“The decks were slippery, in consequence of rain; so that grappling with my first opponent, a mate of the watch, I fell, but recovered my position, fought him upon equal terms, and killed him. I then engaged the captain, as brave a man as any service ever boasted, who had almost killed one of my seamen. To my shame be it spoken, he disarmed me, and was on the point of killing me, when a sailor of mine came up, rescued me at the peril of his own life, and enabled me to recover my sword[1].
“At this time all the men were come from the boats, and were in possession of the deck. Two were going to fall upon the captain at once. I ran up, held them back, and adjured him to accept quarter. With inflexible heroism, he disdained the gift, kept us at bay, and compelled us to kill him. He fell, covered with honorable wounds. The vessel was ours, and we secured the hatches, which, headed by a lieutenant, who has received a desperate wound, the enemy attempted repeatedly to force.
“Thus far we had been fortunate; but we had another enemy to fight:– it was the element. A sudden gale, blowing against us, impeded all the efforts we could make; but as we had made the capture, we determined, at all events, to sustain it, or to perish. We compelled the Dutch below to surrender, put 40 of them into their own irons, stationed our men to their guns, brought the powder up, and made all the necessary arrangements to attack the other brig; but as the day broke, and without abatement of the wind, she was off, at such a distance, and in such a position, that we had no chance of reaching her.
“In this extremity of peril we remained 48 hours. Two of the boats had broken adrift from us, and two had swamped alongside: the wind shifted again, and we made a push to extricate ourselves, but found the navigation so difficult that it required the intense labour of three days to accomplish it.
“The Atalante’s captain and four other Dutchmen are killed, eleven are wounded, and so dreadfully that our surgeon thinks every one of them will die. To the end of my existence I shall regret the captain; he was a perfect hero; and if his crew had been like him, critical indeed would have been our situation. In two days after his death he was buried, with all the naval honors in my power to bestow upon him. During the ceremony of his interment, the English colours disappeared, and the Dutch were hoisted in their place; all the prisoners were liberated; one of them delivered an éloge upon the hero they had lost, and we fired three vollies over him as he descended into the deep.
“The Atalante is much larger than my vessel, and she mounts 16 long 12-pounders: we have not a single brig that is equal to that calibre. Her intended complement was 200 men, but she had only, as it happened, 76 on board.
(Signed)“G. N. Hardinge.”
- ↑ He thought so when he wrote; but it proved upon enquiry that Mr. Woodward Williams, the master of the Scorpion, was the individual who saved him.
