The sight that met my eye, almost blanched my cheek with apprehension. Crowds of our men from the main deck were hurrying up the gangways, and the thought instantly flashed across my mind that they had mutinied. The guns, too, below, were all silenced, and only three or four twelves, with a couple of pieces on the quarter deck, were being worked; while the fire of the enemy was still kept up with unremitting fury. At this juncture, a midshipman from the main deck passed me hurriedly. I caught him by the arm. “In God’s name,” I said, “what is the matter?” “They are ripping us to pieces below, with their cursed eighteens,” was the hurried response. “We kept it up as long as we could, often thrusting our rammers into their ports, as we loaded, so close were we to them. But it’s no use. They’re beating in our timbers as if our good stout oak was no better than pasteboard. I am taking my men forward and aloft, it is sheer murder to keep them below; they must fight now with muskets and hand grenades,” and hurrying breathlessly away, he was the next instant engaged in directing his men with an energy only second to that of the Commodore, and which seemed to have diffused itself amongst all. The combat, which had paused a moment, now raged again with redoubled fury. Crowding into the tops, and thronging on the forecastle, our brave fellows kept up such a galling contest, with musketry and grenades, that, in less than five minutes, every man of the enemy was driven below, and his quarter deck was left tenanted only by the dead. But fearfully did the foe return our fire from his heavy guns on the main deck. Broadside after broadside was poured into us without intermission—the old craft quivering like wounded flesh, at every discharge, until it seemed as if each successive fire would end the contest, by sending us to the bottom. Yet our men never flinched. No cry for quarter, no murmur even, was heard. Manfully they stuck to their new posts, keeping up their deadly warfare through the ports of the foe, and though now and then an eye was turned around the horizon, to see whether the Alliance was not coming to our aid, not a man displayed any signs of fear. One of our fellows, even bolder than the rest, provided with a bucket of grenades and a match, lay out on the yard, and coolly dropped his combustibles on the deck of the frigate. One he threw with such precision, that it went down the main hatchway. In an instant a slight explosion took place, and we could hear, notwithstanding the uproar of the guns, a whizzing sound running aft on board the enemy—while almost simultaneously, the most thrilling shrieks of anguish rose up on the air, succeeded by a stunning explosion, which drowned every other sound in its fierce uproar. “Their loose cartridges must have been fired,” I exclaimed, “God help the poor wretches.”