1811	Colonial Expeditions - East Indies	30

discharge; and those behind, seeing the gate shut, fled pêle-mêle down the hill, leaving the handful of British withinside to destroy the fort at their leisure.

This service was completed by dawn of day, and the last shot fired from the last gun that was spiked had sunk one of the two gun-boats. Lieutenant Lyons now deemed it prudent to retire. He did not do so, however, without leaving the British flag flying on the fort ; and which flag had been hoisted under a heavy fire, in the most gallant manner, by midshipman Charles Henry Franks, a lad only 15 years of age. On coming to their boats, the British found the barge bilged, and beat up so high in the surf as to leave no prospect of getting her afloat. The whole 35, including Mr. Langton, slightly wounded with a bayonet, and three seamen also slightly wounded, embarked in the cutter, carrying with them the Dutch colours. Thus to see them carried off as a trophy by a single boat's crew, an undeniable proof of the few men by whom the fort had been carried, must have been to the Dutch a truly mortifying sight.

But for one circumstance, we should probably have had to state that, for having thus accomplished, with 35 men, that which had been deemed too hazardous to undertake with 450, Lieutenant Lyons was immediately promoted to the rank of commander. The bar was, that he had acted without orders: Captain Hoare called upon Lieutenant Lyons to state his reason for making an attack, " the success of which, " says the former in his letter to Commodore Broughton, " so very far surpasses all my idea of possibility with so small a force, that comment from me would be superfluous." "I have only to add, that his conduct on every former occasion, since he has been under my command, has merited my warmest approbation and esteem." Commodore Broughton, we believe, considered the undertaking as a rash one, and would not forward the account to the admiralty ; but the commodore's successor on the station, Rear admiral Stopford, was of a very different opinion, as is evident from his reply to a letter of Captain Sayer's, requesting that Lieutenant Lyons, in the expedition of which we shall presently give an account, might act as his aide-de-camp at the batteries of Batavia. " I beg," says the rear-admiral, " you will tell Mr. Lyons from me, that I consider myself fortunate. and happy in procuring the services of an officer who so eminently distinguished himself by his gallant and successful attack on Fort Marrack, and I fully approve of his remaining with you. "

During the night of the 30th the 18-gun brig-sloop Procris, Captain Robert Maunsell, in obedience to orders from Captain Sayer, stood in and anchored near the mouth of Indramayo river, and at daylight on the 31st discovered lying there six gun-boats, each armed with two guns, a brass 32-pounder carronade forward, and a long 18-pounder aft, and a crew of 60 men, protecting a convoy of 40 or 50 prows. The brig immediately

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