rds us, five from the corvette and three from the
brig. As they got near I saw that the men were laying on their oars, as
if they expected we should fight--you see we had the English flag flying
at our peak, and they knew pretty well that Englishmen are not inclined
to give in without striking a blow--I thought that the colonel and the
skipper would have acted very differently; but they knew that they were
not altogether right, and that made them knock under in the way they
would not otherwise have done. When the boats came within musket-shot,
the men lay on their oars as if they expected should they come nearer
that we should fire on them--the officers seemed to be consulting
together--and then they made up their minds to attack us, and came on
altogether in a line. If our crew had consented to fight it would have
been pretty tough work, I must own that, and maybe we should have got
the worst of it. In a few minutes the boats were alongside, and their
crews were clambering up on deck, some on our quarters and some
amidships and for'ard, shouting and jabbering, and waving their
cutlasses as if we had been defending ourselves, whereas there was not a
man among us had a weapon in his hand. I thought, in truth, they were
going to cut down every one of us; so they would have done if the
colonel hadn't shouted out in their own lingo, and told them if they
came as friends they should be received as friends, and that we did not
wish to oppose them.

"One of the officers who had been longer getting up the side than the
rest (seeing that he was too fat to move quickly) now stepped up to the
colonel and told him to give up his sword, and consider himself a
prisoner. The colonel answered that he didn't wear a sword at sea, that
he was an Englishman sailing aboard an English vessel, and that if they
took him or any one else prisoners they must stand the consequence. The
Spaniard stamped and swore, and looked very big, and called him a
pirate, and then pointed at the midshipmen, and told him that he was
bringing up young pirates, and that they should all be hung together;
the colonel, instead of getting into a rage, was very polite, and said
that he was mistaken, that the midshipmen belonged to a British
man-of-war, had been picked up off a wreck, and that if any harm was
done to them, their ships would come and punish him and all concerned.
I was told this afterwards, for though the Spanish officer spoke a
little English, I