A Chase—A Prize—Capture a French Smuggler—Our Prisoner’s Politeness—Do not Trust a Greek, even when Polite.
At the hour I was asked to dine with Captain Bruff we were running out at the Needles, with a fresh breeze and a thick, drizzling rain, which called pea-coats and sou’westers into requisition. We cruised about for three or four days without seeing anything suspicious; not a tub afloat, nor a craft with a smuggling look about her. At last we found something to give us employment. One evening a mist settled down over the water, which, though there was a good breeze, was perfectly calm. Although the night was in no ways dark, yet the density of the fog prevented our seeing beyond the bowsprit end, or even so far. It was just such a night as a smuggler delights in. The cutter was on her old ground, off Portland Bill. We were slipping through the water at the rate of some five or six knots an hour, when Stretcher, who was standing close to me, exclaimed, “Ah! see there, sir; there’s a craft of some sort right away to leeward, trying to steal off from us.” I looked, and could just distinguish the shadowy form of a sail through the mist. The Commander was called, and the cutter was instantly kept away in chase. Jack pronounced her to be a wherry; but I thought her something much larger. The wind was from the southward, and she, choosing what was probably her best point of sailing, made for the English coast. She sailed well; but we kept her in sight, for daylight had just broke, and the mist had partially cleared away. As soon as my uncle came on deck he ordered a shot to be fired wide of her, to make her heave-to. She paid no attention to it.
“Fire another, Stretcher, right into her this time, and we will make her show her quality,” said he.
The mists had now cleared off sufficiently to show that she was a wherry, though rather a small one. The shot went through her foresail, but still she held on. She was heavily laden, and her crew must have seen that her chance of escape was small, if not impossible. To render this still more difficult, it was every instant growing lighter and lighter. There were numerous sharp eyes on board the cutter fixed on her, and we now perceived her crew heaving the tubs overboard as fast as they could. They fancied, probably, that we could not see them. There were no weights attached to them, so they floated; but as we had no time to stop and pick them up, we noted carefully our course as we passed them, so as to be able to find them again.
“Fire away at her, my lads, till she heaves-to,” cried my uncle, seeing that she still held on.
“Surely she’ll not get away from us,” I remarked to Jack.
“Not so sure of that, Mr D’Arcy,” he answered. “Now she’s got her cargo out of her, should the wind fall on a sudden, and the fog come on thicker, she may contrive to hide herself away in it before we can get our boats out.”
The fog deceived us as to her true distance from us, for after the first, none of our shot struck her, though that mattered nothing, for the breeze freshening, we were now coming up with her hand over hand.
“Lower your canvas!” shouted my uncle, as we got near.
Her people thought it wise to obey, to avoid the shot, which could not now well miss its aim. She was next ordered to pull alongside, which she immediately did; but there was not a symptom of a cask or keg of spirits in her. She had five hands in her. They were desired to come on board. One of them acknowledged himself the skipper.