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The sight of their disconnected limbs aroused my ire to its utmost height, and I let them have the contents of the brass carronade, with ghastly effect. Next moment the hulls of the two ships were grinding together, the cold steel flashed from its scabbard, and the death-grapple had begun.
Of necessity, then, such futile weapons as embargoes and non-intercourse acts had to give place to the musket, the bayonet, and the carronade. There could be no compromise between the clash of doctrines. It was for the United States to assert herself, regardless of the odds, or sink into a position of supine dependency upon the will of Great Britain and the wooden walls of her invincible navy.
Hold water, starboard oars, and port oars pull a stroke; we're pointing straight for the Frenchmen just now. Well of all; now we're clear, and no chance of hitting our friends. Fire!" The carronade rang out its report from the bows of the boat, and the shot went screaming away far over the heads of those in the canoes, the Frenchmen firing in like manner at almost the same moment.
Both parties exerted themselves to their utmost; and when the first boat, with Francisco and Clara, landed, the headmost of the assailants was not much more than half a mile from them; but shallow water intervening there was a delay, which was favourable to the pirates. Hawkhurst landed in his boat as the launch of the Comus fired her eighteen-pound carronade.
Here and there, as he pointed out to us, arrangements had been made for barring the road with strong chains to prevent any sudden rush of cavalry. In places, too, at the corner of a house, a hole had been knocked in the masonry through which peeped the dark muzzle of a carronade or wall-piece.
The gun was instantly again loaded, but before they had time to fire, the pirate yawed and let fly a bow chaser, the shot from which flew through the main-topsail, though without doing further damage. The colonel again fired, but again the shot fell short, to his no slight rage. "I see how it is, sir," observed Bowse, "that fellow has a long nine in his bows, while our gun is only a carronade.
The carronade, now a wholly obsolete arm, was a short cannon, made extremely light in proportion to the weight of the ball thrown by it. The comparative lightness of metal in each piece allowed a greater number to be carried, but at the same time so weakened the gun as to compel the use of a small charge of powder, in consequence of which the ball moved slowly and had but short range.
The carronade stumbled, and the gunner, availing himself of the perilous opportunity, thrust his iron bar between the spokes of the back wheels. Pitching forward, the cannon stopped; and the man, using his bar for a lever, rocked it backward and forward. The heavy mass upset, with the resonant sound of a bell that crashes in its fall.
There was a brass carronade at the stern in plain view, and so mounted as to be swung inboard in case of necessity. Its ugly muzzle could thus rake the deck fore and aft, but the presence of such a piece would create no suspicion in those days when every ship was armed for defense, and consequently no effort was made for its concealment.
It was about three bells in the next day's forenoon watch when the look-out man first sighted the pirate brigantine. I disliked the looks of her from the first, and, after piping all hands to quarters, had the brass carronade on the fore-deck crammed with grape to the muzzle. This proved a wise precaution.
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