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The captain went on shore, and we did not see him until his return from London with a commission in his pocket to command a seventy-four-gun ship, into which, shortly after, we were all turned over. We regretted leaving the frigate, for although she was one of the small class, we were much attached to her. Not one of us mids had ever served in a larger vessel than a frigate.
The recent coolness between him and Lord Hood had been rapidly disappearing under the admiral's reviving appreciation and his own aptitude to conciliation. "Lord Hood is very civil," he writes on more than one occasion, "I think we may be good friends again;" and the offer of a seventy-four-gun ship in place of his smaller vessel was further proof of his superior's confidence.
But when the jury announced the verdict Not Guilty and I told the prisoner he was acquitted and free to go, that woman rose up till she appeared to be as tall and grand as a seventy-four-gun ship, and says she: "'Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty that murdered my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my little children's, and that all has been done to him that ever justice and the law can do?
The "Siren," late in the war, was captured by the seventy-four-gun ship "Medway," and the loss of the "Argus" has just been chronicled. Of all these brigs, the "Argus" alone was able to fire a gun in her own defence, before being captured; the rest were all forced to yield quietly to immensely superior force.
The three English seventy-four-gun ships were matched against one of a hundred and twenty and two of eighty-four. Darkness did not put a stop to the engagement, which continued to rage with unabated fury, the battle being practically between twelve British ships and eight French ships of the line and their four frigates and gun-boats.
The conclusion of peace put an end to the proposed cruise of the Spark, and Farragut was next ordered, in March, 1815, to the Independence, a seventy-four-gun ship, or ship-of-the-line, as such were commonly called. She was the flag-ship of a numerous squadron, composed mostly of small vessels, destined to act against Algiers, with whom war had recently been declared.
Venice, England, France, had repeatedly chastised the pirates in times past. In 1799, the Portuguese, with one seventy-four-gun ship, took two Tripolitan cruisers, and forced the Pacha to pay them eleven thousand dollars. In 1801, not long before our expedition, the French Admiral Gaunthomme over-hauled two Tunisian corsairs in chase of some Neapolitan vessels.
The one story, noble and enduring, that will ever be associated with the French on the 1st of June is in full keeping with the temper of the times and the enthusiasm of the nation. The seventy-four-gun ship Vengeur, after a three hours' fight, yardarm to yardarm, with the British Brunswick, was left in a sinking state by her antagonist, who was herself in no condition to help.
The seventy-four-gun ship Alfred was to have led the second division, supported by the fifty-four-gun ship Madras and the forty-gun frigate Beaulieu, but the attempt was thwarted by lightness of wind and a strong lee current. On the next day, however, a landing was effected with little opposition.
Misfortune, however, dogged the fleet from the very commencement, for the Séduisant, a seventy-four-gun battle-ship, got on shore shortly after leaving Brest, and out of thirteen hundred seamen and soldiers on board six hundred and eighty were drowned.
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