1798 - Boats of Regulus in Aguada bay


 
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Naval History of Great Britain - Vol II
1798 Boats of the Regulus in Aguada Bay 225

Owing to the late period at which this information reached us ; it has not been in our power to discover who were the owners of the Eagle privateer : a subject of regret, as, in all probability, we should then have been enabled to give more full and satisfactory details of an action so highly creditable to the British captain and his crew. At all events, sufficient has appeared to show clearly, that Lieutenant Sennequier, instead of being rewarded for having escaped from, ought to have been cashiered for not having captured the British privateer, which, after so long and well fought an action on her part, his most decided superiority of force had reduced to so crippled and defenceless a state.

On the 11th of July, the British 44-gun ship, Regulus, Captain George Eyre, cruising off the north-west end of the island of Porto-Rico, discovered five vessels at anchor in Aguada bay, under the protection of some batteries. Being resolved to attempt, their capture or destruction, Captain Eyre manned a prize-schooner in company, and sent her with the boats of the Regulus under the orders of Lieutenant John Good, assisted by Lieutenant William Holman and master's mate, Thomas Finch, to execute the service ; the Regulus herself standing in to cover and protect her boats in their advance.

Owing to the failure of wind, neither the ship nor the schooner were able to get near enough to afford any material assistance. Lieutenant Good, however, by his judicious arrangement and spirited conduct, executed the service with the boats alone ; bringing out three of the largest vessels, a ship, a brig, and an armed schooner. Had there been the smallest breath of wind, the remaining two vessels having been boarded and in possession for a considerable time, would also have been carried off ; but, it falling a dead calm at the moment the cables were cut, and there not being a sufficiency of boats to tow so many vessels, it became necessary to quit two of the vessels, in order to secure the three which appeared to be of the most importance.

Notwithstanding an incessant fire kept up by the batteries, close to which, for their security, the vessels had been moored, the British had only one man hurt, but that was the master's mate already named, and who was killed by a grape-shot.

On the 15th of July, at 9 a.m., Carthagena bearing about west by north, distant 29 leagues, the British 64-gun ship, Lion, Captain Manley Dixon, steering east, with a crowd of sail, the wind moderate at west-south-west, descried, in the south-east quarter, standing towards her, four strange ships, which we may at once introduce as the:

Gun-frig  
34 Pomona Commodore don Felix O'Neil
Captain don F. Villamil
Proserpine Captain don Quaj. Bial
Santa-Cazilda Captain don D. Errara
Santa-Dorotea Captain don M. Gerraro

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