n over those who had been killed or
wounded, and it required all the bravery and example of the French
captain, who was really a noble fellow, to rally the remainder of his
men, which at last he succeeded in doing, and about forty of them
gained our forecastle, from which they forced our weak crew, and
retained possession, not following up the success, but apparently
wailing till they were seconded by the Spaniard's boarding us on our
lee quarter, which would have placed us between two fires, and
compelled us to divide our small force.

By this time the wind, which had been light, left us, and it was
nearly a calm, with a swell on the sea, which separated the two
vessels; the Spaniard, who was ranging up under our lee, having but
little way and not luffing enough, could not fetch us, but fell off
and drifted to leeward. The Frenchmen who had been thrown on board,
and who retained possession of our forecastle, being thus left without
support from their own vessel, which had been separated from us by the
swell, or from the Spaniard, which had fallen to leeward, we gave
three cheers, and throwing a number of hand-grenades in among them, we
rushed forward with our half-pikes, and killed or drove every soul of
them overboard, one only, and he wounded in the thigh, escaped by
swimming back to his own vessel. Here, then, was a pause in the
conflict, and thus ended, I may say, the second act.

Hitherto the battle had been fought with generous resolution; but
after this hand-to-hand conflict, and the massacre with which it
ended, both sides appeared to have been roused to ferocity. A most
infernal cannonade was now renewed by both our antagonists, and
returned by us with equal fury; but it was now a dead calm, and the
vessels rolled so much with the swell, that the shot were not so
effective. By degrees we separated more and more from our enemies, and
the firing was now reduced to single guns. During this partial
cessation our antagonists had drawn near to each other, although at a
considerable distance from us. We perceived that the Spaniard was
sending two of his boats full of men to supply the heavy loss
sustained by his comrade. Captain Weatherall ordered the sweeps out,
and we swept our broadside to them, trying by single guns to sink the
boats as they went from one vessel to the other. After two or three
attempts, a gun was successful; the shot shattered the first of the
boats, which instantly filled and went down. The s