“Observed the frigates to fire several guns at them. At 9 shortened sail and hove to. The Epervier stood towards the wrecks with a flag of truce. Epervier made telegraph signal: ‘There are about twenty men on board the three-decker, and sixty on board the two-decker. Boats can approach; take them off, and fire the hulls if ordered.’
“Admiral made telegraph signal: ‘Send two boats to the Acasta to assist in bringing off prisoners.’ At a quarter past four, observed the wrecks to be on fire.”
Soon after they were all on the passage towards Jamaica.
On February 12, an amusing incident is logged. Amusing it is in our eyes, though perfectly seriously recorded.
“12. Acasta made telegraph signals: An American ship four days from Trinidad. The master reports that he saw there an English gazette, containing particulars of great successes gained by the allied powers on the Continent over the French, who are stated to have been everywhere beaten, their armies destroyed, and Bonaparte flying or killed. This had been brought to Trinidad by the mail boat from Barbadoes, and the garrison fired a night salute on the joyful occasion.”
This was, of course, quite at variance with facts.
The voyage home from Jamaica was uneventful, except for the constant trouble given by l’Alexandre, which had evidently been badly damaged in the action, and had at last to be taken in tow. It was a happier home-coming for Captain Austen than he had looked forward to soon after Trafalgar. To return after a successful action with three prizes in company was a better fate than had then seemed possible.
They arrived on April 29, when the record stands:
“Saw the lighthouse of St. Agnes bearing N.N.E. by E., distant six or seven leagues; made signal for seeing land,” with what feelings it is easier to imagine than to describe. Such a description has been attempted over and over again, with varying degrees of success. Jane Austen tells of a sailor’s leave-taking and return only once, and then, as is her way, by the simple narration of details. Anne Elliot and Captain Harville are having the time-honoured argument as to the relative strength of the feelings of men and women, and to illustrate his point Captain Harville says: “If I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, ‘God knows whether we ever meet again.’ And then if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again; when coming back after a twelvemonths’ absence, perhaps, he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself, and saying, ‘They cannot be here till such a day,’ but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last, as if heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still. If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do for the sake of these treasures of his existence....”
Jane Austen must, indeed, have known something of the feelings of “such men as have hearts,” and the troubles and joys of the seafaring life.