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About 9 o'clock in the Evening we had much rain, with some very heavy Claps of Thunder, one of which carried away a Dutch Indiaman's Main Mast by the Deck, and split it, the Maintopmast and Topgallantmast all to shivers. She had had an Iron Spindle at the Maintopgallant Mast head which had first attracted the Lightning.
And mubbe the tug'll pick us up as we go." "It's all one to Tom," said I. Our brig was the Venus, of Rye, a stump topgallantmast coaster, eighty years old. We were in a big bight of the coast, heading for a river which flows past a well known town, whither we were bound.
In the meantime, all was confusion on board the ship; the second mate of the watch, a young hand, in the hurry of the moment, threw the ship too suddenly up to the wind, a squall struck her at the moment, and the foretopmast and topgallantmast went over the side, dragging the maintopgallantmast with them.
Still the "Franklin" pressed on. Crash! a huge shell from an Armstrong eighteen-ton gun burst between the fore and mainmasts; the bow pivot-gun was dismounted; ten men of her crew down; the maintopmast stays cut, and the maintopmast tottering. Crash! Another shell, and the jib-boom hangs dragging under the bows; the fore topgallantmast is carried away.
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