’Twas with the spring fleet she went out
The English Channel to cruise about,
When four French sail, in shore so about,
Bore down on the Arethusa.
The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie—
The Arethusa seem’d to fly:
Not a sheet or a tack,
Or a brace did she slack;
Though the Frenchman laugh’d, and thought it stuff;
But they knew not the handful of men how tough