1810	Captain Pym at Grand-Port	287

well as all the rigging and ropes by which the mast could be ascended. As the only alternative, the mizenmast was cut away, and the firing of the Bellone instantly ceased.

Captain Pym, speaking in his official letter of the loss on board the Néréide, says : " Sorry am I to say, that the captain, every officer and man on board are killed or wounded." This information probably reached the Sirius by some of the men, about 15 in all, who took the opportunity, first of the Néréide's boat, and then of the boat of the Sirius, to escape the horrors of a French prison : they naturally would make the case appear as bad as possible to excuse, what might be considered, a desertion of their commander and comrades. But, even then, the expression is to be taken figuratively ; being meant to except all who, from the duties of their station, and in a frigate they are no small number, were attending below. In the statement we formerly gave, as gleaned from the ship's muster-book, that the killed amounted to 35, we were decidedly wrong, and shall now proceed to show, upon such authorities as have since come to hand, that the killed amounted to nearly three times that amount.

The Néréide's established complement, deducting her three widow's men, was 251 men and boys : of this number, on quitting the Cape in the preceding April, she was 23 men short. In skirmishes with her boats, the ship had lost, in killed and invalided out of her, 10 men ; and had away in a schooner tender a master's mate and 15 men. This left her with 202 officers, men, and boys of her proper crew. But the Néréide had since received, as her quota of prisoners obtained at Port-Louis in exchange for those she captured at Jacolet, 10 raw recruits going to India, and had also on board, 69 officers and men of the 33d and 69th regiments and Madras artillery ; making a total of 281 in crew and supernumeraries on board the Néréide when she commenced her action with the Bellone.

Of those 281 men and boys, the Néréide had her first lieutenant (John Burns), Lieutenants Morlett of the 33d regiment, and Aldwinkle of the Madras artillery, one midshipman (George Timmins and about 88 seamen, marines, and soldiers killed ; her captain, second lieutenant (Henry Collins Deacon), one lieutenant of marines (Thomas S. Cox), her master (William Lesby), Lieutenant Needhall of the 69th regiment, her boatswain (John Strong), one midshipman (Samuel Costerton), and at least 130 seamen, marines, and soldiers wounded ; total, in killed and wounded together, about 230 out of 281. Nor will 130 be considered a large proportion of wounded to 92 killed, when it is known that, in consequence of the Néréide's upper works being lined with fir, the splinters were uncommonly numerous. Captain Willoughby received his dreadful wound from a splinter, and Lieutenant Deacon was wounded by splinters in the throat, breast, legs., and arms

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