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Updated: June 12, 2025
This was done as soon as possible, and away we went, at a rapid rate, aiming to shoot directly beneath the Tigris's lee-quarter, so as to round-to under shelter of her hull, there to receive a rope. We pulled like giants. Three several times the water slapped into us, rendering the boat more and more heavy; but Captain Bobbins told us to pull on, every moment being precious.
"What means the fellow?" demanded Wilder, jumping hastily on a gun, in order to get a better view. His mate pointed to the lee-quarter of the other vessel, where, sure enough, a large rope was seen whipping the water, as though in the very process of being extended. The truth instantly flashed on the mind of our young mariner.
That this being but the second day of his journey, he descried five or six men on horseback bearing up full in his teeth, upon which he threw his sails aback, and prepared for action; that he hailed them at a considerable distance, and bade them bring to; when they came alongside, notwithstanding his hail, he ordered them to clew up their courses, and furl their topsails, otherwise he would be foul of their quarters; that, hearing this salute, they luffed all at once, till their cloth shook in the wind; then he hallooed in a loud voice, that his sweetheart, Besselia Mizzen, were the broad pendant of beauty, to which they must strike their topsails on pain of being sent to the bottom; that, after having eyed him for some time with astonishment, they clapped on all their sails, some of them running under his stern, and others athwart his forefoot, and got clear off; that, not satisfied with running ahead, they all of a sudden tacked about, and one of them boarding him on the lee-quarter, gave him such a drubbing about his upper works, that the lights danced in his lanterns; that he returned the salute with his hop-pole so effectually that his aggressor broached to in the twinkling of a handspike, and then he was engaged with all the rest of the enemy, except one, who sheered off, and soon returned with a mosquito fleet of small craft, who had done him considerable damage, and, in all probability, would have made prize of him, had n't he been brought off by the knight's gallantry.
On the 12th of September a distressing casualty occurred. They were in S. lat. 11 deg. 1' 22", E. long. 105 deg. 6' 36", when a squall suddenly struck the ship. A passenger, Louis Brandon, Esq., of the firm of Compton & Brandon, Sydney, was standing by the lee-quarter as the squall struck, and, distressing to narrate, he was hurled violently overboard.
Why, good woman, Ive been off there in the Boadishey frigate, when you could see nothing but some such matter as a piece of sky, mayhap, as big as the main sail; and then again, there was a hole under your lee-quarter big enough to hold the whole British navy. Oh! for massys sake! and want you afeard, Benjamin? and how did you get off?
We lowered the main-sail again, and set four reefs of fore-sail to scud under. At three o'clock the vessel took a tremendous lurch, and washed away our lee-quarter boat. It was dark, and the sea barely discernible at a distance of thirty yards, being blown into a thick mist.
But when the sargant o' marines comes up, and loads the muskets with ball cartridges, then the men begins to grumble; howsomever, the master throws the cat overboard off the lee-quarter, and the waterman, as soon as he sees her splash in the water, backs astarn to take her into the boat, but the first-lieutenant tells him to get out of the way, if he doesn't want a bullet through his boat so he pulls ahead again.
"I doubled the Good-Hope in the year '46," continued the other, "and saw a vessel lying, as it might be, here, on our weather-bow which is just opposite to this fellow, since he is on our lee-quarter but there I saw a ship standing for an hour across our fore-foot, and yet, though we set the azimuth, not a degree did he budge, starboard or larboard, during all that time, which, as it was heavy weather, was, to say the least, something out of the common order."
Nor does the loss of her lee-quarter boat, dipped under and torn from the davits, hinder them from adding a triumphant hurrah, the skipper himself waving his wet tarpaulin and crying aloud: "Well done, old Calypso! Boys, we may thank our stars for being on board such a seaworthy craft!" Alas! both the feeling of triumph and security are short-lived, ending almost on the instant.
Under such circumstances, it was easy to close. Accordingly, just as the two ships' companies were about to go to breakfast, the Dawn ranged up under the lee-quarter of the stranger. "What ship's that?" I hailed, in the usual manner. "The Dundee; Robert Ferguson, master what ship's that?" "The Dawn; Miles Wallingford. Where are you from?" "From Rio de Janeiro, bound to London. Where are you from?"
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