United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His military genius showed itself in every disposition of his lines and batteries. He saw at a glance exactly what should be done, and set to work to do it in the best possible way. "How many ships have they in the harbour?" he asked of Julian, two days after his return from the town. "Only two of any size the Bienfaisant and the Prudent. The rest have been sunk or destroyed."
But the English sailors took advantage of the lull to set to their task of towing the Bienfaisant with hearty goodwill. "She moves! she moves!" cried Humphrey excitedly, standing at the wheel to direct her course. "Well pulled, comrades well pulled indeed! Ah, their guns are going to speak again! They will not let us go without a parting salute."
"Why two?" said Von Lembke, stopping short before him. "One's not enough to create respect for you. You certainly ought to have two." Andrey Antonovitch made a wry face. "You... there's no limit to the liberties you take, Pyotr Stepanovitch. You take advantage of my good-nature, you say cutting things, and play the part of a bourru bienfaisant...."
Yet they had scarcely tried to settle down and make the best of it before another batch of sailors came crowding in from the last of the whole French fleet. At one o'clock in the morning of July 25 a rousing British cheer from the harbour had announced an attack on the Prudent and the Bienfaisant by six hundred bluejackets, who had stolen in, with muffled oars, just on the stroke of midnight.
Then the British concentrated on the only two remaining vessels, the Prudent and the Bienfaisant. But the French sailors, with admirable pluck and judgment, managed to haul them round to a safer berth. Next day a similar disaster befell the Louisbourg headquarters. A shell went through the roof of the barracks at the King's Bastion, burst among the men there, and set the whole place on fire.
The Prudent, being aground, was set on fire and destroyed, but the Bienfaisant was towed out of the harbour in triumph.
On the twenty-first day of July the three great ships, the Entreprenant, Capricieux, and Célèbre, were set on fire by a bomb-shell, and burned to ashes, so that none remained but the Prudent and Bienfaisant, which the admiral undertook to destroy.
The next moment hundreds of hardy British sailors were swarming up the sides of the French vessels, uttering cheers and shouts of triumph the while. Humphrey and Julian were amongst the first to spring upon the deck of the Bienfaisant. The startled crew were just rushing up from below, having been made aware of the peril only a few seconds earlier.
The enemy on discovering him crowded all sail to escape, on which he made a signal for a general chase. The English ships gained rapidly on the enemy. At about five in the evening the Bienfaisant, Captain John Macbride, got up with the Spanish 70-gun ship the San Domingo, but scarcely had she opened her fire when the latter blew up, and every soul on board, with the exception of one man, perished.
Two days after, at one o'clock in the morning, a burst of loud cheers was heard in the distance, followed by confused cries and the noise of musketry, which lasted but a moment. Six hundred English sailors had silently rowed into the harbor and seized the two remaining ships, the "Prudent" and the "Bienfaisant." After the first hubbub all was silent for half an hour.
Word Of The Day