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"If we get the starboard-quarter boat lowered we shall be in time to save them, Mr Kydd," I said; and without waiting for his reply, Barker and I, with Jack Handspike, assisted by some of the gentlemen, lowered the boat. Scarcely, however, had we seized the oars, when we heard a loud shriek, and one of the poor fellows disappeared beneath the surface. A shark had taken him.
From the rotten state of her breachings, many of her guns broke loose, but still Captain Dacres, having cleared away the wreck of his masts, continued the action, till the Constitution, having rove new braces, took up a position within pistol-shot of the Guerrier's starboard-quarter.
Several of his men were killed by the French marines while the operation was going forward, but at length he succeeded in running it through the port, and, at his first discharge, sweeping the Didon from her larboard bow to her starboard-quarter, laid low twenty-four of her crew.
At half-past five in the afternoon the Chesapeake, with a large flag flying, on which was inscribed the words, "Sailor's rights and free trade," approached the Shannon, and soon afterwards, luffing up within about fifty yards of her starboard-quarter, gave three cheers. At 5:50 p.m. the Shannon's aftermost main-deck gun was fired, and the two combatants exchanged broadsides.
They veered down under the stern of the wreck, and passing the cable a little aft in the lifeboat, steered her up under the starboard-quarter of the wreck. They had just got out their grapnel, and were about to throw it into the lee rigging of the wreck, in hopes it would grip and hold for unless it held of itself no one of the frozen crew could come down to make it fast.
"Well, as I said, the Wabash was at anchor, and it was night not very late, about ten; but it was very dark. "Fortunately the deck was in charge that night of a young officer named Craven, and never was an officer worse named or better deserving to be called Courage. He had his wits about him. At the hour I have named, he observed something on the starboard-quarter, about 150 yards off.
The main body of the Spanish fleet came down under all sail, with the wind on the starboard-quarter, while the ships to leeward, close-hauled on the same tack, were endeavouring to join them there. Admiral Jervis formed his line close-hauled on the starboard tack, steering straight for the opening between the two divisions of the Spanish fleet.
The bowsprit of the Pique passing over the starboard-quarter of the Blanche, Captain Faulkner, aided by his second lieutenant and two others of his crew, was in the act of lashing the Pique's bowsprit to her capstern, when he was shot by a musket-ball through the heart.
He soon knocked away some of the Foudroyant's spars, and then carried his ship close under her starboard-quarter, where for four hours the Monmouth maintained the unequal contest. At 9 p.m. the gallant Gardiner was mortally wounded in the forehead by a musket-ball, when Lieutenant Robert Carket took command.
Soon after this the lashings broke loose, when the Pique, as she was crossing the stern of the Blanche, which began to pay off for want of after-sail, again fell on board on the starboard-quarter, her hawser having just before been got on deck, the Pique's bowsprit was lashed to the stump of the Blanche's main-mast.
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