1799 - Captain Boorder at Lemmer-town


 
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Naval History of Great Britain - Vol II
1799 Light Squadrons and Single Ships 312

of was decided that the allied, British, and Russian army should retire to the Zype. It did so, and the Duke of York took up his quarters at Schagenburg ; where he entered into a negotiation with General Brune, for a suspension of arms, and the unmolested evacuation of Holland by the combined British and Russian forces. The retreat of the latter, in consequence of the convention, was followed by the evacuation of the Zuyder Zee and adjacent parts, on the part of Vice-admiral Mitchell ; who, having shifted his flag from the Isis to the 20-gun ship Babet, had, with that ship and a flotilla of six smaller vessels, proceeded over the Enkhausen flat to the road of that name. The appearance of the British flotilla in the Zuyder Zee changed the politics, for a while, of several of the bordering towns and villages. Even Amsterdam had begun making defensive preparations. The batteries of Dugerdam and Deimerdam had been strengthened ; and soon after Vice-admiral Mitchell got into the Zuyder Zee, 60 French gun-vessels arrived at Amsterdam, by the canal, from Dunkirk.

Thus terminated the ; an expedition in which the British, exclusively, lost three ships of war by being wrecked on the coast, and Nassau, a reduced or flute 64, and the Blanche and Lutine frigates. The most serious part of the loss was that a full fourth of the crew of the first-named, and the whole of the crew except two of the last-named, ship perished. The Lutine had on board specie to the amount of �140,000, which she had shipped at Yarmouth, and was carrying to the Texel, to be applied in paying the troops. That went also ; and the loss of it was no slight augmentation to the disasters of the expedition. In the different actions on shore, as enumerated in the official accounts, the British alone lost about 556 men killed, 2791 wounded, and 1455 missing. Their gain in ships of war we have already shown to have been much overrated. Whatever else the British gained was certainly not that of which they had any reason to boast. However, as no blame was imputed to them, the thanks of parliament were unanimously voted to Lieutenant-general Sir Ralph Abercromby and Vice-admiral Mitchell, as well as to the officers and men under their respective commands. Shortly afterwards the vice-admiral received an additional honour in the order of the Bath.

Among the operations on shore in this quarter, the defence of Lemmer-town, West Friesland, which had been intrusted to a detachment of seamen and marines, 157 in number, under the command of Captain James Boorder, of the 16-gun brig-sloop Espiegle, must not be passed over. On the 11th of October, at 5 a.m., an advanced party of French and Batavians, consisting of one officer, one sergeant, one. corporal, and 28 privates, attempted to storm the north battery. The British soon got their opponents between two fires ; and the seamen, armed with their pikes, so effectually surrounded them, that they instantly laid down their arms, with the loss of two privates killed

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