|
The captain of Merchant's Misfortune thought that he had a grand scheme in the placement and timing of this attack on the Utopia. But, fortune was not on his side that night. He had made not one, but two miscalculations in his plans.
The first mistake he had made was in the timing. By attacking under the cloak of darkness he was able to sneak in close and use chain and grapeshot on his target. The chain did tear through the sails, allowing him to approach even closer. The mistake he made though, was that by that time of night, the majority of the crew was below decks sleeping, playing games, or eating. The only hands topside were the bare minimum watch that is required to sail the ship through the calm seas and light winds. His grape shot may have maimed those few poor souls, but only a handful of crew were affected.
His firing on the vessel actually alerted the majority that they were under attack. This gave them ample time to gather weapons and stage themselves in the passageways in order to go topside to repel the invaders.
The second blunder the gallant casptain of Merchants Misfortune made was to not have spied upon the Utopia while she was in port and therefor have a better understanding of the ship and it's crew. You see, as a privately owned ship, possibly carrying treasures as well as goods from New Spain, the owners had bought a rather large insurance policy for this passage, from one of Spain's largest insurers. In the time period of which this story takes place, an insurer was more than likely to place a contiingent of "Insurance Agents" aboard any ship that they were covering.
The insurance company covering the Utopia and her cargo were particularly interested in making sure that they didn't have to make any payments due to the ship being lost or taken, so they had placed an extra 22 insurance agents aboard.
An insurance agent, in those days, was not someone who sold insurance. They were an agent of the insurance company whose job was to do everything in their power to insure that nothing happened that would cause their company to be forced to make reparation. In this case, the 22 agents were a highly skilled, fierce fighting unit.
The end result was, when the crew of the Merchant's Misfortune grappled and boarded the Utopia, they wre not met by a normal merchant crew, but also by a battle seasoned fighting group of 22 mercenaries that had only one thing on their minds. To destroy the invaders.
The infighting was fierce, but in the end, not a single pirate from the Merchant's Misfortune left the scene without some physical injury. A few lay dead or dying on the deck of the Utopia, and had to be left behind. Many were grieviously wounded and would take many months in order to heal. The only item of any value that anyone from Merchant's Misfortune c arried away was one small chest that contained the private jewelry of the two sisters. It may have been filled with emeralds and rubies set in gold, but at what price did it cost?
I give the crew of Merchant's Misfortune a treasure of gems and gold equal to 22,000 Rials for their capture of the jewelry from the Utopia. Good plunder, but by no means a fortune. At the same time, they took so much injury, that they must go off and lick their wounds in recovery for a period of at least 2 weeks.
(William Kid, you can still post, but you can't use the ship or crew of Merchant Misforune in your posts until the last week of February in our story line. 2 weeks from now (story time). I do hope to see some more of Paul and his brother sometime down the line, though. They can still play an important part here, especially since Roxanne is still aboard the Utopia.)
I'm neutral, so the score is still 43.
__________________
|