noitre the harbour of Toulon. We were on our way, when,
one evening, we discovered standing towards us two large French
frigates. We made the private signal, when, supposing that we were the
leading frigates of the fleet, they both wore and stood away. We chased
them all night, but in the morning, when they discovered that there were
only two frigates, and both much smaller than themselves, they tacked
and stood towards us. One of the Frenchmen was the `Minerve,' of forty
guns, and the other the `Artemise,' of thirty-six guns. When the
`Minerve' was about a mile away from us, on the weather bow, and ahead
of her consort, she wore, and then hauling up on the larboard tack, to
windward, commenced firing at us. I was still, you will understand,
only a powder-monkey. My business was to bring the powder up from the
magazine in a tub, upon which I had to sit till it was wanted to load
the guns. Still, I could see a good deal that was going forward through
the ports; besides which I heard from the men what was taking place. My
old messmate, Tom Noakes, had joined the `Dido.' He was now seated on
his tub next to me--the biggest powder-monkey I ever knew. Poor Tom was
not at all happy. He said that we smaller fellows had only half the
chance of being killed that he had, as a shot might pass over our heads
which would take his off. I tried to console him by reminding him that
there were a good many parts of the ship where no shots were likely to
pass, and that he had less chance of being hit than the men who had to
stand up to their guns all the time. We stood on till the `Minerve' was
on our weather beam, when we could see her squaring away her yards, and
presently the breeze freshening, she bore down upon our little frigate
with the evident intention of sinking us. So she might have done with
the greatest ease, but having fired our broadside just as her flying
jibboom was touching our mainyard, we bore up, and her bow struck our
larboard quarter. So great was the shock, that for the moment many
thought we were going down, but instead of that our frigate was thrown
athwart the `Minerve's' hawse, her bowsprit becoming entangled in our
mizen rigging. The Frenchmen immediately swarmed along their bowsprit,
intending to board us. Our first lieutenant then shouted for `boarders
to repel boarders,' but as the French crew doubled ours, we should have
found it a hard matter to do that. Fortunately the Frenchman's bowspri