1811	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	340

of the 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Quebec, Captain Charles Sibthorpe John Hawtayne, 16-gun brig-sloop Raven, Captain George Gustavus Lennock, gun-brigs Exertion and Redbreast, Lieutenants James Murray and Sir George Morat Keith, Bart., and hired armed cutters Alert and Princess-Augusta, cruising off the coast between the Texel and the Elbe, information was received, that a division of gun-boats lay at an anchor within the island of Nordeney. The Quebec's first lieutenant, Samuel Blyth, immediately volunteered, and was permitted to attempt, to cut them out.

Accordingly, 10 boats, containing 117 seamen and marine:, including the following officers : Lieutenants Samuel Blyth, of the Quebec, John O'Neale, Alert, Samuel Slout, Raven, and Charles Wolrige, Quebec, lieutenant of marines, Humphrey Moore, Quebec, sub-lieutenant Thomas Hare, Exertion, second master George Downey, Redbreast, carpenter Stephen Pickett, Raven, master's mates Robert Cook and John M'Donald, Quebec, midshipman Richard Millet, Raven, and mates James Muggridge (pilot to the expedition), Princess-Augusta, and George Johnson, Alert, pushed off from the frigate, and shaped their course towards the coast of East-Friesland. On the 2d the boats entered the river Jahde, and captured a boat belonging to the imperial douaniers ; whose peculiar duty it was to support the continental system, and to cut off all commercial intercourse with England. Passing through the intricate navigation called the Wadden, between the islands Wanger-oog, Spyker-oog, and Langer-oog, the British boats, on the same afternoon, came in sight of the enemy's gun-boats, four in number; each armed with one long 12, and two long 6 or 8 pounders and 25 men, including five soldiers, and commanded by a lieutenant de vaisseau in the French navy.

As soon as the British arrived within gun-shot, the gun-brigs opened upon them a fire of grape and canister. Lieutenant Blyth, in the Quebec's barge, pulling rapidly up, sprang upon the deck of the first gun-boat, and killed one man and wounded two in the struggle. Mr. Muggridge, who was also in the barge, was opposed, while boarding, by two soldiers, one of whom he shot dead ; but the other wounded the young man in the throat with his bayonet ; and, had the latter not fallen into the sea, he must have been killed. Mr. Muggridge eventually reached one of the boats. In a few minutes the British mastered the crew of the headmost boat, and, driving the hands below, turned the long 12-pounder upon the other three boats ; which were situated that they could not fire upon the captured vessel without destroying their own people. There was a quantity of cartridges lying on the deck, covered by a sail, and from these the British loaded the gun, but could find no lighted match. The gunner of the Quebec, having primed the 12-pounder from a French powder-horn, which from its peculiar construction scattered a

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