The Log of a Privateersman

Excerpt.......The French probably never did a more audacious thing than when, on the night of October 26th, 1804, a party of forty-odd of them left the lugger Belle Marie hove-to in Weymouth Roads and pulled, with muffled oars, in three boats, into t ... Read more

Excerpt.......The French probably never did a more audacious thing than when, on the night of October 26th, 1804, a party of forty-odd of them left the lugger Belle Marie hove-to in Weymouth Roads and pulled, with muffled oars, in three boats, into the harbour; from whence they succeeded in carrying out to sea the newly-arrived West Indian trader Weymouth, loaded with a full cargo of rum, sugar, and tobacco. The expedition was admirably planned, the night chosen being that upon which the new moon occurred; it was a dismal, rainy, and exceptionally dark night, with a strong breeze blowing from the south-west; the hour was about two o’clock a.m.; there was an ebb tide running; and the ship—which had only arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day—was the outside vessel in a tier of three; the Frenchman had, therefore, nothing whatever to do but to cut the craft adrift and allow her to glide, silent as a ghost, down the harbour with bare poles, under the combined influence of the strong wind and the ebb tide. Less