shot, continued engaging the Windham till noon; when the French frigate wore and made sail to join the Vénus. Seeing clearly that he should receive no effectual support from his consorts, and having already had three cadets and an ensign of foot killed and two cadets wounded, and the ship's rigging and sails much cut, Captain Stewart, with the concurrence of his officers, made sail, in the hope of saving the Windham from the fate which a longer continuance in action would render unavoidable. While the Manche and the corvette attacked and captured the United-Kingdom and Charlton, the Vénus made sail in pursuit of the Windham. Every attempt, by lightening herself and otherwise, was made by the latter to escape; but the superior sailing of the French frigate enabled her, not, however, until 10h. 30 m. A. M. on the 22d, and that after a smart running fight, to overtake and capture the Windham. Having received on board the Vénus Captain Stewart and nearly the whole of his people, and placed a prize crew in the Windham, the French commodore made sail for the Isle of France. On the 6th of December the two ships fell in with the Manche and Créole, and their two prizes; but on the 19th, in thick bad weather, the Vénus parted as well from them as from the Windham. Steering now alone for the Isle of France, the Vénus on the 27th encountered a tremendous gale of wind or hurricane; in which the frigate lost all three of her topmasts, and, owing chiefly to the inattention of the officers and crew in keeping open the gunroom ports and not securing the hatchways, had seven and a half feet water in the hold. In this extremity, when his crew had given up the ship as lost, and his officers had retired to their cabins to await the result, Captain Hamelin sent for Captain Stewart, and requested that he would endeavour, with the men of his late crew, to save the French frigate; but he, at the same time, wished him to give a pledge, that his men should not take possession of the frigate. Captain Stewart refused to give the pledge, but replied that M. Hamelin must take his chance of such an event taking place. Having caused all the arms to be removed, the French captain gave up the charge of his frigate to the British captain and crew, his prisoners. By great exertions on the part of the latter, the wreck of the frigate's topmasts, left by the Frenchmen hanging over her side, was cleared, and the water in the hold reduced to a very small quantity. In short, the Vénus was saved, and on the 31st anchored in Rivière-Noire, Isle of France, with scarcely a drop of water for the prisoners or crew, and no provisions except a small quantity of bad rice. In this state of things, it would have been impossible, even could the prisoners have retained possession of the ship, to have conducted her to a British port. Captain Stewart and his people were marched across the country to Port-Louis; where they arrived on the 1st of January, and on the next day the Manche arrived, in company with the United-Kingdom and Charlton. The Windham, however, was not so fortunate. On the 29th of December, when close off the Isle of France, she was recaptured by the British 12-pounder 36-gun frigate Magicienne, Captain Lucius Curtis. The Windham was then sent to the Cape of Good Hope; where, shortly afterwards, Captain Stewart and his officers arrived in a cartel, and were allowed to rejoin their recovered ship. On the 2d of November, in the afternoon, off the Sand-heads in the Bay of Bengal, the British 18-gun ship-sloop Victor, still commanded by Captain Edward Stopford,* fell in with and was chased by the French frigate Bellone. At about 10 P. M., after having had all her running rigging cut to pieces, her mainmast wounded in two, and her mizenmast in three places, and her fore topsail shot away, the Victor had no alternative but to haul down her colours. As the night was very dark, and the Victor lay very low in the water, her hull was comparatively uninjured, and her loss in consequence amounted to only two men wounded. Nor is it likely that her two 6-pounder chase-guns could have done any material injury to the Bellone. Some newspapers stated, that Captain Stopford "determined to board the Bellone;" and a contemporary historian has gone still further, by declaring that the captain "attempted to board his enemy," but failed. That no such attempt was made we are sure; and, considering the immense disparity in size and force between the two vessels, one of which was nearly four times as large as the other, and had on board treble the number of men, we cannot believe that Captain Stopford had the least