LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1937, 10 May 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

TRACKING A PRIVATEER. The little open cabin skylight of the good armed schooner Mary Anne was darkened by the weather b aten face—as brown—as brown—as brown as paint—and the shock of fiery red hair —with whiskers to match —of our worthy captain, Macleod to name, and related to the chief of that ilk. He had been to sea in every sort of craft and in every part of the world; and, as you may think, the old lalesman was as stout and thorough a sailor as ever faced wind and weather, and cannon and musket too. There were three of us. Mr Dargle, a great planter ia Dutnsrara and Berbice, who had nine hundred slaves, of whom ws used t> say that he had nsver flogged but three, and never told but one —at hia own desire. He was a mild, quiet man, and every house in the coast colonies was delighted when his kettarin appeared, and his high stepping bay. The second man of the party was Mr Mosca, Mr Dargle’s agent, who, as his father was a Cuban Spaniard, and his mother a French quadroon, was rather a peppery disposition, which required all the mild persuasiveness of Mr Dargle to keep down. However, he was to my knowledge a most energetic and excellent agent ; and as he and his employer were generally seen together, they usually wont by the name of ‘ brandy and water.’ As for myself, I was a poor subaltern in a West Indian regiment, g; ing home invalided, after a tight brush with Yellow Jack. And now you know the company which Captain Macleod addressed. ‘ What are you drinking, boys ?’ he said. ‘Madeira sangaree, Capt-.in Macleod,’said Mr Dargle, at tho same time knocking a white worm with a black head out of a biscuit.

c Well,* I’ve just been taking a meridian—you needn’t snigger, Mr Mosca,’ and the shipper p need a huge, old-fashioned quadrant; ‘I think that if th 3 wind blows as it’s doing to-morrow night I’ll show you the Lizard lights ’ There was a simultaneous clattering of glasses on the table. ‘And without as much as seeing the shadow of one of them privateers—to say nothing of these ’ expletive again—- ‘ French frigates. Curse them and their dandy hoist in the nape of her topsails,*

