Hermione, Captain Hugh Pigot, standing in between the island of Zacheo and the west end of Porto-Rico, discovered a brig and several smaller vessels at anchor close in shore. The Hermione soon dropped her anchor within half a mile of the vessels, and abreast of a small battery, which immediately opened a fire upon the ship, but was very shortly silenced.

Captain Pigot then sent his boats, under the command of Lieutenants Samuel Reid and Archibald Douglas to take possession of the vessels. Although the latter, consisting of three small French privateers and their 12 prizes, including the brig, were aground, and a fire of musketry was kept up by the enemy, Lieutenant Reid and his party, without the loss of a man, brought them all out but two ; and these they burnt. On the next day, the 23d, Lieutenant Reid landed, and spiked and dismounted the guns upon the battery, and returned to his ship with the same good fortune as before. Finding that the privateersmen had taken on shore the sails of their vessels, Captain Pigot was constrained to burn them all except the brig, which was a deep-laden and valuable vessel.

On the 8th of April, after having made every necessary arrangement for the security of Trinidad, Rear-admiral Harvey, and Lieutenant-general Sir Ralph Abercromby, with the Prince-of-Wales, Bellona, Vengeance, and Alfred, Captain Thomas Totty (who with the 38-gun frigate Tamer (sic), Captain Thomas Byam Martin, had just joined), and a few frigates and sloops, and with as many of the troops as could be spared, set sail from Martinique. On the 10th the squadron arrived at St.-Kitts, and, having there been joined by the 38-gun frigate Arethusa, Captain Thomas Wolley, with pilots and guides from Tortola and St.-Thomas's, steered direct for Porto-Rico.

On the 17th the squadron came to an anchor off Congrejos point. The whole of the north side of the island is bounded by a reef, and it was with much difficulty that a narrow channel was discovered about three leagues to the eastward of the tower. Through this channel the ship-sloops Fury and Beaver, Captains Henry Evans and Richard Browne, with the lighter vessels, passed into a small bay ; in which, on the following morning, the 18th, the troops were disembarked, after meeting a slight opposition from about 100 of the enemy. On approaching the town, however, the British troops found it too strongly fortified, and too actively defended by gun-boats and other armed craft, to be attacked with any hopes of success. After a bombardment of some days' continuance, and an ineffectual attempt to destroy a large magazine situated near the town, Lieutenant-general Abercromby, on the 30th, abandoned the enterprise; and the troops re-embarked, with the loss of one captain of the army and 30 rank and file killed, one lieutenant-colonel, one captain, and 68 rank and file wounded, and one captain, two

^ back to top ^