From Dilly I learned that the Dolphin had suffered severely in the
engagement. A third of the crew had been killed or wounded: Captain
Cawson himself was dead. The survivors had been divided, some being
left in the Dolphin, the remainder being brought to the Francois;
among these were the more severely wounded, who were tended with
much humanity in the sick bay.
Now that the chase and the fight were over, we were allowed on deck
a few at a time, a boon for which I was very grateful. I was
surprised at the youth of our captor, the renowned Duguay-Trouin.
He looked little older than myself, and was in fact, as I
afterwards discovered, but twenty-three years of age.
His youthful appearance somewhat heartened me. Here was a man (so
ran my thought) but little my senior, yet he had already won a
great name for daring and courage; he had been captured and
imprisoned, but had escaped, and was now again active in his
vocation. Other men as well as I had their mischances and
surmounted them: why should not I? Thus it happened that when, a
few days later, we arrived at the French port of St. Malo, and were
handed over to the authorities of the prison there, I was not so
depressed in spirits as I had expected to be.
This was fortunate, for the lot to which we were condemned was
miserable in the extreme. We had wretched quarters, foul and
unhealthy; some five hundred prisoners, most of them captured in
merchant vessels, were herded in a space not large enough for the
comfortable habitation of half that number.
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