o less than seven officers and sixty-three men killed, and
eighty-eight officers and men wounded. It was astonishing; the more so
when I came to reflect that all this loss and damage had been inflicted
by one gun! But then it was to be remembered that the unfortunate
frigate had been under the fire of that one gun for close upon five
hours; the dusk of the short winter's day closing down upon us shortly
after we had boarded our prize--the name of which, by the way, was the
_Musette_.

Having secured our prisoners, I fired the three blank cartridges agreed
upon as a signal, when the _Dolphin_ ran down and sent the end of a
hawser aboard for the purpose of taking us in tow. She also put very
nearly her whole crew aboard, retaining merely enough hands to work her,
in order that we might have as much strength as possible for the purpose
of rigging up jury-masts.

We had been in tow of the schooner but half an hour when Captain Winter
came aboard in a boat to say that we were rather too heavy for him to
manage, the breeze having been steadily freshening all day and raising a
sea that caused the schooner to strain to an alarming extent with so
heavy a craft as the frigate hanging on to her. We therefore went to
work to get some sail upon the prize forthwith, and, having routed out a
main-staysail, we set it. We found that, in the strong breeze then
blowing, even this small amount of canvas was sufficient to place the
frigate under command; we therefore cast off from the _Dolphin_, and
that craft thereupon shortened sail to her boom-foresail and fore-
staysail, so that she might not run away from us. But even under that
short canvas she was able to sail round and round us.

During the whole of that night we stood to the northward and eastward;
and all night long, too, we were hard at work, watch and watch, getting
up jury spars; the result of our labours being that, by daybreak next
morning, we had got a very serviceable jury foremast in place, enabling
us to set a fore-staysail, and also a main-topsail in place of a
foresail. With this head sail we were also enabled to give the frigate
her close-reefed mizzen-topsail and spanker; with which canvas we began
to move through the water at quite a respectable pace--that is to say
about four knots per hour. This, however, was not all; for the
carpenter had been hard at work all through the night preparing a jury
fore-topmast and jib-boom; while we had got a spare main-yar