rs only laughed,
pushing the women on one side, and saying, "Be quiet, Poll;"--"Don't be
foolish, Molly;"--"Out of the way, Sukey; we a'n't come to take away
your fancy man;" with expressions of that sort, although the blood
trickled down many of their faces, from the way in which they had been
clawed. Thus we attempted to force our way through them, but I had a
very narrow escape even in this instance. A woman seized me by the arm,
and pulled me towards her; had it not been for one of the
quarter-masters I should have been separated from my party; but, just as
they dragged me away, she caught hold of me by the leg, and stopped
them. "Clap on here, Peg," cried the woman to another, "and let's have
this little midshipmite; I wants a baby to dry nurse." Two more women
came to her assistance, catching hold of my other arm, and they would
have dragged me out of the grasp of the quarter-master, had he not
called out for more help on his side, upon which two of the seamen laid
hold of my other leg, and there was such a tussle (all at my expense),
such pulling and hauling; sometimes the women gained an inch or two of
me, then the sailors got it back again. At one moment I thought it was
all over with me, and in the next I was with my own men. "Pull devil;
pull baker!" cried the women, and then they laughed, although I did not,
I can assure you, for I really think that I was pulled out an inch
taller, and my knees and shoulders pained me very much indeed. At last
the women laughed so much that they could not hold on, so I was dragged
into the middle of our own sailors, where I took care to remain; and,
after a little more squeezing and fighting, was carried by the crowd
into the house. The seamen of the merchant ships had armed themselves
with bludgeons and other weapons, and had taken a position on the
tables. They were more than two to one against us, and there was a
dreadful fight, as their resistance was very desperate. Our sailors were
obliged to use their cutlasses, and for a few minutes I was quite
bewildered with the shouting and swearing, pushing and scuffling,
collaring and fighting, together with the dust raised up, which not only
blinded, but nearly choked me. By the time that my breath was nearly
squeezed out of my body, our sailors got the best of it, which the
landlady and women of the house perceiving, they put out all the lights,
so that I could not tell where I was; but our sailors had every one
seized his man,