Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1892-07-07


Fought the feet Of soven score.
From the set of sun till morn, through the lone
September night
Ninety men against two thousand, and the
ninety won the fight
In the harbor Of Fayal the Azore.
Three lofty British ships came a-sailing t.
Fayal;
One was line-ofbattle ship, and two were
ffigates tall
Nelson's valiant men Of war, brave as Britons
ever are.
Manned the guns they served so well at Abou-
drand Trafalgar.
Lord Dundonald aud his feet at Jamaica fai
away
Waited. eager for their coming, fretted sore
at their delay.
There was work for men of mettle ere the
shameful peace was made.
And the sword was overbalanced in the sordid
scales of trade;
There we're rebel knaves to swing, there were
prisoners TO bring
Home in fstters to Old England for the glory
of the Kingl
And the setting of the sun and the ebbing OF
the tide
Came the great ships one by one, with their
portals open vide,
And the cannon frowning down on the castle
and the town
And the privateer that lay close inside.
Came the eighteen gun Carnation, and the
Rosa, torty-four,
And the triple-decked Plantagenet an admi-
rails pennon bore:
And the privateer grew smaller as their top
masts lowered taller,
And she bent her spr ngs and anchored by
the castle on the shore.
Spake the noble Portuguese to the stranger:
Shave no fear;
They are neutral waters these, and W ship
is sacred here
AS if fifty stout armadas stood to shelter you
from harm,
For the honor of the Briton will defend you
from his arm"
But the privateersman said, swell we know
the Englishmen,
And their faith is written red in the Dartmoor
slaughter pen.
Come what fortune God may send, we will
fight them to the end,
And the mercy Of the sharks may spare us
then"
"seize the pirate where she liesl cried the
English admiral;
'If the Portuguese project her, all the worse
for Portugal! "
And four launches at his bidding leaped inn
patient for the fray,
Speeding shoreward where the Armstrong,
grim and dark and ready, lay.
Twice she hailed and gave them warning; but
the feeble menace scorning,
On they came in splendid silence, till a cables
length away
Then the Yankee pivot spoke; Pico's thousand
echoes woke;
And four baffled, beaten launches drifted help
less on the bay.
Then the wrath of Lloyd arose till the lion
roared again,
And he called out all his launches and he
called five hundred men;
And he gave the word ''No quarter " and he
sent them forth to smite.
Heaven help the foe before him when the
Briton comes in might
Heaven helped the little Armstrong in her
hour of bitter need;
God Almighty nerved the heart and guided
well the arm of Reid.
Launches to port and starboard, launches for
ward and aft,
Fourteen launches together striking the little
craft.
They hacked at thu boarding-nettings, they
swarmed above the rail-
But the Long Tom reared from his pivot and
the grape-shot fell like hail;
Pike and pistol and cutlass, and hearts that
knew not fear,
Bulwarks of Drawn and mettle, guarded the
privateer.
And ever where fight was fiercest, the form of
Reid was seen;
Ever where foes drew nearest, his quick sword
fell between.
Once in the deadly strife
The boarders' leader pressed
Forward of all the rest
Challenging life for life;
But ere their blades had crossed.
A dying sailor tossed
His pistol to Reid, and cried,
"Now riddle the lubber's hide!"
But the privateersman laughed, and flung the
weapon aside,
And he drove his blade to the hilt, and the
foeman gasped and died.
Then the boarders took to their launches
laden with hurt and dead,
But little with glory burdened, and out of the
battle fed.
Now the tide was at food again, and the nigh
Was almost done,
When the sloop-of-war came up with her odds
of two to one,
And she opened fire; but the Armstrong an
swered her gun for gun,
And the gay Carnation wilted in half an hour
of sun.
Then the Armstrong looking seward. saw the
mighty seventy-four;
With her triple tier of cannon, drawing
slowly TO the shore.
And the dauntless Captain said: "Take our
wounded and our dead,
Bear them tenderly TO land, for the Arm
strong's days are DER;
But no foe shall tread her deck, and no flag
aboveit wave
To the ship that saved our honor we will give
a shipman's grave"