Charles H. L. Johnston

“ But a big, hulking Dutch frigate hovered in their rear, and thirty-two guns pointed their brown muzzles menacingly from her open port-holes. She was the Neptune and she lazed along like a huge whale: omnipotent and self-satisfied.
“Ah ha!” cried the delighted Jean Bart. “Now I have met an enemy that is worthy of my steel. Up with the flag and sail into yonder Dutchman. We have but twenty-four guns to her thirty-two, but are we to be awed by this show of force? Be ready, my boys, to have the stiffest fight in your careers!” ”

“ Pistols spat, cutlasses swung, and one after another, the English officers fell before the snapping blade of the King of Barrataria, as they bravely cheered on their men. The practiced boarders struck the red-coated columns with the same fierceness with which they had often bounded upon the deck of an enemy, and cheer after cheer welled above the rattle of arms as the advancing guardsmen were beaten back. All the energies of the British were concentrated upon scaling the breastworks, which one daring officer had already mounted. ”

“ There was nothing left but to put the Spanish prisoners aboard the galleons, collect the plunder, and set sail for England. When the fleet again swung into the little harbor of Plymouth it was received by the people with wildest enthusiasm and delight. All England rang with the praise of the valor and courage of her heroes, for Spain had been stripped of her ability to injure her English rival and England’s power was supreme upon the sea. Raleigh and his comrades had done this,—and the descendants of Raleigh and his comrades have continued to uphold the supremacy. ”

“ As the valiant captain spoke these words, he stepped forward to deal a blow, himself, at the stout door which shut him from the glittering riches. But suddenly he reeled and almost fell. Blood flowed in great quantities upon the sand, from a wound in his leg which he had received in the furious struggle within the market-place.
“Come, Captain,” cried one of his retainers, seizing him in his arms. “You must hasten to our pinnaces. What brooks this treasure to us when we lose you, for, if you live we can secure gold and silver enough at any time, but if you die we can find no more.” ”

“ Crash! Roar! Crash! growled the broadsides. Shrill screams sounded from the wounded; the harsh voices of the officers echoed above the din of the conflict; and, the whining bugle squealed ominously between the roaring crush of grape and chain-shot.
But the French got nearer and nearer. Great gaps showed in the bulwarks of the Diomede; one mast was tottering. Beaten and outnumbered she stood out to sea, her sailors crowding into the rigging like monkeys, and spreading every stitch of white canvas.
“She runs! Egad, she runs!” cried the Commander of the other British vessel. ”

“ The Dutch fought like wildcats. Three times the cheering, bleeding Frenchmen stormed the planking, and three times they were hurled back upon the slippery deck of their own ship; maddened, cursing, furious at their inability to take the foreigner. “The conflict was very bloody both by the very heavy fire on both sides, of guns, muskets, and grenades,” says Du Guay-Trouin, “and by the splendid courage of the Baron Van Wassenaer, who received me with astonishing boldness.” ”

“ But, as the sailors scampered to the bulwarks with cutlass and with dirk, a sheet of flame burst from the port-holes of the drifting Nonsuch. She was afire.
“Luff! Luff!” cried the keen-eyed French mariner, and the Francois drew away as the red flames curled upward with a cruel hiss.
With a swift turn the helm again spun over, under the quick hand of Du Guay-Trouin, and the Francois was jibed about in order to run under the port bow of the Englishman.
“Hold, Captain!” cried a French Lieutenant. “We, ourselves, are afire!” ”

“ In the meantime you have been all over the world, and it is not too much to say that you have destroyed, and driven for protection under neutral flags, one-half of the enemy’s commerce, which, at the beginning of the war, covered every sea. This is an achievement of which you may well be proud, and a grateful country will not be unmindful of it. The name of your ship has become a household word wherever civilization extends! ”

“ If ye would hold up the flag which they’ve never let sag,
[Pg 398] Ye must plod—ye must creep where they’ve led.
The shimmering icebergs call you; the plunging screw-drums scream,
By shallowing shoals they haul you, to the beat of the walking beam.
The twisting petrels chatter, as ye drift by the waiting fleet,
In your towering grim, gray Dreadnought,—a king who sneers at defeat.
While the silken pennons flutter; as the frozen halyards strain;
Comes the growling old-world mutter, the voice of the million slain:
Keep to your manly war games ”

