“Two days later we took another, the richest of the three, having on board a large quantity of dollars; and the next day caught a fine privateer with more dollars on board. These four prizes were sent in to Plymouth. As we only had a month this brought the work to a close, and we returned to Plymouth. We had a serious adventure on the way back, for in heavy weather we fell in with three French line-of-battle ships. They at once made after us, and with half a gale and a heavy sea they gained on us fast. As we had taken out the dollars from the prizes and had them on board the _Pallas_, the thought of losing them was even more vexatious than the idea of seeing the inside of a French prison. The _Pallas_ was a very crank vessel, and her lee main-deck guns were under water, and even the quarter-deck carronades were at times immersed. However, the Frenchmen came up so fast that it was necessary, at any cost, to crowd on more sail. Cochrane had all the hawsers brought up, and with these got up preventer stays, and then every sail was spread. “This drove her bows-under through the seas. Still they came up to us, but they were also plunging so heavily that they too were unable to fire a gun. Presently we had one on each side of us, with less than half a mile interval between us. The third was a quarter of a mile further away. The situation was a very unpleasant one, for now that they were up to us, they would be able to shorten sail a little and occasionally fire at us with their broadside guns. Cochrane gave orders for the whole crew to be ready to shorten sail when he gave the word, and that every sail should come down simultaneously. It was a critical movement, but it was well executed. Cochrane himself shouted the orders, and in a moment down came every sail. The helm at the same moment was put a-weather. Had it not been for the hawsers with which we had stayed the masts, everything must have gone out of her as we wore round, rolling in the trough of the sea. As soon as she was round, up went her sails again, and we went off on the opposite tack to that on which we had before been running.