Seeing Them
Remain At Anchor, And Keeping To Windward Of Them, We Turned To And
Again Close A-Head Of Them As They Rode At Anchor, Raking Them As We
Passed, Through And Through, Fore And Aft, Especially The Admiral,
Receiving Only In Return Their Prow And Bow-Chases.
By these, as I
passed to the north, two unfortunate shots cut asunder the weather leech
ropes of the
Roebuck's foresail and fore-topsail, in the middle depth of
both sails; owing to which we could not bring her into stays, and were
forced, for repairing these sails, to bear down to leeward, between the
enemy and the shore; in which course, the three great ships plied their
whole broadsides against us, but with less hurt than I could have
imagined, God be praised. Having compassed the three large ships, I
luffed up to rejoin our squadron, which still held the advantage of the
wind, and plied their great guns on the Portuguese like so many muskets.
When I had got to windward of the smaller Dutch ship, which stood off as
I did till he had our fire-ship directly between him and me, he turned
tail, and steered right before the wind along shore to the eastwards,
with all the sail he could carry. The other three now set sail to his
rescue, and were now so tame, that as the Hart passed along their
broadsides, she received only a few shots great and small from any of
them, and from some none at all.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 827 of 910
Words from 224725 to 224980
of 247546
