The Log of a Privateersman

by Harry Collingwood

Chapter Eight.

We fall in with a convoy.

The next three days were spent in dodging about the chops of the Channel, during which we saw nothing except a few homeward-bound British merchantmen—all of them armed and quite capable of taking care of themselves—and a British line-of-battle ship, by which we were chased for six hours, but which we had little difficulty in escaping by jamming the schooner close upon a wind. The unsophisticated reader may perhaps be inclined to wonder why we should have been chased by one of our own men-o’-war; and why, being chased, we should have taken any trouble to escape from her. The fact, however, was that the Dolphin was altogether too rakish-looking a craft to be mistaken for a plodding merchantman, her long, low, beamy hull, taunt, tapering spars, and broad spread of superbly-cut canvas proclaimed her a sea-rover as far as the eye could distinguish her; and, as the ensign carried was at that time but an indifferent guarantee of a vessel’s nationality, it was the imperative duty of our men-o’-war, when falling in with such a craft, to make sure, if possible, that she was not an enemy and a danger to our commerce. Our friend the two-decker was therefore quite justified in her endeavour to get alongside us and obtain a sight of our papers; and had we possessed any assurance that her delicate attentions would have ended there, her people would have been quite welcome to come aboard us, and overhaul the schooner and her papers to their heart’s content. But, unfortunately, we had no such assurance. There was, at the time of which I am now writing, a very great difficulty in procuring men enough to adequately man our ships of war, and there was therefore no alternative left to the government but to resort to the process of impressment, a process which naval officers were too often apt to adopt with scant discrimination. In their anxiety to secure a full complement for their ships they deemed themselves justified not only in pressing men ashore, but even in boarding the merchantmen of their own nation upon the high seas and impressing so many men out of them that instances were by no means rare of traders being subsequently lost through being thus made so short-handed that their crews were insufficient in number and strength to successfully battle against bad weather. The crews of vessels furnished with letters of marque were nominally protected from impressment; but we were fully aware that the protection was only nominal, and altogether insufficient; hence it came about that a British privateer was always very much more anxious to escape from a man-o’-war flying the colours of her own country than she was to avoid a ship flying those of the enemy.

And now, to return to my story. On the fourth day after our abortive adventure in Abervrach harbour the wind hauled round from the eastward, and, heartily tired of and disgusted with our ill-luck, we gladly squared away before it to seek a better fortune on the bosom of the broad Atlantic. For a fortnight we stretched away to the southward and westward, when we sighted and passed the lofty heights and precipitous cliffs of Flores and Corvo, in the neighbourhood of which Captain Winter determined to cruise for a week, it being customary for homeward-bound ships from the southward to endeavour to make these islands and so check their reckoning. The wind, meanwhile, had gone round, and was now blowing a very moderate breeze from the southward, with a clear sky, bright sunshine, and a pleasantly mild temperature.

We cruised for eight days off the Azores, sighting only three vessels during the whole of that time; and as they were all British they were of course of no use to us. Then, intensely disappointed at our continued ill-luck, we hauled our wind and, with a freshening breeze from the south-west, stretched away to the westward on the larboard tack, Captain Winter having determined to look for better fortune in the West Indian waters.

For the first two days after quitting the neighbourhood of the Azores we made excellent progress; and then a steadily falling barometer, accompanied by a lowering sky and a rapid increase in the strength of the wind, warned us to prepare for bad weather. Up to this time we had been carrying our topgallant-sail, flying-jib, and small gaff-topsail; but with the steady freshening of the wind, the approach of night, and the threatening aspect of the sky, the skipper deemed it prudent to stow our light canvas and to take down a reef in the mainsail and topsail. It was well that this precaution was taken; for during the night the wind increased to the strength of a gale, with a very heavy, dangerous sea; and when morning came it found us snugged down to the jib—with the bonnet off,—reefed foresail, and close-reefed mainsail. It was at this time looking very black and wild to windward; the sky all along the south-western horizon being of a deep slaty, indigo hue, swept by swift-flying streamers of dirty, whitish-grey cloud; while the leaden-grey sea, scourged into a waste of steep, foam-capped ridges and deep, seething, wind-furrowed valleys, had already risen to such a height as to completely becalm our low canvas every time that the schooner settled down into the trough. The time was evidently at hand when it would be necessary for us to heave-to; the schooner was therefore got round upon the starboard tack, with her head to the southward; and, as the barometer was still falling, the hands were set to work to send down the yards and house the topmasts while it was still possible to do so. The task was a dangerous one; but we had plenty of strength, and, the men working with a will, it was accomplished within an hour; and the schooner was then ready, as we hoped, to face the worst that could happen. By noon it was blowing so furiously, and the sea had increased to such an extent, that the skipper determined not to risk the vessel any longer by further attempting to sail her, and she was accordingly hove-to under a close-reefed foresail, when everybody but the officer in charge of the deck, and the man at the wheel, went below.

