"My ship's company, including officers and boys, was only 45 in number, and behaved with that courage and spirit which British seamen always show when fighting the enemies of their country. It is with infinite pleasure I add that I had not a man hurt; from the best account I could obtain, the enemy lost 54 men. The prisoners being too numerous to be kept on board, on the 14th ult. I landed them all except eight, taking an obligation from them not to serve against his Majesty until regularly exchanged. I arrived with my ship's company in safety this day (October 17th) at Liverpool, having taken during my cruise the before-mentioned vessels, together with a sloop under American colours bound to Curaçao, a Spanish schooner bound to Port Caballo, which have all arrived in this province; besides which I destroyed some Spanish launches on the coast."
A very successful four month's cruise. Godfrey's crew of Nova Scotian fishermen would be very difficult to beat: they were stalwart, hard-bitten fellows, well used to hardship in their calling, and not afraid of anything; much the same type, in fact, as those Salem men who gave us so much trouble in the war of 1812.
To the initiated, Captain Godfrey's handling of his craft on the approach of the three Spanish vessels will commend itself. It was an exceedingly pretty bit of seamanship, only possible at such a moment to a captain of consummate coolness, with his crew well in hand.
The Spaniards appear on this, as on so many other occasions, to have made the wildest practice with their firearms; Godfrey had not a man touched, after an action of one hour and a half, with a hand-to-hand fight at the end of it!
[Footnote 17: An illegal and piratical act; she was bound to show her own colours before firing.]
[Footnote 18: Wale, or wales, sometimes termed "bends"; the thickest outside planking of the ship, at and above the water-line.]
[Footnote 19: There does not appear to be an island under this name on the west coast of South America, in any modern atlas. It must have been close to Callao, the sea-port of Lima, as he sent his prisoners on shore there next day.]
[Footnote 20: That is, to the north-westward of the northernmost of the Windward Islands, in the West Indies.]