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Updated: April 21, 2025
Jury-masts were going up in the Warspite; lower and top-sail-yards were down to be fished, or new ones were rigging to be sent aloft in their places; the Plantagenet was all a-tanto, again, in readiness for another action, with rigging secured and masts fished, while none but an instructed eye could have detected, at a short distance, that the Cæsar, Carnatic, Dover, York, Elizabeth, and one or two more, had been in action at all.
The disposition of the masts, yards, and sails was next determined on. The top-gallant-masts were struck, the lower yards got down to the housings. The top-sail-yards, gaff, and jib-boom, however, were left in their places. The topsails and courses were kept bent to the yards, the sheets being unrove and the clews tucked in.
At nine o'clock, accordingly, the hands were turned-to, and before noon the ship was pretty thoroughly en deshabille. We sent as little down as possible, keeping even the top-sail-yards aloft, though without their lifts or braces, steadying them by guys; but the top-masts were lowered as far as was found possible, without absolutely placing the lower yards on the hammock-cloths.
Scarcely had these judicious orders been given, when the captain himself came on deck and took the command, next ordering the top-sail-yards to be lowered and the top-masts to be housed. Now, with a loud roar, the gale burst upon the fleet, which lay at anchor in that exposed situation.
All we could now see, were the masts, from the trucks down, sometimes as low as the tops, but oftener not lower than the top-sail-yards. The reports of the guns were quite rapid for a quarter of an hour, after which they became much less frequent, though a hundred pieces of ordnance were still at work behind that cloudy screen.
This ship kept off under her main-sail and fore-stay-sail. The Black Prince was the last to get clear of the smoke. She had everything in its place, from her top-mast cross-trees, down. The three top-gallant-masts were gone, and the wrecks were already cleared; but all the top-sail-yards were on the caps, and her rigging, spars and tops, were alive with men; as, indeed, were those of the Speedy.
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