Captain's Journal

I had sailed for a month now and was approaching the Strait to enter the Mediterranean Sea. My crew had spotted another frigate heading straight towards us, we thought nothing of it at the time. But by the time we noticed what it was doing, it was too late, they were right next to us and they fired. 12 of my sailors had already died, swallowed by the flames of a cannon ball. We quickly turned to port, and fired back, readying ourselves for an all out battle of the seas. We turned to starboard as the ship flanked us. We pulled up our sail so we wouldn't get caught by the wind. They sailed right past us. We quickly hoisted down the sails to move out. They were right on our starboard bow, so we quickly turned to port to throw our flaming barrels at them to try and stop them from following us. It worked and the boat went straight into them and they exploded the bow off of the ship. We were free, or so we thought. We continued towards the strait ready for another attack.

We awoke and the ships were closer than I had anticipated. I woke everyone up with the sound of the attack bell. We quickly ate as the opposing ships closed in. My remaining 30 crew members, 3 of which died from scurvy and I. We grabbed our swords and readied ourselves for an attack from both sides. We readied cannons and our heavy mortars, we wouldn't die without putting up a fight. We waited to see if they would attack or if they were both just trading ships but we stood on high alert waiting to see who would attack first. Foe, or friend, fate would decide whether we would win or lose.

Image credit:
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1905/july/administration-continental-navy-american-revolution