1809	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	186

hours, a close and vigorous cannonade, proceeded to attack, and very soon boarded and carried, the corvette. To add to the value of this service, it was executed with so slight a loss as one seaman and one marine of the party on shore, and two seamen on board the Attentive, wounded. The Pultusk had also a considerable share in the cannonade, and received into her larboard side amidships, a hot shot or carcass from the battery, which, although a foot under water, continued burning until a plug was driven into the hole.

The Nisus had sailed from Lorient on the 30th of October with a cargo of flour, had arrived at the Hayes on the 1st of December, and, when captured, was again ready for sea with a cargo of coffee. Being a fine brig of 337 tons, the Nisus was added to the British navy under the appropriate name of Gaudeloupe, or Gaudaloupe, as the name is spelt in the lists.

On the 14th the British 18-pounder 36-gun frigate Melampus, Captain Edward Hawker, cruising off Guadaloupe, after a chase of 28 hours, captured the French 16-gun brig-corvette Bearnais, of 109 men and boys, commanded by Lieutenant de vaisseau Louis- Charles-Gaspard Bonnefoy-de-Monthazin ; who did not surrender till he had one man killed and several wounded, and had wounded two men on board the Melampus. The Bearnais was from Bayonne bound to Guadaloupe, with flour and warlike stores ; and, being a brig exactly similar in size to the Nisus, was added to the British navy under the name of Curieux, the former brig-sloop of that name having recently been wrecked in the West Indies.

On the 17th, close in with the island of Sante-Cruiz, another French brig-corvette, of the same class as the Bearnais and Nisus, the Papillon, commanded by Capitaine de frégate Thomas-Joseph Lamourex de la Génetière, was captured after a 38 hours' chase, but without, as it appears, the slightest resistance by the British 18-gun ship-sloop Rosamond, Captain Benjamin Walker. The Papillon mounted, like the rest of her class, 14 carronades, 24-pounders, and two sixes, with, including 30 troops, a crew of 110 men and boys ; had been 33 days from Bordeaux, and was carrying a cargo of flour to Guadaloupe. Being a fine brig of 343 tons, and only two years old, the Papillon was added to the British navy under the same name.

On the 13th of December, at 1 p.m., latitude 17� 18' north and longitude 57� west, as the British 38-gun frigate Junon, Captain John Shortland, in company with the 16-gun brig-sloop Observateur, Captain Frederick Augustus Wetherall, was lying to boarding an American ship, four large ships made that appearance to the northward. These were the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Commodore François Roquebert, and Clorinde, Captain Jacques Saint-Cricq; having under their convoy the two armées en flute and late 40-gun frigates Loire and Seine, commanded by Lieutenants de vaisseau Joseph Normand-Kergré

^ back to top ^