At that time it was certainly the part of the ship suffering most. As I was going out I passed Mr Downton, our third lieutenant. He was reeving a rope through a block to form a tackle, when a shot struck him in the head. He fell forward in the way of the gun. He was dragged unceremoniously out of it by the legs, and the men cheered as they hauled it aft. I ran to help poor Mr Downton. I lifted him up. He gave a look so full of pain and woe in my face that I would gladly have shut it out, and then with a deep sigh breathed his last. I never felt so sad before. He was a good kind officer, and I liked him very much. I now, I own, began to think that we were getting the worst of it, and should have to strike our colours, or go down with them flying. Just then the gun, double shotted, was run out aft, and fired right into the enemy's bows. Our men's cheers drowned the shrieks and cries which followed from the French ship. Again the gun was loaded and fired with the same terrific effect. The French marines continued blazing away at the people in the cabin, but were at length driven from the gangway by the hot fire of our jollies and small-armed men. The latter had also to direct their attention to a carronade which the enemy had got on his forecastle, and which might have done us a vast deal of mischief, but such a shower of musket balls whistled round it the instant a Frenchman got near, that none would venture to work it. As Mr Lukyn had ordered me out of the cabin when I found that I could be of no use to Mr Downton, I went on deck again. The bullets were whistling along the deck as thick as hailstones. This sort of work would have continued probably till we had treated each other like the Kilkenny cats, or till the French ship had given in, when her jib-boom gave way, and she forged ahead. As she did so, our next aftermost gun was manned and fired, cutting away her head rails, and, what was of greater consequence, the gammoning of her bowsprit. "Hurrah, lads! the day's ours," shouted Mr Collman; "over to the starboard guns." The master was on the main-deck with the captain. "Now the battle's going to begin in earnest, Mr Merry," observed the boatswain, near whom I found myself. Thought I to myself, "It has been going on in pretty serious earnest for the last two hours or more."