Late in the month of December, 1800, the British 8-gun schooner Active, Acting-lieutenant Michael Fitton, having returned to Port-Royal from a long cruise, needed a thorough repair. To employ to advantage the intervening time, Captain Henry Vansittart, of the Abergavenny 54, of which ship the Active was the tender, allowed Lieutenant Fitton to transfer himself and crew to one of the Active's prizes, the late Spanish privateer N.-S. de los Dolores ; a felucca of about 50 tons, mounting one long 12-pounder on a traversing carriage, with a screw to raise it from the hold when wanted for use. Having embarked on board of her, and stowed as well as he could his 44 officers and men, Lieutenant Fitton, early in January, 1801, sailed out on a cruise upon the Spanish Main.

In her way along the coast, for every part of which her commander was a pilot, the tender, whose rig and appearance were an admirable decoy, destroyed two or three enemy's small craft ; such as, although not worth sending in, were precisely the kind of vessels which had recently been committing such serious depredations on West India commerce. It may be observed here, that small, swift-sailing, armed vessels, properly commanded and appointed, are the only description of cruisers which can operate with effect against the hordes of tiny, but well-manned, and, to a merchant vessel, formidable privateers, that usually swarm in the West India seas. The Active herself had perhaps captured or destroyed more of these marauders than any frigate upon the station; and it need not be urged at what a comparatively trifling expense.

A succession of stormy weather, and the leaky state of the felucca's deck, by which chiefly 22 of the men had been made sick, induced her commander to steer for, and take possession of, a small key near Point Canoe on the Spanish Main. Here Lieutenant Fitton erected a tent, landed his men and stores, and, after making the best disposition his means would admit to resist an attack, examined the state of his vessel. The main beam, on which the gun rested, was found to be badly sprung. This was irreparable. The vessels rigging was decayed, and he had no cordage; her sails were split and torn, and he had neither canvass, nor even sail-twine. Being, however, a man of resources, Lieutenant Fitton reduced and altered the shape of the sails, the seamen using for twine what they unravelled from the remnant pieces. He then rigged the tender as a lugger, and embarked his men, gun, and the few stores he had left.

In this ineffective state, the tender bore up for Carthagena her commander intending to coast down the Main to Portobello, in the hope of being able to capture or cut out some, vessel that might answer to carry his crew and himself to Jamaica. On the 23d of January, early in the morning, as the tender was hauling round Cape Rosario, a schooner was discovered, to which she immediately gave chase. The schooner, which was the Spanish garda-costa, Santa-Maria, of six (pierced for 10) long 6-pounders, 10 swivels, and 60 men, commanded by Don Josef Coréi, a few hours only from Carthagena, bore down to reconnoitre the lugger. The latter having her gun below, and as many of her men hid from view as the want of a barricade would permit, the garda-costa, readily approached within gunshot. Although he could have no wish to contend with so powerful an adversary, Lieutenant Fitton could not resist the opportunity of showing how well his men could handle their 12-pounder. It was soon raised up, and was discharged repeatedly, in quick succession, with evident effect.

After about 30 minutes' mutual firing with cannon and musketry, the Santa-Maria sheered off, and directed her course for the Isle of Varus, evidently with an intent to run on shore. Her persevering though one gun opponent stuck close to her, plying her well with shot, great and small ; but the tender was unable, as her commander wished, to grapple the schooner, because the latter kept the weathergage. At length the Santa-Maria grounded ; and Lieutenant Fitton, aware that, if the schooner landed her men in the bushes, no attempt of his people would avail, eased off the lugger's sheets, and ran her also on shore, about 10 yards from the Santa-Maria. The musketry of the latter as she heeled over greatly annoying the tender's men, who had no barricades to shelter them, Lieutenant Fitton leaped overboard; and, with his sword in his mouth, followed by the greater part of his crew similarly armed, swam to, boarded, and after a stout resistance carried, the Spanish schooner.

In this splendid little affair, the tender lost two seamen killed and five wounded; and of her small crew, numbering originally but 45, many were too sick to attend their quarters. Four or five, also; who were in the sick list, heedless alike of the doctor's injunctions and their own feeble state, had, when the boarding call was made, sprung over the side with their comrades ; and one or two of them nearly perished, in consequence of their inability to struggle with the waves. The loss on board the Santa-Maria, as acknowledged by her officers, amounted to five men killed and nine wounded, including her commander, who, poor fellow, had both his hands carried away by a grape-shot.

It took some hours ere the tender, with the help of the prize's anchors and cables (her own having parted in a gale four days before), was again got afloat ; and, before that could be effected, the 12- pounder, then in a disabled state, was obliged to be thrown overboard. The Spanish inhabitants having collected along and opened a fire from the shore, and the prize having grounded too fast to be got off, Lieutenant Fitton set the Santa-Maria on fire; but not until he had taken out of her what was most wanted for his own vessel, and had landed as well the living of her crew, for whom, being without a 'tween-decks, he had no room, as, from a respect to the scruples even of an enemy, the five that were dead. Having thus destroyed a Spanish garda-costa of very superior force, the Abergavenny's tender sailed back to Jamaica, and on the fourth day reached Black-River with scarcely a gallon of water on board.

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