Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/139

Rh found the ship just disappearing forward, and hastened aft as fast as I could over the bodies of the killed, with which the deck was covered, to the tafferel, and jumped overboard.

"I swam a little way from her, dreading the suction, and looked round for her, but she had totally disappeared. I afterwards caught hold of a piece of wood to which I clung for about an hour and a half, and at which time the boats of the Pearl came to pick us up, there being about thirty Frenchmen in the same predicament. They, however, were all taken up first; and when I solicited to be taken in, I had a blow made at my head with an oar, which luckily missed me. This treatment I met with from two different boats, and I began to think they were going to leave me to my fate. But the French officer in command of the Pearl, hearing there were some Englishmen on the wreck, ordered the boats immediately to return and take us up, viz., myself and Thomas Dawson, then the only survivor of the Trincomali.

"There were killed and drowned on board the Iphigénie 115 or 120 men. Among whom were the captain, seven officers, the surgeon, two young men, volunteers from the Isle of France, the first boatswain, gunner, and carpenter. All the treasure went down in the privateer. Captain Rowe of the Trincomali was killed before his ship blew up, as was also the first lieutenant whose name was Williams. The