1811	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	332

admiral with 12? And yet, if report be true, Buonaparte had all object, a grand object, in view; no less than that of getting a powerful fleet to the East Indies, and thereby possessing himself of the immense territories belonging to Great Britain in that quarter of the globe.

Light Squadrons and Single Ships

On the 24th of March, at daylight, Barfleur lighthouse bearing south by east distant 12 or 13 miles, the British 74-gun ship Berwick, Captain James Macnamara, observed a large sail directly between herself and the lighthouse, running along the shore. This was the French 40-gun frigate Amazone, Captain Bernard-Louis Rousseau, making another attempt to get from Havre to Cherbourg. * The 74 immediately gave chase, and compelled the frigate to haul in for a small rocky bay, about a mile to the westward of the lighthouse; where the Amazone anchored with the loss of her rudder. Thinking an attack by boats practicable when the tide suited, Captain Macnamara called in from the offing by signal the 38-gun frigate Amelia, Captain the Honourable Frederick Paul Irby, and the 16-gun brig-sloops Goshawk and Hawk, Captains James Lilburn and Henry Bourchier. At 8 a.m., the lee tide making strong, the Berwick, to avoid the rocks and shoals surrounding her, came to an anchor about two miles to the northward of the Amazone; as, upon their junction, did the Amelia, Hawk, and Goshawk.

At noon the 38-gun frigate Niobe, Captain Joshua Wentworth Loring, joined from the westward. At 4 p.m., the flood tide making, and Captain Macnamara having relinquished the plan of attack by boats on account of the rapidity of the tides, the squadron got underway ; and the Niobe, followed by the Amelia and Berwick in succession, stood in as close to the French frigate as the safety of the ships would admit. The latter being surrounded by rocks and shoals, their fire could only be bestowed in the act of wearing, and was consequently partial and of little effect. At 6 p.m. the British hauled off ; with the loss of one man killed and one wounded on board the Amelia, and the standing and running rigging of all three ships much cut.

On the 25th, at daylight, Captain Macnamara stood in again with his squadron, for the purpose of renewing the attack ; but the French captain rendered that step unnecessary, by setting fire to his ship ; and the Amazone, a fine new frigate of the largest class, was soon burnt to the water's edge.

On the 8th of May, at 9 h. 30 m. a.m., the British 18-gun brig-sloop Scylla (sixteen 32-pounder carronades and two sixes) ; Captain Arthur Atcheson, being close in with the isle of Bas, discovered to leeward, and immediately chased, the French gun

* See p. 241 240.

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