Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
The mainmast bore one huge sail, triangular in form, its peak extending to a considerable height above the mast. The smaller gallivats were covered with a spar deck made of split bamboos, their armament consisting of pettararoes fixed on swivels in the gunwale.
This man first defeated the Sidi, then, in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own sovereign, and set up as an independent ruler. By means of a well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himself master of place after place along the coast, including the Maratha fortress at Suwarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria.
About three o'clock a shell set fire to one of the Pirate's grabs one that had formerly been taken by him from the Company. Leaving its moorings, it drifted among the main pirate fleet of grabs which still lay lashed together where Desmond had last seen them by the blaze of the burning gallivats. They were soon alight.
The scene was brightly lit up, and he saw that two of the gallivats had been towed away from the burning vessels, from which the flames were now shooting high into the air. But even on the two that had been cut loose there were spurts of flame; and Desmond hoped that they had sustained enough damage to make them unseaworthy. Suddenly there were two loud explosions, in quick succession.
No doubt this transaction bore the same look to those on board the fleet, for when I came up on deck in the morning to see if any change had taken place during the night, I was astonished to see the space between the Morattoes' camp and the sand spit covered with tents, in which were about two thousand troops newly landed from the fleet, the last of the boats that had put them ashore being then half-way back, and rowing right round the grabs and gallivats, which were moored altogether close in under the walls of the fortress.
They were all armed with cannon, the grabs carrying as many as twenty or thirty 12-pounders, and the gallivats swivel-guns of 6 or 9 pounds.
Looking back he saw a number of torches flitting along the shore; and now two or three dark objects, no doubt boats, were moving from the farther side of the jetty towards the gallivats. At the same moment he caught sight of these he saw at last, rising from the gallivats, the thin tongue of flame he had so long expected.
There were six line-of-battle ships, six Company's vessels, five bomb ketches, four Maratha grabs one of them Angria's own grab, the Tremukji, on which Desmond had escaped and forty gallivats. The Tyger led the van. Admiral Watson's flag was hoisted on the Kent, Admiral Pocock's on the Cumberland.
Elated with this success, he boasted that he should in a little time sweep the seas of the Europeans, and began to build some large ships, to reinforce his grabs and gallivats, which were the vessels on which he had for merely depended.
They had guessed that an escape was being attempted by sea. Even now perhaps boats were setting off, bringing rowers to man the gallivats, and oars to send them in pursuit. If they should reach the vessels before the middle one had burst into flame, he felt that his chances of getting away were small indeed. When would the flame appear?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking