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his occupation with the silence and skill of one who labored in a regular vocation. Barnstable was unusually composed and quiet, maintaining the grave deportment of a commander on whom rested the fortunes of the contest, at the same time that his dark eyes were dancing with the fire of suppressed animation.

"Give it them!" he occasionally cried, in a voice that might be heard amid the bellowing of the cannon; never mind their cordage, my lads; drive home their bolts, and make your marks below their ridge-ropes."

In the mean time the Englishman played a manful game.

He had suffered a heavy loss by the distant cannonade, which no metal he possessed could retort upon his enemy; but he struggled nobly to repair the error in judgment with which he had begun the contest. The two vessels gradually drew nigher to each other, until they both entered into the common cloud created by their fire, which thickened and spread around them in such a manner as to conceal their dark hulls from the gaze of the curious and interested spectators on the cliffs. The heavy reports of the cannon were now mingled with the rattling of muskets and pistols, and streaks of fire might be seen glancing like flashes of lightning through the white cloud which enshrouded the combatants; and many minutes of painful uncertainty followed, before the deeplyinterested soldiers, who were gazing at the scene, discovered on whose banners victory had alighted.

We shall follow the combatants into their misty wreath, and display to the reader the events as they occurred.

The fire of the Ariel was much the most quick and deadly, both because she had suffered less, and her men were less exhausted; and the cutter stood desperately on to decide the combat, after grappling, hand to hand. Barnstable anticipated her intention, and well understood her commander's reason for adopting this course; but he was not a man to calculate coolly his advantages, when pride and daring invited him to a more severe trial. Accordingly, he met the enemy half-way, and as the vessels rushed together, the stern of the schooner was secured to the bows of the cutter, by the joint efforts of both parties. The voice of the English commander was now plainly to be heard, in the uproar, calling to his men to follow him.

"Away there, boarders! repel boarders on the starboard quarter! shouted Barnstable through his trumpet.

This was the last order that the gallant young sailor gave with this instrument; for, as he spoke, he cast it from him, and, seizing his sabre, flew to the spot where the enemy was about to make his most desperate effort. The shouts, execrations, and tauntings of the combatants, now succeeded to the roar of the cannon, which could be used no longer with effect, though the fight was still maintained with spirited discharges of the small-arms.

"Sweep him from his decks!” cried the English commander, as he appeared on his own bulwarks, surrounded by a dozen of his bravest men; I drive the rebellious dogs into the sea!

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"Away there, marines!" retorted Barnstable, firing his pistol at the advancing enemy; "leave not a man of them to sup his grog again."

The tremendous and close volley that succeeded this order, nearly accomplished the command of Barnstable to the letter, and the commander of the Alacrity, perceiving that he stood alone, reluctantly fell back on the deck of his own vessel, in order to bring on his men once more.

"Board her! gray-beards and boys, idlers and all!" shouted Barnstable, springing in advance of his crew; a powerful arm arrested the movement of the dauntless seaman, and before he had time to recover himself, he was drawn violently back to his own vessel by the irresistible grasp of his cockswain.

"The fellow's in his flurry," said Tom, “and it wouldn't be wise to go within reach of his flukes; but I'll just step ahead and give him a set with my harpoon."

Without waiting for a reply, the cockswain reared his tall frame on the bulwarks, and was in the attitude of stepping on board of his enemy, when a sea separated the vessels, and he fell with a heavy dash of the waters into the ocean. As twenty muskets and pistols were discharged at the instant he appeared, the crew of the Ariel supposed his fall to be occasioned by his wounds, and were rendered doubly fierce by the sight, and the cry of their commander to

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Revenge long Tom! board her! long Tom or death!"

They threw themselves forward in irresistible numbers, and forced

a passage, with much bloodshed, to the forecastle of the Alacrity. The Englishman was overpowered, but still remained undaunted

he rallied his crew, and bore up most gallantly to the fray. Thrusts of pikes and blows of sabres were becoming close and deadly, while muskets and pistols were constantly discharged by those who were kept at a distance by the pressure of the throng of closer combatants.

