Pilot, Volume 25, Number 50, 6 December 1862
Desperate Naval Engagement.
Army and Navy Journal
In these war times some of the incidents of the past wars become interesting. One of the most desperate engagements we ever read of occurred in 1757.
On December 23 of that year the British privateer Terrible, Captain William Death, of 26 guns and 200 men, captured a large French ship after an obstinate battle, in which Captain Death lost his brother and sixteen men killed.
A few days after he fell in with the French privateer Vengeance, 36 guns and 360 men, who recaptured the prize, and having manned her, both ships bore down on the Terrible, whose mainmast was shot away by the first broadside.
After a desperate engagement in which the French Captain and his second were killed, with two-thirds of his company, the Terrible was boarded, when no more than twenty six persons were found alive, sixteen of whom had not a leg or an arm, and the other ten were badly wounded. The ship itself was so badly shattered that she could hardly be kept afloat.
There was a strange combination of names in this affair, as the Terrible was equipped at Execution dock, was commanded by Death, with Devil for lieutenant, and Ghost for surgeon.