In two hours the frigate had neared the stranger so as to distinguish her water-line from the deck, and on hoisting her ensign and pendant, the vessel bore down to her.
“She has hoisted English colours, sir,” reported Stewart to the captain.
“What, Stewart! did you say that she had hoisted English colours?” inquired Prose, with an anxious face.
“Yes, you booby, I did.”
“Well, now, I do declare,” cried Prose, with dismay, “if I haven’t lost five pounds.”
The vessel ran under the stern of the frigate, and requested a boat to be sent on board, as she had intelligence to communicate. The boat returned, and acquainted Captain M— that the vessel had been boarded and plundered by a French privateer schooner, which had committed great depredation in that quarter, and that it was not above eight hours that she had left her, and made sail towards Porto Rico, taking out two merchants, who were passengers. The boat was immediately hoisted up, and all sail made in the direction of the island, which was not above fifteen leagues distant. As the day closed in, their eyes were gratified by the sight of the schooner, becalmed close in under the land. Perceiving the frigate in pursuit of her, and unable to escape, she came to an anchor in a small and shallow bay, within a cable’s length of the beach. Captain M—, having run his ship as close in as the depth of water would permit, which was between two and three miles of her, so as to render her escape impossible, came to an anchor, signifying to his officers his determination to cut her out with his boats on the ensuing day.
The officers who were to be intrusted with the command of the boats, and the crews which were to be employed on the service, were selected, and mustered on the quarter-deck, previous to the hammocks being piped down, that the former might hold themselves in readiness, and that the latter might remain in their hammocks during the night. All was anxiety for the sun to rise again upon those who were about to venture in the lottery, where the prizes would be honour, and the blanks—death. There were but few whose souls were of that decided brute composition that they could sleep through the whole of the tedious night. They woke and “swore a prayer or two, then slept again.” The sun had not yet made his appearance above the horizon, although the eastern blush announced that the spinning earth would shortly whirl the Aspasia into his presence, when the pipes of the boatswain and his mates, with the summons of “All hands ahoy—up all hammocks!” were obeyed with the alacrity so characteristic of English seamen anticipating danger. The hammocks were soon stowed, and the hands turned up. “Out boats!” The yard tackles and stays were hooked, and the larger boats from the booms descended with a heavy splash into the water, which they threw out on each side of them as they displaced it with their weight; while the cutters from the quarter-davits were already lowered down, and were being manned under the chains.
Broad daylight discovered the privateer, who, aware of their intentions, had employed the night in taking every precaution that skill could suggest to repel the expected attack. Secured with cables and hawsers, extending from each bow and quarter—her starboard broadside directed to seaward—her boarding netting triced up to the lower rigging—and booms, connected together, rigged out from the sides, to prevent them from laying her on board. There was no wind; the sea was smooth as glass; and the French colours, hoisted in defiance at each masthead, hung listlessly down the spars, as if fainting for the breeze which would expand them in their vigour. She was pierced for eight ports on a side; and the guns, which pointed through them, with the tompions out, ready to shower destruction upon her assailants, showed like the teeth of the snarling wolf, who stands at bay, awaiting the attack of his undaunted pursuers.
The boats had received their guns, which were fixed on slides, so as to enable them to be fired over the bows, without impeding the use of the oars; the ammunition and arm-chests had been placed in security abaft.
The sailors, with their cutlasses belted round their waists, and a pistol stuck in their girdles, or in a becket at the side of the boat, ready to their hands—the marines, in proportion to the number which each boat could carry, sitting in the stern-sheets, with their muskets between their legs, and their well pipeclayed belts for bayonet and cartouch-box crossed over their old jackets, half dirt, half finery—all was ready for shoving off, when Captain M— desired the officers whom he had appointed to the expedition to step down into his cabin. Bully, the first lieutenant, was unwell with an intermittent fever, and Captain M—, at the request of Macallan, would not accede to his anxiety to take the command. Price, Courtenay, Stewart, and three other midshipmen, were those who had been selected for the dangerous service.