her shotted guns were discharging, one after another, by the heat. The captain had no doubt whatever that the crew had set the vessel on fire, and escaped in their boats. After watching the conflagration till the ship blew up, his majesty's sloop, the Shark, stood towards the Isle of Man, with the purpose of intercepting the retreat of the smugglers, who, though they might conceal themselves in the woods for a day or two, would probably take the first opportunity of endeavouring to make for this asylum. But they never saw more of them than is above narrated.
Such was the account given by William Pritchard, master and commander of his majesty's sloop of war, Shark, who concluded by regretting deeply, that he had not had the happiness to fall in with the scoundrels who had had the impudence to fire on his majesty's flag, and with an assurance, that, should he meet Mr Dirk Hatteraick in any future cruise, he would not fail to bring him into port under his stern,
