t
broke right off, carrying away our mizen-mast, and with it the greater
number of our assailants, who failed to regain their own ship. With our
mizen-mast of course went our colours, but that the Frenchmen might not
suppose that we had given in, Harry Barling, one of our quarter-masters,
getting hold of a Union Jack, nailed it to the stump of the mizen-mast.
All this time, you must understand, we had been blazing away at each
other as fast as we could bring our guns to bear. The `Minerve' at last
ranged ahead clear of us, but we continued firing, till the `Lowestoff,'
seeing how hard pressed we were, came up to our assistance, and tackled
the Frenchman. In a few minutes, so actively did she work her guns,
that she had knocked away the enemy's foremast and remaining topmast.
As the `Minerve' could not now possibly escape, we threw out a signal to
the `Lowestoff' to chase the `Artemise,' which instead of coming to the
assistance of her consort was making off. She however had the heels of
us, and we therefore, returning again, attacked the `Minerve,' which, on
her mizen-mast being shot away, hauled down her colours. We had our
boatswain and five seamen killed, two officers and thirteen men wounded.
The `Lowestoff' had no one hurt, and so, although she certainly
contributed to the capture of the prize, we gained the chief credit for
the action, which, considering the difference in size between our
frigate and the Frenchman, we certainly deserved. But in those days we
didn't count odds. We thought that we had only to see the enemy to
thrash him. Even our best captains, however, sometimes made a mistake.

"I afterwards belonged to the `Terpsichore' frigate, Captain Richard
Bowen, which formed one of a squadron under Lord Nelson, who was then
Sir Horatio, to attack Santa Cruz, in the Island of Teneriffe. The
squadron consisted of three seventy-fours and one fifty-gun ship--which
afterwards joined us--three frigates, and the `Fox' cutter. It was some
time before we could get up to the place. At last we managed to embark
nearly seven hundred seamen and Marines in the boats of the squadron,
nearly two hundred on board the `Fox' and others, including a detachment
of Royal Artillery, in some captured boats. Sir Horatio himself took
the command. Shoving off from the ship some time after midnight, we
pulled in for the town. The plan was to make a dash for the mole, and
then to fight our way forward along it, we fully be