1811	Boats of Unite, Thames, &.. on Roman coast	371

four fathoms, and the French were quickly driven from their guns at the battery. The boats of the Unité commanded by the same officers who had distinguished themselves in the morning then joined the boats of the Cephalus, under Captain Clifford ; and the whole went in and brought out, without the slightest loss, although exposed to a smart fire of musketry from their crews, and from a party of soldiers drawn up on a height above them, three merchant-vessels. The remainder of those at anchor in the road proved to be fishing-vessels.

On the 21st of July, at 5 p.m., the British 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Thames, Captain Charles Napier, joined the Cephalus off Porto del Infreschi, into which port the latter had the day before compelled a French convoy of 26 sail to run for shelter. The Cephalus, followed by the Thames, then stood in and anchored : and the two opened a heavy cannonade upon 11 French gun-boats and a felucca, mounting between them six long 18-pounders, two 12-pounder carronades, three brass and two iron 6-pounders, and manned with 280 men ; moored across the port, for the protection of 15 merchant vessels, and of 36 spars for the line-of-battle ship and frigate building at Naples.

The fire of the gun-boats, as well as of a round tower, and of a body of musketry on the adjacent hills, was soon silenced ; and, while the boats, under Captain Clifford, took possession of the vessels of war and merchantmen, the marines, under Lieutenant David M'Adams, landed, and stormed and carried the round tower, making an officer and 80 men prisoners. Within two hours from their anchoring, the Thames and Cephalus were again under way, with all their prizes in company, and all the spars alongside, except two which could not be got off. Nor did this dashing and important enterprise cost the life of a man ; the whole loss sustained amounting to the boatswain (Hood Douglas) and three seamen of the Cephalus wounded.

On the 27th of July the British 38-gun frigate Active, Captain James Alexander Gordon, anchored off the town of Ragosniza on the island of that name in the Adriatic, and despatched her boats, with the small-arm men and marines, under the orders of Lieutenant James Henderson, assisted by Lieutenants George Haye, who, though an invalid, very handsomely volunteered, and Robert Gibson, Lieutenant of marines Peter Mears, master's mate Charles Friend, and midshipmen Henry Lew, Redmond Moriarty, Norwich Duff, William Simpkins, Joseph Camelleri, Nathaniel Barwell, Charles Bentham, George Moore, William Wood, and William Todd Robinson, to attack a convoy of 28 vessels, laden with grain for the garrison of Ragusa, which had run up above the island and taken shelter in a creek on the main.

The creek being very narrow at its entrance, and protected by three gun-boats, as well as by a force of armed men on each

^ back to top ^