‘Well, then. Captain, I suppose we nave made the run ’ said Moses. * Well, don’t whoop till you’re out o’ the wcod,’ rejoined the skipper. ‘ There’s often » swarm of these craft as quick as flying fish and as fierce as sharks larking about the chops of the channel—the infernal villains--to pick up all they can get. However—Sambo, a couple of bottles of that champagne I got from the Governor.* ‘tail ho 1’ echoed through our canvas, and the brown face disappeared as if by magic, and there was a moment's trampling of feet All the watch below were tumbling up, as they call it, and you may think we tumbled up, too. ‘Where away ?’ said the skipper, addressing the top-gallant-mast cross-trees. ‘ Broad on the lee beam,’ was the answer, ‘ standing on the same way with us.’ ‘ Glad she’s to lee’rd, at all events,’ said the captain. ‘She’s going through the water very fast, sir,’said the first mate, touching his straw hat. ‘ What do you make her out, Mr Mathews ?’ ‘ Why, sir, she’s a smallish ves.’d to carry three square-rigged masts.’ Captain Macleod looked grave, and with out a word took his o T d pet te'esoopa from the brackets, and leisurely mounted the fore rigging. It must have required long practice to use a glass from a yard which was c ntinnally on the swing, and that snmot mes twelve or fifteen feet at a lurch. However, the captain took a long survey, and then descending, went below, and returned on deck with an old account book, with letter* down the edges of the leaves, which wore closely scribb’o 1 over, and an immense h t of loose memorandum*, written on all s;Tts of scraps of paper, backs of letters and torn bills of lading and turned up B. After a scrutiny, during which we all stood anxiouriy ar mnl him, waiting toi the old hard-a-weather’s opinion, he brought his clenched fist down upon the book, and exclaimed—‘By heaven’s, it’s her, and no other;’ and he read—- * The Jean Bart, of Dieppe, consort to the Belle Poule, is a barque—built sharp for the slave-trade—altered to a frigate rig for privateering. Low in the water and very fast, particularly on a wind—loftv rig —high in the toptaails—always strongly manned and heavily armed—mizzen-maat rakes well aft.l ‘She’s rising us fast,’sung the look-out aloft. ‘ Pack on —pack on every stitch she can carry. Look alive, Mr Mathews ! Be smart, Mr Jenkins! We’ve got an ugly customer hanging to us ; if we can, we must show him a clear pair of heels. Gat the fore-royal on the ship, set the main-topsail stun’-sail, rig out the flying-jibboom, and set the sail, drop the fore-course, and get up the hroadesthe&ded gaff-topsail; wo’ll drive the ship under rather than be taken,’ No sooner said than done, and the Mary Anne was under a press of canvas, her upper mists bending and the weather-stays like fiddle-strings, the lee scupper-holes buzzing in the foaming water, and the schooner making gallant way. For more than an hour there was silence in the ship. Captain Macleod and Mr Mathews stood on each side of the whee 1 , keeping the craft, which was really behaving very well, as near the wind as was consistent with absence of the slightest shiver in the windward tack of the fore-top-aail. Daring this pause we had time to consider our situation. Of all the privateers sent out by France, La Belle Poule, ultimately captured by the Black Joke, and the Jean Bart, were the most famed for their successes, and the most notorious for plundering to the skin their unfortunate prisoners. However, there was one comfort—l had nothing to lose but a few dollars—colonial currency —my uniform, and some light West India clothing; and a thought struck me to put on the uniform, as I had heard that even French privateers respect? d the red coat of an English officer. Putting the idea into practice, to the great astonishment of all on board, I appeared on deck in the full uniform of a tull lieutenant of ber Majesty’s Second West India Kegiment. Looking round, I saw that the privateer was rapidly overhauling us, and that the captain was preparing for action. He had eight thumping carronades on board, and a long eighteen on a swivel fixed in the heel of the bowsprit, and which was the apple of the skipper’s eye. The crew—thirty stout fellows—for the Mary Anne was double manned —stripped to the waist and barefooted, were gettng out the guns ou the starboard side; the larboard j carronades were obliged to be made fast to I ringbolts to prevent their diving overboard, S while the starbsard or windward carronades had their noses cooked up to the zenith. Two men at every gun were equipped with big ship pistols and cutlasses, while boarding tomahawks and pikes were placed handy. Long Tom had a special crew, and every gun was loaded with a double charge of grape. ‘ For,’ says the skipper, ‘ I stand no nonsense ; the French like long shots, but 1 like muzzle to muzzle. That’s my way !’ The privateer was now within about five miles to the leeward. She was certainly a beautiful craft; long, low, and sneaking, with the characteristic hoist in her topsail, and the masts, particularly the mizin, raking tremendously, arrying only topsails and she top-gallant sails, mizen sail, and forestay sail, as if in scorn of our packed canvas, and rose and foil on the long sea with a grace that was all her own. Our poor Mary Anne, good ship in her way she was, half-buried herself every time she plunged at a curling swell. The Jean Bart also held a closer wind ; and it was evident there was nothing fer it but the old formula of command—- ‘ Now, men, you see the enemy ; lay y -nr guns and point them well. Fire fast and fire true, and hurrah for old England 1' Meantime, my fellow passengers were in the cabin busily engaged in writing. Mr Dargle’s face was very pale. Mosct’a black eyes glittered so that he could scarcely hold the pen. He was armed to the teeth, and evidently determined, as he bad often said, not to be taken alive. I was beginning to contrast my position, with only a driblet of half pay to depend upon, with Mr Dsrgie’s, the rich proprietor of half a dezen plantations, the husband of a fond, beautiful wife, and the father of a family a beautiful little creoles. I was watching his face, as from time to time a spasm-like quiver went across it, and his hand stole to his eyes when the faintly heard boom of a heavy gun came up from the privateer; and at the same moment our masthead look-out sang sharp and quick —‘ A sail to windward !’ 4 What like ?’ shouted the skipper. ‘ She looks like a big frigate,’ was the reply. ‘She’s got stunsails on both sides and she’s coming down before the wind like a racehorse.’

Again the captain’s telescope was in requisition, and every eye was directed to the windward ship, the topsails on which could be seen from the deck when she rase upon a sea. Presently the old skipper shouted : ‘ She is a frigate I and if I know anything of a frigale, she’s one of the right sort. I know it by her topsails—and in less than half an hour, my boys, you’ll see St. George’s ensign.’ And the old fellow rattled down the shrouds with singular velocity. ‘ Have up the two bottles of champagne.’ he shouted, ‘and steward, serve all the crew around with a double stiff ration of grog.’ But the first mate did not seem sc confident. He also had narrowly examined the coming ship, so far as it could yet be seen, and was likewise an old and experienced seamaa. He shook his head. ‘ There’s alot of French frigates—woundy like English ones,’ he said, and some of them, as I heard tell, have topsails cut English fashion, to cheat the merchant ships.’ For Mathews had seen the skipper’s fingers fidgeting with the main-topgailaut sail halyards. 1 Well, Mathews,’ he said. ‘ we’ll compromise. We’ll make short boards instead of long.’ ‘ We’ll lease ground by that, Captain Macleod.’

‘ Well, but so will the Johnny Crapaud. Every time wo’ll tack, he’ll tack, and I don’t want to cet out of the way of my friend to w indward.’

So presently up went the held of the Mary Anne into the wind, and round she came on the other tack very cleverly. ‘ Never missed, stays when she had a mouthful of wind,’ said the captain, approvingly. But the f * Mounseers, ” as Mr Mathews called them, were every bit as quick as we, and the lively little frigate swung round as if she had been stuck on a pivot. (Zb he continued.)