Ben Burton

e side and the First-Lieutenant and Master on the other, with the men at their backs, now made a clear path, strewing the decks with the bodies of those who attempted to oppose them. The remainder of the enemy fled; some leaped down the hatchways, others took shelter on the bowsprit and jib-boom, and the more nimble sprang up the shrouds, where, as my father declared, like so many monkeys, they hung chattering and asking for quarter.

"Of course, if they would but have been quiet and peaceable, we had no wish to kill them," he used to say, "and glad enough we were when we found ourselves in possession of the brig, just about five minutes from the time we had first stepped on her decks. It was about the hardest bit of work I ever was engaged in," he always averred. "We lost our Second-Lieutenant, five seamen and three marines killed, three officers and twenty-two men wounded. The Frenchman had a crew of one hundred and sixty men and boys, out of whom there were no less than fourteen killed and twenty wou