We made straight for the largest schooner, which with her consorts now
opened a heavy fire of grape and musketry, which we returned with
interest. I can tell little of what took place till I found myself on
the pirate's quarterdeck, after a desperate tussle, and having driven
the crew overboard, with dead and wounded men thickly strewn about, and
our fellows busy firing at their surviving antagonists, as they were
trying to gain the shore by swimming.
Although the schooner we carried was the Commodore, and commanded by
Obediah in person, yet the pirates, that is, the Spanish part of them,
by no means showed the fight I expected. While we were approaching, no
fire could be hotter, and their yells and cheers were tremendous; but
the instant we laid her along--side with the felucca, and swept her
decks with a discharge of grape from the carronade, under cover of which
we boarded on the quarter, while the launch's people scrambled up at the
bows, their hearts failed, a regular panic overtook them, and they
jumped overboard, without waiting for a taste either of cutlass or
boarding--pike. The captain himself, however, with about ten Americans,
stood at bay round the long gun, which, notwithstanding their great
inferiority in point of numbers to our party, they manfully fired three
several times at us, after we had carried her aft; but we were so close
that the grape came past us like a round shot, and only killed one hand
at each discharge, whereas at thirty yards farther off, by having had
room to spread, it might have made a pretty tableau of the whole party.
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