Chapter 19 - Page 2

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, ho 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