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- base of the cliffs is strewn with masses of rock, undermined by the
waves, and tumbled headlong below, where, sometimes, the water
completely surrounds them, showing in shattered confusion detached
rocks, pyramids, and obelisks, rising half-revealed from the surf—the
Tadmores of the wasteful desert of the sea. Nowhere is this desolation
more marked than for those fifty miles of coast between Flamborough
Head and the Spurm.
Weathering out the gale which had driven them from Leith, Paul’s ships
for a few days were employed in giving chase to various merchantmen and
colliers; capturing some, sinking others, and putting the rest to
flight. Off the mouth of the Humber they ineffectually manoeuvred with
a view of drawing out a king’s frigate, reported to be lying at anchor
within. At another time a large fleet was encountered, under convoy of
some ships of force. But their panic caused the fleet to hug the edge
of perilous shoals very nigh the land, where, by reason of his having
no competent pilot, Paul durst not approach to molest them. The same
night he saw two strangers further out at sea, and chased them until
three in the morning, when, getting pretty nigh, he surmised that they
must needs be vessels of his own squadron, which, previous to his
entering the Firth of Forth, had separated from his command. Daylight
proved this supposition correct. Five vessels of the original squadron
were now once more in company. About noon a fleet of forty merchantmen
appeared coming round Flamborough Head, protected by two English
man-of-war, the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough. Descrying the five
cruisers sailing down, the forty sail, like forty chickens, fluttered
in a panic under the wing of the shore. Their armed protectors bravely
steered from the land, making the disposition for battle. Promptly
accepting the challenge, Paul, giving the signal to his consorts,
earnestly pressed forward. But, earnest as he was, it was seven in the
evening ere the encounter began. Meantime his comrades, heedless of his
signals, sailed independently along. Dismissing them from present
consideration, we confine ourselves, for a while, to the Richard and
the Serapis, the grand duellists of the fight.
The Richard carried a motley, crew, to keep whom in order one hundred
and thirty-five soldiers—themselves a hybrid band—had been put on
board, commanded by French officers of inferior rank. Her armament was
similarly heterogeneous; guns of all sorts and calibres; but about
equal on the whole to those of a thirty-two-gun frigate. The spirit of
baneful intermixture pervaded this craft throughout.
The Serapis was a frigate of fifty guns, more than half of which
individually exceeded in calibre any one gun of the Richard. She had a
crew of some three hundred and twenty trained man-of-war’s men.
There is something in a naval engagement which radically distinguishes
it from one on the land. The ocean, at times, has what is called its
_sea_ and its _trough of the sea_; but it has neither rivers, woods,
banks, towns, nor mountains. In mild weather it is one hammered plain.
Stratagems, like those of disciplined armies—ambuscades, like those of
Indians, are impossible. All is clear, open, fluent. The very element
which sustains the combatants, yields at the stroke of a feather. One
wind and one tide at one time operate upon all who here engage. This
simplicity renders a battle between two men-of-war, with their huge
white wings, more akin to the Miltonic contests of archangels than to
_the comparatively squalid_ tussles of earth.
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