The Arkansas Advocate

A Scene at the Battle of Navarino.—

Tom and I were just making our way down from the fore top-sail yard, when the enemy's guns opened upon us.—Morfiet, grasping my hand, exclaimed. "Don't forget Tom Morfiet, M— farewell! to your gun! to your gun!" and so saying, he jumped down on the main deck. where he was quartered. and I made the best of my way to the lower deck, and took my place at the gun. Lieut. Brooke drew his sword and told us not to fire till ordered. "Point your guns sure, (said he) and make every shot tell; that's the way to show them something like yankee play!" He now threw his hat on deck. and told us to give the Turks three cheers, which we did with all our hearts. Then crying out "stand clear of the guns." he gave the word "FIRE!" and immediately the whole tier of guns was discharged. with terrible effect. into the side of the Turkish Admiral's ship that lay abreast of us. After this, it was "fire away boys, as hard as you can."—The first man I saw killed in our vessel was a marine, and it was not until we had received five or six rounds from the enemy. He was close beside me. had taken the sponge out of his hand. and on turning round saw him at my feet, with his head fairly severed from his body, as if it had been done with a knife. My messmate Lee, drew the corpse out from the trucks of the guns. and hauled it into midships, under the after ladder. The firing continued incessant, accompanied occasionally by loud cheers, which were not drowned even in the roar of artillery: but distincter than these could be heard the dismal shrieks of the sufferers, that sounded like death knells in the ear or like the cry of war fiends over their carnage. As there is always a cask of water lashed to the mid-ships called "fighting water," one of the officers of the fore part of the deck, on his way to the cock-pit, came aft, begging to get a drink. He had been wounded severely in the right arm, with a piece of langridge shot, and the left was so bruised that he could not lift the jug to his head. De Squaw, who had been working the gun with an activity and smartness that surprised me for a man of his age, took the jug, and after skimming back the blood and dirt from the top of the cask, filled it and offered it to the officer; but just as he was in the act of holding it to the wounded man's mouth, he dropped a mangled corpse, being cut nearly in pieces with grape shot; the officer was knocked down, but not much hurt. "Poor fellow!" said he, "he has just died in performing an act of humanity; God rest his soul!" We assisted the officer down the cock pit, where illuminated by the dim light of a few purser's dips, the surgeons and assistants were busily employed in amputating, binding up, and attending to the different cases as they are brought to them. The stifled groans, the figures of the surgeon and his mates their bare arms and faces smeared with blood, the dead and dying all around, some in the agonies of death and others screaming under the amputating knife, formed a horrid scene of misery, and made a hideous contrast to the "pomp, pride and circumstances of glorious war."