1797 - Mutiny in the Lady-Shore convict-ship


 
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Naval History of Great Britain - Vol II
1797 Light Squadrons and Single Ships 86

far to windward and ahead, captured five of the vessels. On the 28th, at 2 a.m., the Pomone, being near the shore, discovered a cutter, and sent a boat to take possession of her ; but the cutter, which was the Petit-Diable, of 12 or 14 guns, and 70 or 80 men, ordered the boat to keep off. On this the Pomone herself stood in, and, firing a few shots, cut away the Petit-Diable's mast, and compelled her to run on shore among the breakers upon the coast of Arcasson ; where it is supposed she was lost.

This is a plain account of what was effected by Sir John Warren's squadron on the 11th and 28th of August ; but the following is the result, as it stands in the London Gazette at the foot of Sir John Warren's letter:

"A ship-corvette, 22 guns and 200 men, captured August 11, 1797, at Sable-d'Olonne ; on shore, and bilged : A brig gun-vessel, 12 guns and 70 men, sunk. Le Petit- Diable, cutter, 18 guns and 180 men, captured August 29, 1797, on the coast of Arcasson ; on shore, bilged, and fell over,"

besides a long list of merchant vessels. We cannot say, at this moment, whether the head-money for the crews of these three vessels of war, which would amount to �1150, was paid by the British government ; but we may hereafter have to show, that an evil of incalculably greater magnitude arose from these, to say the least of them, highly-coloured gazette-letters of Sir John Borlase Warren.

On the 1st of August, while the British transport, Lady Shore, with 119 convicts on board, was on her way to Botany Bay, a number of French emigrants and deserters, very unwisely sent on board to guard the prisoners, having gained over the majority of the crew, revolted and took possession of the ship. A spirited opposition by the passengers, and the loyal part of the soldiers and seamen, might yet have saved the ship, had not a traitorous scoundrel, one "Adjutant Minchin," delivered up the arms and ammunition to the mutineers. On the 15th, when about 100 leagues from the land, in the latitude of Cape Sta.-Maria on the coast of Brazil, the mutineers sent away in the long boat 29 persons, men, women, and children, the youngest child not five weeks old ! After great suffering from bad weather, the boat reached the port of San-Pedros, and the people, among whom was the notorious Major Semple, were hospitably received.

This occurrence we should scarcely have thought worth recording in these pages, but for a highly exaggerated account that has found its way into a respectable French historical work. The article, which is epitomized, "Enlévement d'un vaisseau anglais de la compagnie des Indes, par huit prisonniers de guerre Français," represents the two principal actors to be Sélis, one of the chief quartermasters, and Thierry, the pilot, late belonging to the French corvette, Bonne-Citoyenne, captured in March o� the preceding year.

These men, it appears, after a confinement of seven months in

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