The obstinate craft having at length consented to back her topsail, Courtenay was sent away in the gig, with the crew fully armed, to give her an overhaul.
He remained on board nearly half an hour, and when he returned he brought the skipper of the schooner, a negro, with him. The little vessel, it now appeared, was a coaster, sailing under French colours, and was bound from Jean Rabel to Porto Caballo. She was consequently a prize, though utterly valueless to us; and Courtenay’s instructions had been that, if such proved to be the case, he was to take her crew out of her and set her on fire. She, however, belonged to the negro who commanded her, and he had begged so earnestly that his property might be spared, and had backed up his petition by representations of so important a nature, that Courtenay had deemed it best, before carrying out his instructions, to bring the man on board the Hermione, and give him an interview with Captain Pigot. The skipper was in his cabin when the gig returned alongside, so Courtenay went in and made his report, the result being that the negro was speedily admitted to Captain Pigot’s presence. The next thing that happened was the summoning of the first lieutenant to the cabin, Courtenay being at the same time dismissed. A conference of some twenty minutes’ duration now ensued, at the termination of which Courtenay, with half a dozen men as a prize-crew, was sent away to take charge of the schooner; and on the return of the boat, both vessels filled away and stood off the land on a taut bowline, the negro owner of the schooner being detained on board the frigate.
Early the next morning the remainder of the squadron was sighted, and immediately after breakfast Captain Pigot boarded the commodore, taking the negro with him. He was absent for the greater part of the morning, and that something of moment was on the tapis soon became apparent, from the fact that the captains of the Quebec, Mermaid, Drake, and Penelope were signalled for. Everybody was now on the qui vive, a pleasant excitement taking the place of that stolid sullen indifference and apathy on the part of our crew which had gradually resulted from the skipper’s ill-advised harshness to them. At length the boats were seen to push off on their way back to their respective ships; and, a few minutes later, Captain Pigot passed up the gangway and came in on deck. Everybody now waited in breathless expectation for the anticipated order which should convey to us an inkling of the nature of the work in hand; but, to our general disappointment, no such order was given. The skipper’s face, however, wore a look of exultant satisfaction, and his demeanour was so much less unpleasant than usual that we felt convinced there was something in the wind; and all hands settled down accordingly to await, with what patience we could muster, the development of events.
It was not, however, until two days later, the 20th of April, that our curiosity was satisfied. A signal from the commodore requesting the captains of the Hermione, Quebec, Mermaid, Drake, and Penelope to repair on board him, was the first incident of the day; and this was followed by a conference so protracted that the gigs’ crews only got back to their ships barely in time for dinner. A most careful and scrupulous inspection of the arm-chest consumed nearly the whole of the afternoon watch; and finally, at eight bells, or four o’clock p.m., after a considerable amount of signalling, the ships already named detached themselves from the rest of the squadron, and, under Captain Pigot’s orders, made sail to the westward; the negro captain being at the same time restored to his command and allowed to proceed on his way.
Urged forward by a brisk trade-wind, to which we exposed every possible stitch of canvas, the little squadron made short miles of it, arriving, at three o’clock in the morning, off Port à l’Écu; where, at a distance of about a mile off the shore and some two miles from the harbour of Jean Rabel on the one hand, and Port au Paix on the other, the trade-wind encountering the land-breeze, we ran into a calm. A carefully-masked lantern was now exhibited on board the Hermione, the utmost caution being observed to prevent its light being seen from the shore, and at the same moment our launch, pinnace, and first and second cutters, the two former each carrying a boat’s gun in the bows, were ordered away.
To Mr Reid, who, in conjunction with Lieutenant Burdwood of the Penelope, had been closeted with the skipper for at least two hours previously, was intrusted the command of one division of the boats which was about to be sent away, Lieutenant Burdwood being placed at the head of the other division. Mr Reid went, of course, in our launch; Mr Douglas commanded the pinnace; Farmer, a master’s mate, was put in charge of the first cutter; and, to my supreme surprise and gratification, I was instructed to take charge of the second.
In less than five minutes, so well planned had been Captain Pigot’s arrangements, our boats were joined by the rest of the flotilla; and, the whole having been quietly but rapidly marshalled by Mr Reid into two divisions, our muffled oars dropped simultaneously into the water, and we departed on our several ways.
Mr Burdwood, with his division, consisting of four boats from the Mermaid, two from the Drake, and two from his own vessel, pulled briskly away to the eastward, his destination being, as I shortly afterwards learned, Port au Paix, whilst the division to which I belonged headed west for Jean Rabel.
The night was fine, but very dark; a broad belt of dappled cloud overspreading almost the entire heavens, and permitting only an isolated star or two to twinkle feebly through it here and there. A couple of miles in the offing the trade-wind was blowing briskly, and inshore of us, at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile, the land-breeze was roaring down off the hills with the strength of half a gale. Where the two met there occurred a narrow belt of calm, broken into momentarily by an eddying puff of wind, now warm, as the trade-wind got slightly the better of the land-breeze, and anon cool, refreshing, and odoriferous with the perfume of a thousand flowers, as the land-breeze regained the ascendency and pushed forward in its turn on the domain of the trade-wind. Mr Reid availed himself of the opportunity afforded by our passage across this narrow belt of calm to rally the rest of the boats round the launch for a moment, in order to explain the object of the expedition, and to give a few brief directions respecting the movements of each boat. From this explanation we now learned that we were about to make an attack upon two privateer brigs, together with a ship and brig which had been captured by them, all of which were lying in Jean Rabel harbour, and were believed to be well protected and very strongly manned. The ship—a very fine vessel, which had recently been armed with eighteen 9-pounder brass guns, and manned by a crew of over one hundred men—our gallant “first” proposed to attack in person, the launch being supported by the first and second cutters. Mr Douglas, our second lieutenant, aided by the Quebec’s launch, was to tackle the heaviest of the privateer brigs; the Quebec’s first and second cutters were to attack the other; whilst the Mermaid’s second cutter and the Quebec’s gig were to make a dash at the remaining brig, a prize, and, having secured her, hold themselves in readiness to lend a hand wherever their presence might seem to be most required. Our work having thus been explicitly set out for us, Mr Reid gave the word for us to renew our advance, and we once more pushed ahead.
No night could well have been more favourable for such an attack as ours—which was meant to be a surprise, if possible—than the one selected; so dark, indeed, was it that, by a piece of the rarest good fortune, we had actually entered the harbour before we were able to completely identify our whereabouts.