The Torch captured the schooner, and we left the privateer’s men at
Barbadoes to meet their reward, and several of the merchant sailors were
turned over to the guardship, to prove the facts in the first instance, and
to serve his Majesty as impressed men in the second, but scrimp measure of
justice to the poor ship’s crew.
Anchored at Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes.--Town seemed built of cards--black
faces--showy dresses of the negroes--dined at Mr C----‘s, capital dinner
little breeze mill at the end of the room, that pumped a solution of
saltpetre and water into a trough of tin, perforated with small holes,
below which, and exposed to the breeze, were ranged the wine and liqueurs,
all in cotton bags; the water then flowed into a well, where the pump was
stepped, and thus was again pumped up and kept circulating.
Landed the artillery, the soldiers, officers, and the Spanish Canon
discharged the whole battery.
Next morning, weighed at day--dawn, with the trade for Jamaica, and soon
lost sight of the bright blue waters of Carlisle Bay, and the smiling fields
and tall cocoa-nut trees of the beautiful island. In a week after we
arrived off the east end of Jamaica, and that same evening, in obedience to
the orders of the admiral on the Windward Island station, we hove to in
Bull Bay, in order to land despatches, and secure our tithe of the crews of
the merchant-vessels bound for Kingston, and the ports to leeward, as they
passed us. We had fallen in with a pilot canoe off Morant Bay with four
negroes on board, who requested us to hoist in their boat, and take them
all on board, as the pilot schooner, to which they belonged, had that
morning bore up for Kingston, and left instructions to them to follow her
in the first vessel appearing afterwards. We did so, and now, as it was
getting dark, the captain came up to Mr Treenail.
“Why, Mr Treenail, I think we had better heave-to for the night, and in
this case I shall want you to go in the cutter to Port Royal to deliver the
despatches on board the flag-ship.”
“I don’t think the admiral will be at Port Royal, sir,” responded the
lieutenant; “and, if I might suggest, these black chaps have offered to
take me ashore here on the Palisadoes, a narrow spit of land, not above one
hundred yards across, that divides the harbour from the ocean, and to haul
the canoe across, and take me to the agent’s house in Kingston, who will
doubtless frank me up to the pen, where the admiral resides, and I shall
thus deliver the letters, and be back again by day--dawn.”
“Not a bad plan,” said old Deadeye; “put it in execution, and I will go
below and get the despatches immediately.”
The canoe was once more hoisted out; the three black fellows, the pilot of
the ship continuing on board, jumped into her alongside.
“Had you not better take a couple of hands with you, Mr Treenail?” said the
skipper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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