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Updated: June 3, 2025
Then at last the long eighteen-pounders on the gun-deck got a word in. The old Niler was not the man to miss a vessel alongside in a quiet sea: he sent two round shot clean through him; the third splintered his bulwark and swept across his deck. "His masts fire at his masts!" roared Dodd to Monk, through his trumpet.
He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's ship, the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Bucentaure so close that her yards caught the other's ensign while the fifty guns of the British ship poured their fire one after the other into the stern of the French one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred of her crew.
Three decks down spar-deck, gun-deck, and berth-deck and we come to a parcel of Troglodytes or "holders," who burrow, like rabbits in warrens, among the water-tanks, casks, and cables. Like Cornwall miners, wash off the soot from their skins, and they are all pale as ghosts. Unless upon rare occasions, they seldom come on deck to sun themselves.
"If you want to know all about it, you young swabber, I may tell you I stood on the Naiad's gun-deck with better folk than you are ever likely to come across" he stamped his foot here as if he had the deck under him "when, with one broadside from the Dictator, the three masts and bowsprit were shot away, and the main deck came crashing down upon the lower;" the last sentence was taken from 'Exploits of Danish and Norwegian Naval Heroes, and the old man was as proud of these lines as he would have been of a medal.
The boatswain was asked if he got anything out of us, and, making a bad report, we were sent down to the lower gun-deck, under a sentry's charge, and put at "six upon four," again. Here we remained until the ship went into Bermuda, after a six weeks' cruise. This vessel, an old seventy-four cut down, did not answer, for she was soon after sent to England.
It came in over her bow transversely; broke as high as the mainstay, and hid and buried the whole ship before the mast; carried away the waist bulwarks on both sides, filled the launch, and drowned the live stock which were in it; swept four water-butts and three men away into the sea, like corks and straws; and sent tons of water down the forescuttle and main hatchway, which was partly opened, not to stifle the crew, and flooded the gun-deck ankle-deep.
However, by nine o'clock the additional quantity of rum aboard the ship, and also the quantity of sea-water which had dashed in through the port-holes, brought the larboard port-holes of the lower gun-deck nearly level with the sea.
A comical anecdote was told me of him a few years later, illustrating his self-possession cool to impudence. He was serving on one of our big steam-sloops, a flag-ship at the time, and had charge of working the cables on the gun-deck when anchoring.
The men in the tops could now and again catch a glimpse of the top hamper of the enemy's ships, but those on the gun-deck were working almost at random. After a few minutes of rapid firing, the fire of the enemy slackened; and Stewart directed his gunners to cease until the smoke should have cleared away.
Her length on the lower gun-deck from the rabbet of the stem to the rabbet of the stern-post was 205 feet; her extreme breadth 53 feet 8 inches; her depth of hold 23 feet 2 inches; and she was of 2615 tons burden. Her net complement, including marines and boys, was 891. She was, and continued to be, the finest three-decker in the service.
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