course, mizen-sail, fore-sail, tops, and top-gallants; for which blessing they all sung divers hymns of thanks and praise.
"I flatter myself, Cuffe, that all hands will meet with opportunity enough," answered Sir Frederick, in his drawling way; "for I intend to put 'em all in together, like a thorough pack coming in at the death. I've seen Lord Echo's harriers so close, at the end of a long chase, that you might have covered the whole with this ship's main-course; and I intend it shall be so with our boats to-day.
The fact was apparent, as she approached, by the manner in which her rigging was knotted, and the attention that had been paid to her spars. Even as she closed, the men were on the yard bending a new main-course, the old one having been hit on the bolt-rope, and torn nearly from the spar. There were also several plugs on her lee-side to mark the spots where the French guns had told.
But we durst not hull in this unmerciful storm, sometimes trying under our main-course, sometimes with a haddock of our sail; for our ship was very leeward, and laboured hard in the sea. This night we lost sight of the pinnace, and never saw her again.
Being near eight bells, the watch on deck had been not over spry; and the consequence was that our big main-course was slatting and flying out overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a mighty drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying-pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets.
The shot could not be followed, and no one knew where they struck. Four had been fired, when a squall succeeded that shut in the chase, and of course the firing was suspended. So severe was this momentary effort of the African gales, hot, drowsy, and deadening as they are, that the Proserpine started her mizzentop-sail sheets, and clewed up her main-course, to save the spar.
The sides and ends of the structure, together with a central partition, were formed of sails, laboriously hoisted into position by means of tackles, laced to the ridge-pole, and securely pinned to the ground with stakes; and a spare main-course drawn over the ridge-pole, sloping down over the eaves, and drawn tight all round by ropes spliced into the leeches and secured to the ground with stout tent pegs, completed the whole.
"We will not follow his example; for he will wish they were aloft again, the moment we get him fairly under the play of our batteries. By George our King, but he has a pretty moving boat under him. Let fall the main-course, sir; down with it, or we shall have it night before we get the rogue a-beam."
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