The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1881-08-18
A SEA-FIGHT IN THE FOji.
! BY W. Clark Russell, Author of ssThe Wrec]
Of the GoYernor',


schooner 7Saress. She was vessel fully
equipped Ito make general reprisals against
the goods, ships. and subjects of the French
nation" as the commission, granted by his
Britannia Majesty, read. She was flush
fore ana aft, with a small main hatchway
and very roomy deck. Her beam was
twenty feet, and her length one
hundred and nine feet. She mounted q
twenty -four FOUNDER on the forecastle,
where there was plenty of room to work it.
Her bulwarks were six feet high and OF
extraordinary thickness. She carried six
eighteen Founders, three on side, and
four forty-two pound carronades, as we'll
as the two twenty-four pound chasers,
making in all twelve guns Her main mast
was eighty-four feet high, and the height
from the deck to the topmast- head was
verv nearly hundred and fifty feet. She
sat low in the water, and but for her BEAM
her low free-board would have threatened
a wet ship In seaway; but deep as she lay,
her upper sheathing came foot above the
point of immersion, and the metal sparkled
like new gold. Captain Shelvocke, her
commander, had found no difficulty in OBJ
tanning crew. The pick of two hundred
eager volunteers had been chosen, and
every man of the ninety selected was a
native of Great Britain
l had been aroused at four o'clock one
morning, and, having gone on deck, had
found the dawn bright in the east, and the
schooner, under heavy canvas, hugeing
the wind and heaving west-southwest.
Indeed. the wind had chopped around, and
was blowing off the English coast, the
nearest point of which was Dungeness;
though not only was there no land in view,
but the weather was SO thick that the hori-
zon lay at distance Of not moro than two
miles around us.
Ihad hoped that when the morning broke
the haze would lift, but when the sun rose
and hung over the sea- line like the bottom
of newly secured copper kettle, the fog
came down as thick as feather-bed, and
blew in stream across the deck. It was
all a blank to within three ships lengths
ahead Of us. The green seas came rushing
and foaming out of the fog to windward,
but you could not see one inch beyond the
point at which their forms grew defined,
and they went combing in curves as pol
lshed as oil to leeward, vanishing instantly
when they came in contact with the fog
curtain.
The breeze was warm; but the damp
made it uncomfortable. The decks were
so slippery that it was not easy to keep
ones footing The moisture fell in show
ers from the rigging. and drops of water
formed on the brim Of my hat as fast as 7
could shake them of.
At four bells the watch turned out to
wash down. There we're so many men to
perform this job that 1t was soon over, and
the decks being cleared up and the rigging
cooled down, the schooner took more COM
Portable air; but the fog remained unpleas-
antly dense, and sometimes settled down
so thick that the inner jib was not to be
seen from the pinnacle. Fortunately we
had plenty of sea- room.
But fogs Of this nature were tolerably
fruitful of disagreeable surprises. At any
moment an enemy's hooker might ooze out
of the thickness and be aboard of US. I
therefore took care to see everything clear,
and stationed some experienced hands as
look men, keeping my own weather
eye lifting, as we say at sea.
We knew there was a large Flench cor
vette in the neighborhood, mounting very
heavy batteries, and great deal too big for
us to handle; and it would be no great joke
for the fog suddenly to clear, and expose
the beauty lying close enough to deliver a
broadside before we could give the schoon-
or canvas nough to get away.
Shortly before eight bells Shelvocke
came on deck, and seeing how matters
stood, and that the breeze was dropping,
the order was passed along for the men to
keep silence, also for no bells to be struck,
low tone to hand stationed by his side
for the purpose of bringing his message
aft to the officer in charge. In addition to
no for.a II hroi cd
and the stay-sai and inner jib hauled down
to silence their tapping; and the sooner,
under her main sail and standing jib, Gid
ed slowly up and down over the breathing
swell, as silent as dead. house, and amid
fog as impenetrable as blanket.
At eight o o'clock went below to break
fast.
This fog is very bothersome,' said I,
glancing up at the skylight that lay like
squares of smoked glass over the cabin.
The second mate left the cabin, and re =
turned after an absence Of a few minutes.
"Thick as mud, sir, and there's little
wind, and there's no appearance Of it clear
ing" He went on deck again, and after
Shelvocke and had hung over the chart
few minutes we followed him.
It was my watch below, but I had no
mind to turn in. The fog was irritating
and burdensome; considered it my duty
to be on the alert. Although there was very
little wind the fog blew across the deck in
horizontal lines; it was as white as steam,
but not the more penetrable for that. Some
times it would open a little in folds, and
disclose the water for about cables length
from the side of the vessel, lying as white
as though it were full of chalk sediment,
and not a blur upon it, though there was a
small ground swell, upon which the schoon-
or rose and sank sluggishly but quite noise
lessly, as everything had been hauled taut
aloft, and the sheets fattened in to prevent
the canvas from shaking. For the most
part, however, the fog hung around and
over us in a curtain, sometimes SO dense
that the men forward could not be seen,
while the masts shot up and disappeared In
it as if they had been sawn short off at the
point where they vanished. The helms
man was mere looming shadow; although
there was brilliant sun shining overhead,
it produced no other effect upon the ex-
traordinarily thick mist than to whiten it;
the swell was fast subsidjng, and the lines
of fog, like trailing smoke, were barely d1iv-
en- by the languid draft of air that was
moving from the north.
clark! what was that?" I exclaimed.
w nat QlU you uoaT! Wu1bp9Eou COTQey,
looking into the fog on the right and
left.
"Hush!" I muttered, "there is vessel
near us" I went to Shelvocke. "Did you
hear noise like tho creak of a block just
this minute, sir?"
Like the creak Of block? Where
way?" he reclaimed, jumping up.
II cannot say where the sound came from,
sir. but we may hear something more by
listening"
got onto gunto give my ear good
hoist above the bulwarks, and hardened
with rapt attention, whilst Shelvocke, with
his head inclined, stood like a war-horse
with cooked ears, waiting. The men, OBJ
serving our posture, watched us to know
what the matter was. There was perfect
silence throughout the whole length of the
vessel that was not little impressive when
one thought of the crowd of living beings
that filed her. Now and again the water
gurgled alongside, or the rudder family
Jared, or timber groaned; but the last
sounds were barely audible, whilst aloft the
canvas was as quiet as churchyard.
On sudden cock crowed out in the
fog.
The noise, as I fancied, came from the
starboard quarter, but Shelvocke bent his