And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gunshot.  The American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on, and the word passed to see all clear.  Our shot was by this time flying over and over her, and it was evident she was not a man-of-war.  We peppered away—­she could not even be a privateer; we were close under her lee quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large swaggering Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled down the next moment.  Hurrah! a large cotton-ship from Charlestown to Bordeaux—­prize to H.M.S. Torch!

She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, of four hundred tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.

By the time we got the crew on board, and the second-lieutenant, with a prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without anything particular happening.  It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry “that the brig was amongst the breakers.”  I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before.  The gale had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by some mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove the brig in the wind, and taken the sails aback.  We accordingly fetched stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a heavy sea, with our stern grinding against the cotton-ship’s high quarter.

The mainboom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the taffrail; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship’s mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away.  Officers shouting, men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together, I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet—­“Silence, men; hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of command!”

The effect was magical.—­“Brace round the foreyard—­round with it; set the jib—­that’s it—­fore-top-mast staysail—­haul—­never mind if the gale takes it out of the bolt-rope”—­a thundering flap, and away it flew in truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.—­“Never mind, men, the jib stands.  Belay all that—­down with the helm, now—­don’t you see she has stern way yet?  Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don’t mind your hands, you lubbers—­main-topsail sheets let fly—­there she pays off, and has headway once more—­that’s it:  right your helm, now—­never mind his spanker-boom, the fore-stay will stand it:  there—­up with helm, sir—­we have cleared him—­hurrah!” And a near thing it was too, but we soon had everything snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five-Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St. George’s Harbour.