in possession of a
forty-four gun frigate, measuring upwards of one thousand tons, and a
crew of three hundred and fifty men. Besides Frenchmen, there were on
board several Englishmen, who formed part of the crew of an Indiaman the
frigate had captured two days before. Among them were the second and
third officers. The Indiaman had been overtaken at night, and the
French ship had fired into her, and killed the captain and first officer
and a number of the crew. The passengers who were below had happily
escaped. The Indiaman's officers, thorough gentlemanly young fellows,
told me that they had only lost sight of the prize the day before, that
she was a slow sailer, and from the direction in which she was standing,
they had little doubt in what direction we should find her. The
recaptured prisoners also told us whereabouts we should fall in with the
remainder of the French squadron.

We accordingly sent one of the Indiaman's officers on board the frigate,
while Captain Schank received orders from the Commodore to proceed in
search of the Indiaman. Scarcely had we lost sight of our squadron,
which was standing in the direction the Frenchmen were supposed to be,
when it came on to blow from the north-west. The wind rapidly increased
till it became a downright heavy gale. Our brig, however, was a fine
sea-boat, and under close-reefed topsails rode it out bravely. Our
chief anxiety was, however, on account of the risk we ran of losing the
Indiaman. Still the mate was convinced that she could not have passed
to the northward of where we then were.

"She will be standing on the larboard tack, Captain Schank," he
observed; "if she sees all clear she will run through the Gut of
Gibraltar, or if not, will make for some port in the Bay of Biscay."

However, as the Atlantic is a broad highway, our hopes of falling in
with her were far from sanguine. For three days we lay hove to, till at
length the gale moderating we once more made sail and stood to the
eastward. A bright look-out was kept for the sight of a sail, and from
sunrise to sunset volunteers were continually going aloft, in the hopes
of being the first to see the wished-for ship. Next morning, when it
was my watch on deck, I heard a voice from the maintopmast head
shouting:

"A dismasted ship on the weather-beam not four miles away."

I sent Esse, who was midshipman of the watch, aloft, and he corroborated
Pat Brady's statement.

Sending below to call