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Updated: June 18, 2025
The brig which proved to be the Etoile du Nord, of Dunkirk had, as already stated, lost her foremast, her bulwarks were riddled with shot-holes, and her rigging badly cut up.
By this time, the Richard had so many shot-holes low down in her hull, that like a sieve she began to settle. "Do you strike?" cried the English captain. "I have not yet begun to fight," howled sinking Paul. This summons and response were whirled on eddies of smoke and flame. Both vessels were now on fire. The men of either knew hardly which to do; strive to destroy the enemy, or save themselves.
By the dim light of a horn lantern which Williams had suspended from the beams I could see the black water welling and bubbling rapidly up from the shot-holes below, and the wretched negroes, still chained below, surrounded by the mangled corpses of their companions and already immersed to their chins, with their heads thrown as far back as possible so as to keep their mouths and nostrils free until the last possible moment, their faces contorted and their eyes protruding from their sockets with mortal fear.
An officer stepped on board. He was horrified at the scene of carnage which presented itself. The ship aloft was a wreck, the decks were a perfect shambles, wounded and dying men lay around in every position. The masts were gone, the ship was full of shot-holes, the water was rushing and gurgling in through the shot-holes below the waterline, flames were breaking out forward.
At eventide the fire from the galleon was almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the Venetian guns.
I then walked with him over the decks of the 'Formidable, and bid him remark what number of shot-holes there were, and also how little her rigging had suffered, and asked if that degree of damage was likely to be connected with the loss of more than fourteen men, which was our number killed, and the greatest of any in the fleet, except the 'Royal Oak' and 'Monarch. He ... owned our fire must have been much better kept up and directed than theirs."
The carpenter had repaired all shot-holes under or too near to the water-line, and then had proceeded to sound the well of the prize; but although her upper works had been dreadfully shattered, there was no reason to suppose that she had received any serious injury below, and, therefore the hatches still remained on, although a few hands were put to the pumps to try if she made any water.
"A noble ship, pal," says Godby, as I sat me down on one of the guns, "and looks vasty different to what she did three days since, her foreyard and main-to'-gallant mast shot away and her starboard bulwarks shattered fore and aft and three shot-holes under water as can't be come at till we careen."
If we gazed with peculiar interest upon one hovel more than upon another, it was because some of us had there maintained ourselves; if we endeavoured to count the number of shot-holes in any wall, or the breaks in any hedge, it was because we had stood behind it when "the iron hail" fell thick and fast around us.
By plugging the shot-holes and setting strong gangs to work the pumps, the prize was kept afloat sufficiently long to get out some of the provisions and water, as well as a portion of her cargo.
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