Barnstable led his men in advance, and became a mark of peculiar vengeance to his enemies, as they slowly yielded before his vigorous assaults. Chance had placed the two commanders on opposite sides of the cutter's deck, and the victory seemed to incline toward either party, wherever these daring officers directed the struggle in person. But the Englishman, perceiving that the ground he maintained in person was lost elsewhere, made an effort to restore the battle, by changing his position, followed by one or two of his best men. A marine, who preceded him, leveled his musket within a few feet of the head of the American commander, and was about to fire, when Merry glided among the combatants, and passed his dirk into the body of the man, who fell at the blow; shaking his piece, with horrid imprecations, the wounded soldier prepared to deal his vengeance on his youthful assailant, when the fearless boy leaped within its muzzle, and buried his own keen weapon in his heart.

"Hurrah!" shouted the unconscious Barnstable, from the edge of the quarter-deck, where, attended by a few men, he was driving all before him. "Revenge! long Tom and victory!" "We have them!" exclaimed the Englishman; "handle your pikes! we have them between two fires."

The battle would probably have terminated very differently from what previous circumstances had indicated, had not a wild-looking figure appeared in the cutter's channels at that moment, issuing from the sea, and gaining the deck at the same instant. It was long Tom, with his iron visage rendered fierce by his previous discomfiture, and his grizzled locks drenched with the briny element from which he had risen, looking like Neptune with his trident. Without speaking, he poised his harpoon, and, with a powerful effort, pinned the unfortunate Englishman to the mast of his own vessel.

"Starn all !" cried Tom by a sort of instinct, when the blow was struck; and catching up the musket of the fallen marine, he dealt out terrible and fatal blows with its butt on all who approached him, utterly disregarding the use of the bayonet on its muzzle. The unfortunate commander of the Alacrity brandished his sword with frantic gestures, while his eyes rolled in horrid wildness, when he writhed for an instant in his passing agonies, and then, as his head dropped lifeless upon his gored breast, he hung against the spar, a spectacle of dismay to his crew. A few of the Englishmen stood chained to the spot in silent horror at the sight, but most of them fled to their lower deck, or hastened to conceal themselves in the secret parts of the vessel, leaving to the Americans the undisputed possession of the Alacrity.

[The Pilot, a Tale of the Sea, 1823, chapter 18.]

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT

[William Hickling Prescott was born in Salem, May 4, 1796, and died in Boston, Jan. 28, 1859. His life was quiet and uneventful. He was a student and a man of letters, and he was also greatly confined by the results of an accident to one of his eyes. His historical work was carried on against tremendous difficulties: he could hardly read at all and wrote only on a noctograph. In spite of all these obstacles he published Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1838; The Conquest of Mexico, in 1843; The Conquest of Peru, in 1847; and Philip the Second, in 1855-58, as well as a volume of essays. His works were eagerly read; they also gave him a very high reputation among scholars. He was elected corresponding member of the French Institute and of the Royal Society of Berlin, and received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. A Life of Prescott (1864) was written by his friend George Ticknor.]

THE chief merits of Prescott as a historian are breadth and accuracy of information and impartiality of judgment. As a writer he has qualities which harmonize well with such characteristics he has the classic excellencies of style. He is not so very suggestive, animated, sympathetic: his virtues are strength, outline, form.

And these excellencies Prescott has to a very considerable degree. He was passionate for knowledge of his subject, for power. Sparks had already shown American students the necessity of exhaustive material. History was no longer a matter for any honest gentleman who felt impelled to write, as Gibbon remarked, and had the needful paper and ink. Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Parkman, were, first and foremost, investigators. They not only accumulated in their libraries everything in print which bore on their subjects, but they had their copyists at work in the archives of all Europe. They wrote from contemporary authorities, when they could get them, and always wrote as original students. Prescott was the great champion of footnotes. Almost one-third of his good-sized volumes was made up of titles and quotations, which, as they were in Spanish, were entirely unintelligible to the greater number of those who admired his romance and his style.

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