The Packet was now so much shattered that she could with difficulty be handled. Again and again the “Tom” bore down upon her, and hurled fresh boarders up her sides. Time after time Captain Cock led his wearied men to meet them, and each time drove them back.
In these repeated close fights the Cornishmen met with heavy losses, Mr. Sidgman, master of the “Townshend” being killed, and six more sailors, making ten in all, desperately wounded. His crew was now so reduced in numbers that it was with the greatest difficulty that Captain Cock could continue to serve the guns, and at the same time to collect sufficient men to meet the constantly recurring boarding attacks. It was plain that this situation of affairs could not last. There was no sign of succour on the sea, and when Captain Cock looked aloft, he could not but admit that in the crippled condition of his ship, all chance of running her ashore was gone. The “Townshend” was in fact a mere wreck. Her bowsprit was shot in pieces. Both jib-booms and head were carried away, as well as the wheel and ropes. Scarcely one shroud was left standing. The Packet lay like a log on the water, while the Privateers sailed round her, choosing their positions as they pleased, and raking her again and again.
Still Captain Cock held out. It was not until ten o’clock, when he had endured the attack of his two powerful enemies for nearly three hours, that he looked about him and recognized that the end had come. There were four feet of water in the hold, and the carpenter reported that it was rising rapidly. The Packet was in fact sinking. Nearly half the crew were in the hands of the surgeon. The rest, exhausted and hopeless of success, had already fought more nobly than even he could have foreseen, and were now being uselessly sacrificed. Still Captain Cock’s pride rebelled against surrender; and as he saw the colours he had defended so well drop down upon the deck, it is recorded that he burst into tears.
There lies before the writer a faded yellow scrap of paper on which one of the American captains recorded in generous terms his opinion of his foe. It runs as follows: “I do certify that Captain James Cock, of the Packet brig ‘Townshend,’ captured this day by the private armed schooners ‘Tom’ and ‘Bona,’ did defend his ship with courage and seamanship, and that he did not strike his colours until his vessel was perfectly unmanageable and in the act of sinking. Sd., Thomas Wilson, on board the ‘Townshend,’ November 22nd, 1812.” Subjoined to this certificate is a statement of the force of the Privateers, as given above. The loss of the “Townshend” has already been indicated; that of the Privateers Captain Cock was allowed no opportunity of ascertaining. He believed, however, that it was heavy, and he mentions positively that the “Tom,” the larger of the two, had received so much injury in her spars, sails, and rigging, that it was the intention of her captain to put back to port to refit.
When the Americans took possession of the “Townshend,” they found her so literally a wreck that they could make no use of her; and they therefore resolved to set her on fire, sending the crew, whom they did not wish to retain as prisoners, ashore in their own boats. Against this decision Captain Cock protested vehemently, pointing out the inhumanity of exposing so many wounded men to the perils of a voyage in boats which were so much shattered as to make it extremely doubtful whether they could reach the land. Finally, he was permitted, in exchange for a bill for £1200, to resume possession of his ship, after it had been plundered of everything of value. His unwounded men set to work with a will, plugged the shot-holes, held the leaks in check, and at 7 P.M. the “Townshend” dropped her anchor in Carlisle Bay. There her injuries were repaired as far as the imperfect appliances of the dock-yard permitted, and shortly after the New Year she set sail for England, still in a rather crazy state.
On January 18th at 1 P.M. a large schooner came in sight, about four miles away on the larboard bow. When first seen, the schooner was laying-to; but she made sail in chase almost immediately, and at 2.30 P.M. hoisted English colours. At 3 P.M. the stranger was within half a mile; and was seen to be hauling down the English ensign and hoisting the Stars and Stripes. At the same time she fired a gun across the “Townshend’s” bows, a summons to which Captain Cock replied with his full broadside, running up his own colours to the main-peak as he did so. Half-crippled as she was, the “Townshend” was in for it again.
The Privateer hung on the wake of the Packet, yawing every few minutes so as to deliver her broadside. Captain Cock on his part, not choosing to risk the loss of ground, kept a steady course, and confined himself to the use of his chasers, those long brass nine-pounders—“Post-Office” guns, as they are still called by the old sailors at Falmouth—which had so often served the Packets in good stead. With these two pieces he kept playing upon the following enemy with such good effect that at 3.30 P.M. he had the satisfaction of seeing her foreyard rattle down. There was some confusion on her decks in consequence of this disaster, and Captain Cock, seizing the opportunity to drive home the blow, gave the word to yaw, and delivered his full broadside of round and grape-shot with such precision as did great injury to the enemy’s spars and rigging, then hauling to the wind again, resumed practice with his stern guns.
The excellence of the Cornish gunnery had done its work, and by 4 P.M. the Privateer was observed to be dropping fast astern. In another quarter of an hour a severe squall came on, and the vessels parted. When the enemy was last seen she was laying-to, her sails hanging in every direction, and her crew employed in knotting the shrouds and backstays and repairing the running rigging.
So, in a manner beyond all praise, ended this cruise of the “Townshend,” a glorious incitement and example to all the other Packets on the Falmouth Station.
Great as was the satisfaction at Lombard Street when Captain Cock’s story became known, there was yet an admixture of less pleasurable feeling. It was already perfectly clear that the Packets were in greater danger than at any previous time, unless, indeed, in the first American war. Already two had been captured by squadrons of frigates, one by the famous Commodore Rogers, the other by the almost equally well known Captain D. Porter, each of whom commanded a force against which it would have been madness to resist. And now two accounts were to hand of fights with Privateers; and in both, though the resistance of the Post-Office commanders was even desperately gallant, the force of the enemy had proved irresistible. However, where the spirit of the officers and men was so high, My Lords could not doubt that they would give a good account of themselves; and just at this time an incident occurred which, though not very important in itself, served to show that audacity was sometimes the safest of all policies.