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Updated: May 14, 2025
And now the scene is altered, the cannon ceased to roar; We fought with swords and boarding-pikes one glass and something more; The British pride and glory no longer dared to stay, But cut the Yankee grappling, and quickly bore away.
When the fellows find that they are trapped, they are likely enough to fight hard, and I don't want to lose any men. Keep your cutlasses in readiness, but trust principally to your boarding-pikes." The boats were but four or five hundred yards away when the crew of the Tigress took up their position.
Quickly the ship was set in trim for action, and the men sent to quarters. All the stern preparations for battle were made the guns all shotted, the men in position, the magazines opened; shot, shell, cartridges, all in place; the powder-boys at their stations; swords, pistols, boarding-pikes, in the racks.
The Saxons were all fighting with boarding-pikes against the Northmen's swords and axes, for they had become used to these weapons and preferred them to any other. The instant Edmund's horn was heard, each man desisted from fighting and rushed to their leader, around whom they instantly formed in their accustomed order.
There were several couches for sleeping, and a few seats and tables; but in the corners of the room furthest from the windows were piled up in one, chests and bales of goods, silks, cottons, and woollen cloths; in another, a collection of arms, muskets, and cutlasses, and boarding-pikes.
On entering I discovered a little compartment with racks on either hand filled with small-arms. I afterwards counted a hundred and thirteen muskets, blunderbusses, and fusils, all of an antique kind, whilst the sides of the vessel were hung with pistols great and little, boarding-pikes, cutlasses, hangers, and other sorts of sword.
Two tents, of the kind called in the army horsemen's tents, were made of blankets, with two boarding-pikes fixed across at each end, and a ridge-rope along the top, which, with stones laid upon the foot of the blankets, made a very comfortable and portable shelter.
In the centre of a group of vociferating, gesticulating, grimace-making Frenchmen, some armed with muskets, others with swords and cutlasses, and others pistols and boarding-pikes, stood a tall, gaunt, soldier officer, eyeing us very sternly, and tugging hard to get a sword out of a long scabbard, while he kept screaming to his men, as I understood, to annihilate the dogs of Englishmen, and to kick them into the sea.
"All secured in the forecastle, except the second-mate and boatswain, the men who hailed you just now; the last was knocked on the head, and the former was stabbed and thrown overboard." We immediately released the men, eighteen in number, and armed them with boarding-pikes. "What vessel is that astern of us?" said Treenail to the mate.
By my palate! but the rascals brighten at the thought. They know by instinct, sir, that a shipwrecked mariner is a fitter companion to a ration of beef and a pot of porter than to such unsightly things as bayonets and boarding-pikes!" "Trifle, not unseasonably!" exclaimed the impatient young sailor.
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