“ As he vaulted over the rail of his own ship to the deck of the stranger, a motley crew of half-wild sea-savages swarmed behind him. They had cutlasses and boarding-pikes, and their faces were blackened with powder. Their eyes were reddened with sulphurous fumes and their clothes torn with splintered planking. They rolled over the gunwales like a huge wave of irresistible fire: pistols spitting, pikes gleaming, cutlasses glistening in the rays of the sun.
The captain of the Neptune lay near his own wheel, grievously wounded.
“Lay on, men!” he shouted. “Don’t let this French privateer beat us. ”

“ Perpetually intervening as a barrier between peoples and their countries, the wild, sobbing ocean rises, falls and roars in agony. It is a stoppage to progress and contact between races of men and warring nations.
In the breasts of all souls slumbers the fire of adventure. To penetrate the unknown, to there find excitement, battle, treasure, so that one’s future life can be one of ease and indolence—for this men have sacrificed the more stable occupations on land in order to push recklessly across the death-dealing billows. They have battled with the elements; they have suffered dread diseases ”

“ Angry and vindictive, the Genoese bore down upon the Venetian coast in numerous lumbering galleys, determined—this time—to reach Venice itself, and to sack this rich and populous city. With little difficulty they captured Chioggia, a seaport, a populous city and the key to the lagoons which led to the heart of the capital. They advanced to the very outskirts of Venice, and their cries of joyous vindictiveness sounded strangely near to the now terrified inhabitants, who, rallying around their old generals and city fathers, were determined to fight to the last ditch. ”

“ Kell. “Let every man grab a life-preserver, or a spar.”
As the sailors plunged into the sea, Captain Semmes dropped his sword into the waves and leaped outward, with a life-preserver around his waist. Kell followed, while the Alabama launched her bows high in the air, and—graceful, even in her death throes—plunged stern-foremost into the deep. A sucking eddy of foam, spars, and wreckage marked where once had floated the gallant ship. ”

“ Seizing a cutlass and dirk, he stood beside the cluster of men, eager and keen to have a chance at the enemy. A soul of fire was that of the little savage—and now he had a splendid opportunity to indulge in the natural blood-thirst of his race, for an Indian loves a good fight, particularly when he is upon the winning side.
The vessels swung on slowly—the fire from the Serapis still strong and accurate; the sputtering volleys from the Richard growing weaker and weaker. Only three of the nine-pounders on the starboard quarter-deck were serviceable ”

“ If he is weak-kneed in a crisis, his followers will be weak-kneed.
So this motley crew, under Fortunatus Wright, cheered onward by the dauntless navigator, fought as they had never fought before. Arab and German strove as well as Englishman and Italian to battle strenuously beneath the eye of the famous privateersman. They had never been together before, but, animated by the presence of this fearless “cock-of-the-Mediterranean,” they now sailed into the Frenchman as if the zebeque were a vessel of equal strength and armament. ”

“ The British were about to attack the American Army defending New Orleans, which—under the leadership of stout Andrew Jackson—now crouched behind the earthworks and cotton bales, some miles from the city. Rockets shot into the air with a sizzling snap. The roar of cannon shook the thin palmettos, and wild British cheers came from the lusty throats of the British veterans of Spain, as they advanced to the assault in close order—sixty men in front—with fascines and ladders for scaling the defences. ”

“ The Britons would fight valiantly.
As the lumbering galleons neared the English coast, a heavy mist which hid them, blew away, and the men of England saw the glimmering water fairly black with the wooden vultures of old Spain. The Spaniards had come ready to fight in the way in which they had won many a brilliant victory; with a horde of towering hulks, of double-deckers and store-ships [Pg 47] manned by slaves and yellow-skinned retainers, who despised big guns and loved a close encounter with hand thrusts and push of pike. ”

“ The ship was careening heavily to starboard, while the decks were covered with the dead and dying. A shell plunged into the coal bunker and a dense cloud of coal dust arose. Crippled and torn, the hulking privateer began to settle by the stern. Her guns still spat and growled, and her broadsides were going wild. She was fast weakening.
“Any one who silences that after pivot-gun will get one hundred dollars!” cried Captain Semmes, as he saw the fearful accuracy of its fire. ”

