Explore "The Almirante Cochrane" by Roger Pocock on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A. D. 1812
When Lieutenant Lord Thomas Cochrane commanded the brig of war _Speedy_, he used to carry about a whole broadside of her cannon-balls in his pocket. He had fifty-four men when he laid his toy boat alongside a Spanish frigate with thirty-two heavy guns and three hundred nineteen men, but the Spaniard could not fire down into his decks, whereas he blasted her with his treble-shotted pop-guns. Leaving only the doctor on board he boarded that Spaniard, got more than he bargained for, and would have been wiped out, but that a detachment of his sailors dressed to resemble black demons, charged down from the forecastle head. The Spaniards were so shocked that they surrendered.