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No sooner did the commanding officer of the sloop-of-war discover this fact, and it was easy to trace the course of the shots by the jets of water they cast into the air, and to see as well as to hear the explosions of the shells, than he ordered the guns pointed more to windward, as a means of counteracting the departure from the straight lines.
Myself and two intimates applied for the sloop-of-war Levant, destined for the Pacific by way of Cape Horn; our motive being partly the kind of vessel, supposed by us to favor professional opportunity, and partly the friendship existing between one of us and the master of the Levant, a graduate of two or three years before, who had just completed his examinations for promotion.
He was acquainted with many of the officers and was apprised of all their intended movements before they left the harbor. On one occasion, the American ship Caroline, was captured by two of their piratical vessels off Cape Antonio. They were busily engaged in landing the cargo, when the British sloop-of-war, Jearus, hove in sight and sent her barges to attack them.
As the `Victorious' was paid off at Plymouth, mother remained there, and father soon afterwards got his warrant as boatswain to the `Emerald' sloop-of-war, ordered out on the West India station.
Decatur was bred to the sea and commanded a merchantman out of the port of Philadelphia, until appointed to the sloop-of-war, Delaware. Upon the completion of the frigate Philadelphia, the command of it was given to him. The elder Decatur had one daughter and three sons. The daughter was twice married, her first husband having been killed in a duel.
'Ay, ay, donner and blitzen! HE'S your affair, said the Captain. 'How do you really know that he is in this country? 'Why, Gabriel saw him up among the hills. 'Gabriel! who is he? 'A fellow from the gipsies, that, about eighteen years since, was pressed on board that d d fellow Pritchard's sloop-of-war.
When the story had again been told, Spike and his boatswain went on board the schooner, and, undressing, they prepared to descend into the cabin. The captain paused a single instant to take a look at the sloop-of-war, and to examine the state of the weather.
The Coquette was alone, however; for the arrival of a trader, from a distant port, was an event of unfrequent occurrence, at the commencement of the eighteenth century. The course of the periagua brought her within fifty feet of the sloop-of-war. As the former approached, a movement of curiosity and interest occurred among those she contained.
It was about as tough a case as men could be expected to face and hope to live. It is the thing spoken of in the early part of this book. Material is a great thing; but personnel has it beaten a dozen ways. Paul Jones with his capable seagoers in his little sloop-of-war could raise the devil with the enemy.
I had occasion to make several trips to Yerba Buena and back, and in the spring of 1848 Colonel Mason and I went down to Santa Barbara in the sloop-of-war Dale. I spent much time in hunting deer and bear in the mountains back of the Carmel Mission, and ducks and geese in the plains of the Salinas.
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