try their hands upon her
individually, doing their best to cut up her spars and rigging. We want
to capture, not to sink her; she is far too fine a ship to be sent to
the bottom, therefore spare her hull as much as possible."

The first lieutenant went down on the main-deck and personally repeated
the Captain's instructions; and before he returned to the quarter-deck
the first of our long 24-pounders spoke its message, the shot passing
through the stranger's foresail and narrowly missing the mast. Then our
8-pounders got to work, and very soon we saw loose ropes'-ends streaming
out on board her, showing that our fire had not been wholly in vain,
although, so far, no damage worth speaking of had been done. Nor were
the Frenchmen idle; on the contrary, they fired about four guns to every
one of ours, but after that first shot of theirs they appeared to have
become flurried and excited, and their aim correspondingly wild; at all
events, although some of their shot came near us, while one or two
actually flew over us, not one of them came near enough to do us a
ropeyarn's worth of damage.

With our own men it was very different; the more often they fired the
cooler did they seem to become; and it was amusing to see the eagerness
with which, after firing, they watched the effect of each shot, with the
evident purpose of correcting their aim next time. The result of this
caution on their part soon became apparent, for we had scarcely fired a
dozen shots when we saw the stranger's fore-topmast go swooping over
the bows; and the next minute she broached-to, losing her
main-topgallant-mast and snapping every one of her studdingsail booms in
the process.

"Cease firing!" shouted the skipper. "In studdingsails, Mr Adair; clew
up and furl your royals and topgallantsails; in flying-jib; and then
haul your wind, if you please. The fellow will surely not hold out any
longer."

He did, though, pluckily maintaining a fire upon us with two guns run
out through his stern ports--evidently hoping to disable us, while his
crew worked like demons in their efforts to clear away the wreckage; and
it was not until we ranged up on his weather quarter, within
biscuit-toss, and threatened him with the whole of our starboard
broadside, that he hauled down his colours and surrendered.

The heavy sea that was now running rendered the task of taking
possession of the prize exceedingly difficult; nevertheless, by the
exercise of the utmost s