It was all one; they crowded after us, and endeavoured to come under our
stern, so as to board us on our quarter; upon which, seeing they were
resolute for mischief, and depended upon the strength that followed them,
I ordered to bring the ship to, so that they lay upon our broadside; when
immediately we fired five guns at them, one of which had been levelled so
true as to carry away the stern of the hindermost boat, and we then
forced them to take down their sail, and to run all to the head of the
boat, to keep her from sinking; so she lay by, and had enough of it; but
seeing the foremost boat crowd on after us, we made ready to fire at her
in particular. While this was doing one of the three boats that followed
made up to the boat which we had disabled, to relieve her, and we could
see her take out the men. We then called again to the foremost boat, and
offered a truce, to parley again, and to know what her business was with
us; but had no answer, only she crowded close under our stern. Upon
this, our gunner who was a very dexterous fellow ran out his two case-
guns, and fired again at her, but the shot missing, the men in the boat
shouted, waved their caps, and came on. The gunner, getting quickly
ready again, fired among them a second time, one shot of which, though it
missed the boat itself, yet fell in among the men, and we could easily
see did a great deal of mischief among them. We now wore the ship again,
and brought our quarter to bear upon them, and firing three guns more, we
found the boat was almost split to pieces; in particular, her rudder and
a piece of her stern were shot quite away; so they handed her sail
immediately, and were in great disorder. To complete their misfortune,
our gunner let fly two guns at them again; where he hit them we could not
tell, but we found the boat was sinking, and some of the men already in
the water: upon this, I immediately manned out our pinnace, with orders
to pick up some of the men if they could, and save them from drowning,
and immediately come on board ship with them, because we saw the rest of
the boats began to come up. Our men in the pinnace followed their
orders, and took up three men, one of whom was just drowning, and it was
a good while before we could recover him. As soon as they were on board
we crowded all the sail we could make, and stood farther out to the sea;
and we found that when the other boats came up to the first, they gave
over their chase.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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