In ship and prison

by William P. Chipman

Somewhat startled by his announcement, for I knew if he was right the Thorn was no match for so formidable an antagonist, I hurried away to inform Captain Tucker.

He came to the deck and took a good look at the approaching frigate, and then he said:

“I presume you are correct in your surmise about yonder vessel, Lieutenant Barrows. She certainly carries more than double our number of guns, and probably has a crew triple our own. So I have got to do what I never did before, and what I do now with very bad grace, I assure you—I must run away from a British ship. We are no match for her.”

He gave the order to about ship and to spread every stitch of canvas we could carry to the stiff breeze then blowing from the north-west. In a few minutes the Hind was under a similar cloud of canvas, and the race which meant escape or capture for us was begun.

We were soon making ten knots, and for three hours the British frigate did no better. The distance between the ships certainly had not lessened, and we began to hope that we might shake off our pursuer. But the ill-luck which so far had attended us during that voyage continued to manifest itself. All at once, and without the slightest warning our maintopmast snapped in two and came tumbling down to the deck. It struck our first officer and two seamen, knocking the former overboard, and injuring the latter so that they had to be taken down below and put under the surgeon’s care. We hove to as soon as we could, and put over a boat for the unfortunate officer. He was a good swimmer and managed to keep afloat until we came up with him; but a half-hour had elapsed before we were back on board the ship, and in that half-hour the Hind had so gained upon us there were but two things we could do, and we must take our choice between them: to fight or to surrender.

We chose the former, large as our foe was; so the drum beat our men to quarters; our guns were shotted; and, with about as much hope of victory as a bantam might have in a contest with a game-cock, we turned to meet the enemy.

She was evidently surprised at our action, and was, therefore, not ready for the fight quite so soon as ourselves. That gave us a slight advantage, and we poured a broadside into her before she fired a gun.

But she soon made up for her delay, and for some minutes the unequal contest waged. Great gaps were torn in our sides; our decks were swept; our sails were riddled; a score or more of our men were killed or wounded.

But the Hind had also suffered. Our guns had been aimed largely at her rigging, for it was the hope of Captain Tucker to so disable her that she would be unable to follow him, and then he would continue his flight. The time for that movement now seemed to be ripe, for her foremast had been shot away, and the spars of her mizzen and mainmasts sadly injured. So he gave the command to sheer off and sail away.

We were coming about when a well directed shot from the Britisher, who had divined our purpose, struck our rudder, breaking it into splinters and causing our frigate to spin around like a top. We were helpless, and in another instant the Hind had grappled with us, and poured a large boarding party down upon our deck.