1813	Boat Attacks, &c. in the Adriatic	177

bring out the vessel. This, after receiving her fire, they accomplished without any loss, and drove some of tine enemy's troops, who had come down to protect her, a considerable way up the country. The vessel was armed with a 6-pounder in the bow and a swivel. On the next morning the boats brought off a gun from a martello tower a little further to the southward.

On the 27th, observing a convoy collected in Otranto, which it was thought would push for Corfu the first north-west wind, Captain Garth, on the following morning, took a station off Faro, to endeavour to intercept them, and sent the barge and pinnace of the Cerberus and the barge and gig of the Apollo, under Lieutenants Montagu and Nares, close in shore. At about 1 a.m. the vessels came out, protected by eight gun-boats. Notwithstanding this strong force, and that they were aided by three more gun-boats from Faro, and the cliffs covered with French troops, the four British boats attacked them in the most determined and gallant manner. Lieutenant Nares, in the Apollo's barge, boarded and carried one gun-boat, and midshipman William Hutchinson, in the Apollo's gig, actually boarded and carried another before the barge of the Cerberus could get alongside. In boarding another gun-boat, Mr. Thomas Richard Suett, master's mate of the Cerberus, was shot through the heart. This, with one seaman killed, and one marine dangerously wounded, was the extent of the British loss. The gun-boats taken had each a 9-pounder in her bow and two 4-pounders abaft, and were carrying troops to Corfu. Four of the convoy were also taken.

On the 17th of June, at 9 p.m., Captain John Harper, of the 18-gun brig-sloop Saracen, accompanied by Lieutenant William Holmes and Lieutenant of marines Edward Hancock, put off with his boats containing 40 men, and at 11 p.m. landed upon the island of Zapano. After a difficult march of three miles, Captain Harper surprised and took prisoners a corporal's guard that was in advance. Pushing for the guard-house and commandant's quarters, he then carried the whole by the bayonet, without loss, and took 36 prisoners, including the commanding officer of the two islands of Zapano and Mezzo. The remaining 16 officers and men of the garrison effected their escape.

On the 29th of April the boats of the 74-gun ships Elizabeth and Eagle, Captains Edward Leveson Gower and Charles Rowley, under the orders of Lieutenants Mitchell Roberts and Richard Greenaway, assisted, among others, by Lieutenant Thomas Holbrook, fell in, off Goro, with a convoy of seven armed merchant vessels, laden with oil. Four of them were captured, and the remaining three ran themselves on shore into a tremendous surf, under the protection of a two-gun battery, two schooners, and three settee gun-boats, that opened a most galling fire. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, one of the vessels was brought off, and another destroyed, without a casualty.

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