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This manoeuvre he practised for two hours and a quarter, never allowing the CA IRA to get a single gun from either side to bear on him; and when the French fired their after-guns now, it was no longer with coolness and precision, for every shot went far ahead. By this time her sails were hanging in tatters, her mizen-top-mast, mizen-top-sail, and cross-jack-yards shot away.
"'When I got on the main topsail halyard block, I saw the admiral's baker in the shrouds of the mizen-top-mast, and directly after that, the woman, whom I had pulled out of the port-hole, came rolling by: I said to the baker, who was an Irishman, named Robert Cleary, "Bob, reach out your hand, and catch hold of that woman; that is a woman I pulled out of the port-hole: I dare say she is not dead."
At 10h. 20m. the Pompée drifted between us and the French Admiral's, hove in our spring, and brought our guns to bear on the other enemy's ship on our bow, and the other's stern: at 12h. the Pompée drifted between our fire and the enemy's, slipt the sheet-cable, and eight-inch hawser, the spring, with the intention of getting alongside the enemy's southernmost ship, light air springing up at the time from the N.E.; in awaiting this opportunity, the mizen-top-mast, fore-braces, and jibb halyards, with various other standing and running rigging, shot away, and main-mast badly wounded: at 11h. 15m. breeze dying away prevented our intention, opened our fire on the southernmost ship; at 12h. calm and hazy, Cæsar, Hannibal, Audacious, Spencer, and us still firing on the enemy's ships, batteries, and gun-boats, boats of the squadron towing off the Pompée to Gibraltar; P.M. calm, still firing on the enemy's ships, which were warping farther in-shore.
That ship had been getting up preventers to save her masts, and something important must have been cut by this discharge from la Desiree, as her main-mast went immediately after she received the fire, dragging down with it her mizen-top-mast. The English ship showed stuff, however, under circumstances so critical.
The spare spars were swept overboard, as well as all the water-casks that had been lashed on deck. I might have done something with the hatches, and mizen-top-mast, possibly, could I have gotten the last into the water; but the expedient was so desperate, it did not hold out any hopes to be encouraged.
"The dawn of day presented to us a sad spectacle: the Vanguard without a fore-mast, and her main and mizen-top-mast gone; the rest of the squadron much dispersed, and the prize captured the evening before not in sight. "Providentially the Vanguard was enabled to wear on the other tack, as the sea was setting her fast towards Corsica, from which island we were not many leagues distant.
Her masts and rigging were very much damaged; her mizen-top-mast, gaff, spanker-boom, and main-topsail-yard being entirely shot away; the main and foremast, and the fore and main yards wounded in several places by large shot; many of her shrouds, stays, and back-stays shot away, besides those which had been knotted and stoppered in the action; all her spare cordage was expended in reeving running rigging, and she had three feet water in the hold.
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