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Updated: May 31, 2025
My great difficulty at first was finding my way about, for as to which was the head or after part of the ship I had not the slightest notion, and the direction I received to go aft or go forward conveyed no idea to my mind. As I was groping my way about the lower-deck, I saw what I took to be a glimmering light in a recess, when a roaring voice said, "Ho, ho!
Dundas accordingly went down himself, with as many people as he could prevail upon to follow him: and the lower-deck ports were opened, the scuppers plugged, the main and fore-hatches secured, the cocks turned, and water drawn in at the ports, and the pumps kept going by the people who came down, as long as they could stand at them.
The lower-deck ports lay completely under water, and several times the muzzles of the main-deck guns were plunged into the sea; so that the ends of the grating on which the remains of poor "Dolly" were laid, once or twice nearly touched the tops of the waves, as they foamed and hissed past.
The largest had formerly been an Indiaman, and her name had been changed to that of the Bon Homme Richard. She is supposed to have measured about 946 tons, and to have carried on her main-deck about 28 long 12-pounders, on the lower-deck, 6 or 8 18-pounders, and 2 long 6-pounders on the forecastle.
The countenances of the negroes who were thus employed appeared inflamed, as if their wrath was excited; now and then they laughed at each other, and looked more like demons than men. That some dreadful punishment was about to be inflicted I was certain and I remained crouched behind the foremast on the lower-deck.
One night, however, one of the carpenter's crew was going along the lower-deck, when he saw a figure in white gliding past him in the distance. The figure for a moment turned its head, when, as the light of the lantern fell on it, he recognised the face of Sam Smitch. It was more than his nerves could stand, and he bolted like a shot up the ladder.
Just then, as I went up to report the boat gone to Mr Hollingbury, Mr Williams, the carpenter, came up from the lower-deck, and requested that he would be pleased to order the ship to be righted, as she was heeling over more than she could bear. The lieutenant gave one of his usual short answers to the carpenter, who went below, looking as if he did not at all like it.
Such was their earnestness, and such the implicit confidence which could be placed in Spanish honour, that the offer was accepted and they were actually stationed at the lower-deck guns. Dumanoir and his squadron were not more fortunate than the fleet from whose destruction they fled. They fell in with Sir Richard Strachan, who was cruising for the Rochefort squadron, and were all taken.
The sternmost vessel of the enemy, which was the one that had received the concentrated broadsides of two of the English ships, was now on fire somewhere on her lower-deck; three or four of her ports were blown into one big opening, and her decks were a very shambles of dead and wounded.
It then came out that Sam had really attempted to follow little True Blue when he ran on deck, but that, just as he was getting up the hatchway on the lower-deck, a shot had come through a port, and, striking his wooden leg, had tumbled him down again, when by some means or other he had rolled down into the hold, and there, suffering from pain and fear, he had ever since lain, unwilling and unable to rise, dreading lest harm should happen to his little charge, and fearing not a little, should such have been the case, the consequences to himself.
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