Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The two frigates, seeing how their consort had been handled, and that several of the Indiamen were crowding sail towards them, now set all the canvas they could spread in the hope of making their escape, very indifferent to the fate of their big consort, whom they seemed to think was powerful enough to take very good care of herself. She, meantime, was signalling to them to remain to render her assistance while she brought us up towards them.

We, by this time, had been pretty severely handled. We had fully twenty killed and twice as many wounded, while several of our spars had been shot away, and we were much cut up in sails and rigging. Night, too, was coming on, and it was important to keep our convoy together. We could not tell whether other French ships were near at hand, and if so, not only we, but many of the merchantmen under our charge might have been captured. All these things I thought of afterwards, but not then, depend on it. Flushed with our success, we fully expected that we were going to make all the three Frenchmen strike. The enemy’s line-of-battle ship sailed well, and she quickly led us up in chase, so that we were exposed to the fire of her consorts as well as to hers.

Under other circumstances, I believe that our captain was the last man to have left a victory half won; but just as we were once more getting within range of the enemy’s guns, we hove-to, and he signalled to the convoy to collect together and to continue their course to the southward.

All on board were eager to see what was to happen. We thought that we were going to make sail after the Indiamen, but we had not yet quite done with the enemy. We replied by a loud cheer as the ship’s head was once more kept towards them, and then running along their line we delivered another crashing broadside into them. We got something in return, though, and the shot from all the three ships came more thickly about us than ever.

Not far from the gun at which I was serving I saw Saull Ley. Once he had disappeared, and I thought he had been wounded, but when the firing ceased he had come back to his gun. He had evidently attempted the same trick a second time, when we were once more unexpectedly brought into action, for a couple of men with rope’s ends were driving him back to his station. He had no help for himself but to remain, though fear had rendered his services of very little avail.

At last the shot he so much dreaded reached him, and I saw him struck down bleeding on the deck. He shrieked out with terror and pain when he found himself wounded.

“Oh, help me! help me! I shall die! I shall die! What will become of me?” he cried out.

“Why, you’ll have to go where many a better man has gone before you,” answered the rest of the crew of his gun, who, on account of his arrant cowardice, had no feeling of compassion for him. He was, however, lifted from the deck and carried below, to be placed under the doctor’s care.

The enemy, who had laid to for us, seeming to consider that nothing was to be gained by them if they continued the fight, but that they were far more likely to have to haul down their flags or to be sunk, once more filled and stood away from us to the northward. It seemed a question whether we should follow or not, and I am very certain that no one felt more regret than did our captain at having to allow the enemy to escape when he had almost secured the victory.

The property, however, entrusted to his care on board the fleet of Indiamen was of such vast amount that he could not venture to run the risk of any disaster. We had gallantly done our duty by beating off so far superior a force. The enemy was in fall flight—we might have overtaken them—but if we had, and captured them all, we should have so completely weakened our crew that we could not have ventured to continue our voyage, and should certainly have had to put into port to refit. Our helm was accordingly put up, and once more we stood to the southward after our convoy.