idea of undertaking so rash an enterprise. On the 22d, being still off the Sand-heads, the Bellone, with the Victor and another prize or two in company, fell in with the Portuguese frigate Minerva, Captain Pinto, of 52 guns, including 30 long 18-pounders on the main deck. At 4 P. M. an action commenced between these frigates; and the French crew behaved so badly, notwithstanding they must have had the Victor to assist them, that, if the Portuguese crew had not been the most cowardly that ever manned a frigate, the Bellone would have been the prize of the Minerva. Instead of which, the Minerva became the prize of the Bellone, and was obtained at so trifling an expense as four or five wounded men and about twice as many cut ropes. As the striking of the colours remained with the officers, they, to their credit, did not surrender the ship until the fire of the Bellone had killed and wounded several persons on board of her. On the 2d of January Captain Duperré, with his two men-of-war prizes in company, anchored in Port-Louis. See p. 193. + Brenton, vol. iv. p. 400, Among the services performed by the British navy in this quarter of the globe during the year 1809, were several successful attacks made by the 12-pounder 36-gun frigate Chiffonne, Captain John Wainwright, and 18-pounder 36-gun frigate Caroline, Captain Charles Gordon, in company with the honourable company's cruisers Mornington, Captain Jeakes, and Aurora, Nautilus, Prince-of-Wales, Fury, and Ariel, Lieutenants Conyers, Watkins, Allen, Davidson, and Salter, having on board a body of troops under Lieutenant Colonel Smith, upon a nest of pirates in the Persian Gulf, which had for a long time harassed the trade in that sea. On the 13th of November Ras-al-Khyma, the principal pirate-town, together with all the vessels in the port, upwards of 50 in number, including about 30 very large dows, and a considerable quantity of naval stores of every species, was set on fire and destroyed. On the 17th twenty large pirate-vessels in the town of Linga shared the same fate, and on the 27th eleven others at the town of Luft; the sea-defences of both places being also completely destroyed. All this was not effected, however, without a desperate resistance on the part of the pirates; and, in consequence, the loss on the British side amounted to four men killed, one mortally, 15 severely, and 19 slightly wounded: a loss, nevertheless, of moderate amount, compared with the number of lives which these barbarians, had they been allowed to prosper in their gains, would very soon have sacrificed. COLONIAL EXPEDITIONS.-COAST OF AFRICA. Much injury having been done to the African coasting trade by small French privateers, fitted out at Sénégal, Captain Edward Henry Columbine, of the 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Solebay, the naval commanding officer at the settlement of Gorée, concerted with Major Charles William Maxwell, of the African Corps, the commandant of the garrison, a plan for the reduction of Sénégal. Accordingly, on the 4th of July, a detachment from the garrison of Gorée, amounting to 166 officers and men under the major's command, embarked on board the Agincourt transport; and the squadron, composed of the Solebay, the 18-gun brig-sloop Derwent, Captain Frederick Parker, and 12-gun brig Tigris, Lieutenant Robert Bones, the Agincourt, a flotilla of small armed vessels, consisting of the George government-schooner, and six sloops and schooners, collected for the purpose, and, in order to give the appearance of a greater force, one unarmed merchant ship, two brigs, and one schooner, immediately weighed and set sail. On the 17th in the evening the expedition, amounting to 14 sail of vessels, anchored off the bar of Sénégal; and on the 8th 160 of the African Corps, 120 seamen, and 50 marines, were got over the bar, in 16 boats, through a very heavy surf. But, in sur mounting this difficulty, the George was driven on shore, and a schooner and a sloop were totally wrecked. Only one individual perished on the occasion; and that unfortunately was Captain Parker of the Derwent. It was now discovered that the French had collected their force, consisting of 160 regulars and about 240 militia and volunteers, at Babagué, a spot about five miles below the town of St.