wounded seamen reached their boats, but three of them died before they could be landed at Portsmouth:– all the rest of the boarding party were either killed or taken prisoners. It afterwards appeared, that an arm-chest, full of loaded weapons, had been put below during a severe gale, on the day preceding the combat; and to this circumstance alone could the discomfiture of Lieutenant Dalyell and his heroic followers be attributed.
The enemy seeing the boats of the Rattler retreat, yet not daring to remain outside the harbour, now prepared to take their lugger over the bar at its entrance. Already they had begun to throw into the sea the bodies of the slain; and two men taking hold of Lieutenant Dalyell, round his legs and shoulders, were in the act of heaving him overboard also, when one of them slipped, betrayed by the clotted gore, and fell on his side amongst the mingled mass of French and British blood. To this accident was the gallant officer indebted for his life; for, just at that moment, the Rattler was seen working into the bay, and making signals with blue-lights, which so much alarmed the enemy that, instead of consigning him to a watery grave, he was pitched headlong down the main -hatchway. At this time he was quite senseless, in which state he lay, without the least attention being paid to him, for at least a couple of hours. From the hold of the privateer, he was conveyed to a dark dungeon on shore, nearly surrounded by water, the floor of which was consequently in a very humid state, and, moreover, but scantily covered with straw. When the French military surgeons had dressed their wounded countrymen, they examined Lieutenant Dalyell, and considered his case so desperate that they were inclined to pass him over as one already dead:– his head seemed hacked asunder, having received no less than nine sabre cuts; his left foot was lacerated by a pistol ball; he had no less than three other severe, and two slight, wounds. They therefore contented themselves with binding a napkin round his head, and this was all that they could be prevailed upon to attempt in his behalf.
On the 5th January, before noon, people entered the above