As the day wore on the weather grew worse, and by nightfall it was blowing a perfect hurricane, the force of the wind being so great that, even under the small rag of a close-reefed foresail, the schooner was bowed down to her water-ways, and her lee scuppers were all afloat. Yet the little craft was making splendid weather of it, riding the mountainous seas as light and dry as a gull, looking well up into the wind, and fore-reaching at the rate of fully three knots in the hour. But it was a dreary and uncomfortable time for us all, the air being so full of scud-water that it was like being exposed to a continuous torrent of driving rain; despite our oil-skins and sou’-westers half an hour on deck was sufficient to secure one a drenching to the skin, while the spray, driven into one’s face by the furious sweep of the hurricane, cut and stung like the lash of a whip. The schooner, being but a small craft, too, was extraordinarily lively; leaping and plunging, rolling and pitching to such an extent and with so quick a motion that it was quite impossible to keep one’s footing without holding on to something; while to secure a meal demanded a series of feats of dexterity that would have turned a professional acrobat green with envy. And all this discomfort was emphasised, as it were, by the yelling and hooting and shrieking of the wind aloft, the roar of the angry sea, and the heavy, perpetual swish of spray upon the deck.

It was about three bells in the first watch that night, when—I being in charge of the deck, and the skipper keeping me company—a light was made out upon our lee bow, quickly followed by another, and another, and still another, until the whole of the horizon ahead was lighted up like a town, there being probably over two hundred lights in sight. It was evident that we were approaching a large concourse of ships; and in about an hour’s time we found ourselves driving into the very heart of the fleet. The night was altogether too dark for us to be enabled to make out who and what they were; but the skipper was of opinion that we had encountered a large convoy, and as it was impossible to tell whether they were friends or foes, he determined to wear the schooner round, as soon as we could find room, and heave her to with her head to the westward, like the rest of the fleet, when the morning would enable us to ascertain the nationality of our neighbours and decide whether anything was likely to be gained by keeping them company. At eight bells, therefore, by which time we had passed right through the fleet, we got the schooner round and waited impatiently until morning. There was a good deal of firing of blank cartridge, throughout the night, as also of signalling with coloured lanterns; but we could, of course, make nothing of it, and took it simply to mean that the men-o’-war in charge of the convoy were doing their best to keep the fleet from becoming scattered during the continuance of the gale.

When morning dawned, and the light came struggling feebly through the thick pall of murky, storm-torn vapour that overspread the sky, it became apparent that the skipper’s surmise as to the character of the fleet had been correct: the Dolphin being in the midst of some two hundred and fifty sail of vessels of different rigs, from the stately ship to the saucy schooner, in charge of two seventy-fours, a fifty-gun ship, a frigate, and four eighteen-gun-brigs. The men-o’-war were all snugged comfortably down, royal and topgallant yards on deck, topgallant-masts struck, and not an ounce of unnecessary top-hamper aloft; but most of the merchantmen had kept everything standing, even to their royal-yards. There were a few, however—mostly the larger craft,—who had sent down their top-hamper; and there were others—notably a very fine, frigate-built ship—that had lost one or more of their spars during the gale, and were now in great difficulties, with the wreck thrashing about aloft and not only threatening the remaining spars, but also the lives of the crew, who could be seen endeavouring to cut the raffle adrift. That the convoy was British became apparent as soon as the light grew strong enough to enable us to distinctly make out our nearest neighbours.