“ As the Confiance drew near, the crew of the Englishman gave her a fair broadside and pumped gun after gun into her hull. But the Frenchman held her fire, and bore in close, in order to grapple. Hoarse shouts sounded above the roar of the guns and the splitting of timber, as the two war-dogs closed for action. The crew of the Kent were poorly armed and undisciplined: they had never fought together. With Surcouf it was far different. His sailors were veterans—they had boarded many a merchantman and privateer before—and, they were well used to this gallant pastime. ”

“ Arrows poured into the ranks of the Genoese, and they fell like wheat before the scythe of the reaper. Hoarse shouts, groans, and cries of victory and death, welled above the battle’s din.
In the midst of this affair Carlo Zeno gave a cry of pain. An arrow (poisoned ’tis said) had entered his leg and struck him to the ground. But, nothing daunted, he rose to cry shrilly to his men, “On! On! Drive them to the ocean.” And, so well did his soldiers follow these commands, that the Genoese fled in confusion and disorder to their ships. ”

“ British boats. “They fly! They fly!” sounded above the ruck and roar of battle.
Yes—it was the truth. Beaten and dismayed, the Spanish fleet bore away to the North, while the English—in spite of the fact that their powder was wet, and nearly all spent—“gave them chase as if they lacked nothing, until they had cleared their own coast and some part of Scotland of them.” The Armada—split, part helpless—drifted away from Plymouth, and wild cheers of joy came from the deck of the vessel which carried bold Sir Francis Drake. ”

“ Monsieur Valbué glowered at them.
“I am the law,” said he. “Is this not my vessel?”
“But the right is on his side,” interrupted the good Antoine Sauret.
“You wait and see what I do to this cur of a Huguenot,” snarled Captain Valbué. “And no more talk from either you or Jean Bart. Hear! Six out of eight of the crew agree that this Lanoix has wounded me and has slain one of his ship-mates—without proper provocation—I will now fix him.” ”

“ Fire burst from the decks, the roar of the guns was intermingled with the shrill wails of the slaves, the guttural cries of the seamen, the screams of the wounded and the derisive howls of those maddened [Pg 48] by battle. The decks were crimson with blood; sails split and tore as the chain-shot hummed through the rigging, and the sharp twang of the arquebusques was mingled with the crash of long-barrelled muskets.
No men can fight like those who are defending their own homes. ”

“ The man-of-warsman was the legitimate defender of his country’s interests and fought in the open, without fear of death or imprisonment from his own people. The privateersman—a combination of all three—was the harpy of the rolling ocean, a vulture preying upon the merchant marine of the enemy to his country, attacking only those weaker than himself, scudding off at the advent of men-of-warsmen, and hovering where the guileless merchantman passed by. The privateersman was a gentleman adventurer, a protected pirate, a social highwayman of the waters. ”

“ Their beams were badly shattered.
“We must seek a haven,” cried Hawkins. “Ready about and steer for Vera Cruz, the port of the City of Mexico! There we can buy food and repair our fleet!”
“’Tis well,” cried his men, and, aiming for the sheltering harbor, they soon ploughed into the smooth water of the bay. But there was consternation among the Spaniards of the town.
“We have treasure here,” they whispered to each other. “See, those English dogs have come to rob us! We must fight, brothers, and fight hard to keep the cruel Islanders away.” ”

“ Other guns roared out their challenge and the iron fairly hailed upon the decks of the sloop-of-war; killing and wounding many of the crew. But—silently and surely—she kept on until within twenty yards of the racing outlaw.
Now was a deafening roar. A broadside howled above the dancing spray—it rumbled from the port-holes of the Englishman—cutting the foremast of the pirate in two; severing the jaws of the main-gaff; and sending great clods of rigging to the deck. Ten followers of Lafitte fell prostrate, but the great Frenchman was uninjured. ”

“ Alas for gallant Captain Walker! Although the Englishmen came near the two French men-of-war, they hung about without firing a shot; allowed the Frenchmen to sail on unmolested, and thus carry their astonishingly rich treasure into Brest, amid wild and enthusiastic cheering of their crews, and groans of disappointment from the English prisoners.
Yet these same prisoners had little cause to complain of their treatment when they arrived at Brest; for they were landed at once, and the captain and officers were liberated on parole. ”