-Louis and ten above the bar. Major Maxwell, with the detachment of troops and marines, numbering altogether about 210 men, landed without opposition on the left bank of the river, and immediately took up a position, with the intention of waiting until provisions could be passed from the shipping, and the schooner George could be got afloat. On the 9th the French commandant marched out to attack the British, and Major Maxwell, supported by the boats, rapidly advanced to meet him. Finding the British stronger than he had expected, the former waited only to exchange a few shot with the troops and the boats, and (then retreated so expeditiously, and with so perfect a knowledge of the country, that it was impossible to cut him off. The position, to which the French had retired, consisted of a formidable line of defence at Babagué, a battery on the south point of an island commanding the passage of the river. This post was further defended, at about a quarter of a mile in advance of the battery, by a chain secured to anchors on each shore, and floated all across the stream by large spars; and, at about a hundred yards in the rear of this boom, lay a flotilla of seven armed vessels and gunboats, mounting between them 31 guns. On the 10th, in the evening, the sloop George was got afloat; and on the 11th the Solebay and Derwent, the latter now commanded by captain Joseph Swabey Tetley, took up a position close to the narrow neck of land that divides the river from the sea, for the purpose of cannonading the fort of Babagué. This the two ships did with considerable effect; but, in the course of the ensuing night, the frigate, in shifting her birth, went on shore, and, although still in a position to annoy the enemy, became totally wrecked. Fortunately no lives were lost, and the crew managed to save a great proportion of the stores. On the 12th, in the morning, the troops were re-embarked, and the flotilla proceeded up the river until within gun-shot of the fort at Babagué; when, just as every thing was in readiness for a night attack, information arrived that the French commandant meant to capitulate. The attack was therefore postponed; and on the morning of the 13th it was discovered, that the French (probably the militia, who were disaffected) had broken the boom, and abandoned the vessels and the battery, leaving their colours flying upon both. Shortly afterwards a letter was brought from the commandant, offering to capitulate; and in the course of the day terms were agreed upon, surrendering the colony of Sénégal to the British arms. This harassing and not unimportant service was effected with a loss to the British, besides that of Captain Parker of the Derwent, comparatively slight: one midshipman was drowned, one lieutenant of the troops died in the field from fatigue, and one man was wounded by the enemy's fire. The loss on the part of the French appears to have been also of trifling amount, not exceeding one man killed and two wounded. WEST INDIES. The interception, in the summer of 1808, of some despatches from the colonial prefect of Martinique to the French minister of marine, exposing the wants of the island, and calling for a supply of provisions and troops, is thought to have directed the attention of the British government to the reduction of this valuable French colony. At all events, preparations for the attack began at Barbadoes as early as November; and the authorities at Martinique, as they themselves acknowledge, anticipated an attack towards the end of that month or the beginning of December. Matters were not, however, in perfect readiness until the latter end of January, when the following force was assembled: Gun ship 98 Neptune ... {Captain Charles Dilkes. Pompée Commod. George Cockburn. Captain Edward Pelham Brenton. 74 York " Robert Barton. Frigates, Acasta, Penelope, Ethalion, Ulysses, Æolus, Circe, Cleopatra, and Eurydice; ship-sloops, Cherub, Goreé, Pelorus, Star, Stork; brig-sloops, Amaranthe, Eclair, Forrester, Frolic, Recruit, Wolverene; gun-brigs, Express, Haughty, and Swinger. On the 30th of that month the expedition, consisting, as here named, of six sail of the line, one 44-gun ship, five frigates, one 22-gun ship, and 13 sloops and smaller vessels, forming a total of 28 sail of pendants, under the command of rear-admiral the honourable Sir Alexander Cochrane, having in charge a fleet of transports containing about 10,000 troops, commanded by Lieutenant-general Beckwith, arrived off the island of Martinique from Carlisle bay, whence it had sailed on the 28th. The land force at this time at Martinique consisted of about 2400 effective regulars, and about an equal number of militia, or "national guards," a name, as it turned out, rather inappropriately given to them; and there were mounted upon Fort Desaix, the arsenal, Fort Royal, and the batteries on the coast, about 289 pieces of cannon. The naval force consisted of the French 40-gun frigate |