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Updated: June 17, 2025
The formation of the close-hauled line-of-battle, by assigning the fire-ships a place in a second line placed half a league on the side farthest from the enemy, made them more and more unfitted to fulfil their office. The official plan of the battle of Malaga , drawn up immediately after the battle, shows the fire-ship in this position as laid down by Paul Hoste.
At length a crisis arrived. The ship was at the time somewhere about the latitude of the Cape; stretching to the southward and eastward close-hauled, with a fine steady breeze from east-north-east. The royals were set when he took charge of the deck, and these he had separately clewed up and furled, as well as one or two of the smaller stay-sails.
Darkness came on at about three o'clock in the afternoon in these latitudes, and we wanted to make the harbour in daylight. But though the wind fell, the snow and mist came on so thickly that we quite lost sight of the island, and in our difficulty a terrible thing happened. We were all hands on deck, and sailing close-hauled with a good stretch of canvas set.
When we reach that point on the larboard-bow, you must throw out your grappling-irons, and hold in, for she will be then close-hauled and go under water like a duck, and you will all be in David's locker before you can say, Luff, boy!" Then, addressing himself to one of his men, "Steady, Tom, steady; don't let her go off; don't you see the light ahead? run it down.
The sea-breeze was blowing strong, and we had to beat out against it close-hauled; just as we made the last board, and were bearing down upon the enemy, the huge, heavy birds, awakening from the siesta "with a start," raised their heads and looked about them.
Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay, close-hauled.
The Polisson was flying away on the crests of the seas, close-hauled, evidently disposed to make a lee behind the two frigates to windward, which we took for, and which it is probable she knew to be, French.
Ten minutes later, he ordered the fog-horn to be blown, and a reply came off from the light-house on the point, at the mouth of the river. When the Orion was clear of the point, he directed the yacht to be close-hauled on the starboard tack, in order to beat into the river.
The light was seen floating brightly and calmly astern. The helm was then put down, the yards braced up, and the frigate stood away on a bowline close-hauled to the westward. For some hours she tore on with her hammock nettings almost in the water; but it was a race for freedom, and what Briton would not undergo any risk for that? No one, not even the idlers, thought of turning in.
He at the same time became conscious of a gentle swaying and pitching motion, such as is felt on board a ship close-hauled, with a moderate breeze and a correspondingly moderate sea.
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