"I had abandoned all idea of taking the fish, until, by great good luck, it made toward the land, when I made another attempt, and having about three hundred feet of rope in the boat, we succeeded in making a running bow-line knot round the saw, and this we fortunately made fast on shore. When the fish found itself secured, it plunged so violently that I could not prevail on any one to go near it: the appearance it presented was truly awful. I immediately went alongside the Lima packet, Captain Singleton, and got the assistance of all his ship's crew. By the time they arrived the fish was less violent. We hauled upon the net again, in which it was still entangled, and got another three hundred feet of line made fast to the saw, and attempted to haul it toward the shore; but although mustering _thirty hands_, we could not move it an inch. By this time the negroes belonging to a neighboring estate came flocking to our assistance, making together about one hundred in number, with the Spaniards. We then hauled on both ropes nearly all day before the fish became exhausted. On endeavoring to raise the monster it became most desperate, sweeping with its saw from side to side, so that we were compelled to get strong ropes to prevent it from cutting us to pieces. After that one of the Spaniards got on its back, and at great risk cut through the joint of the tail, when the great fish died without further struggle. It was then measured, and found to be twenty-two feet long and eight feet broad, and weighed nearly five tons." An East Indiaman was once attacked by a sword-fish with such prodigious force that its "snout" was driven completely through the bottom of the ship, which must have been destroyed by the leak had not the animal killed itself by the violence of its own exertions, and left its sword imbedded in the wood. A fragment of this vessel, with the sword fixed firmly in it, is preserved as a curiosity in the British Museum. Several instances of a similar character have occurred, and one formed the subject of an action brought against an insurance company for damages sustained by a vessel from the attack of one of these fishes. It seems the _Dreadnought_, a first-class mercantile ship, left a foreign port in perfect repair, and on the afternoon of the third day a "monstrous creature" was seen sporting among the waves, and lines and hooks were thrown overboard to capture it. All efforts to this effect, however, failed: the fish got away, and in the night-time the vessel was reported to be dangerously leaking. The captain was compelled to return to the harbor he had left, and the damage was attributed to a sword-fish, twelve feet long, which had assailed the ship below water-line, perforated her planks and timbers, and thus imperilled her existence on the ocean.