The calm state of the weather soon enabled them to reach the ship; and the two officers and their brave little band, armed with the boats' stretchers only, fought their way up her side. Thus was the Windham, mounting 26 guns and manned by a lieutenant de vaisseau and at least 30 French sailors, captured by 11 unarmed British seamen, without the slightest loss; and that, too, within gun-shot of several formidable batteries.

As these batteries now began to fire at the ship, Lieutenant Watling was still in a very critical situation. At length, after having sustained the fire for 20 minutes, and had the Windham's standing and running rigging greatly cut, some of her masts and yards injured, and one Frenchman and two or three Lascars wounded, Lieutenant Watling brought off his valuable prize in safety. Of this very gallant exploit, we can find no official account, beyond a passage in a letter to the admiralty, from commissioner Shield at the Cape, stating that the Windham had been recaptured by the Sirius.

Captain Pym despatched the Windham to Commodore Rowley at St.-Paul's bay; and, in consequence of the intelligence communicated by the prisoners and others on board of her, he sent the Magicienne, which had just joined, to bring the Iphigenia and Staunch to Isle de la Passe: whither the Sirius herself made all sail round the south side of the island. Captain Pym proceeded by this route to prevent suspicion; but it appears that General Decaen at Port-Louis did suspect what was going on, and sent an express across to Grand-Port. This it was that, in the course of the afternoon of the 21st, occasioned Commodore Duperré to remove his ships to a position close off the town of Grand-Port. There he moored them, with springs on their cables, in the form of a crescent; stationing his vanship, the Minerve, just behind a patch of coral, next to her the Ceylon, then the Bellone, and lastly the Victor, with her stern close to the reef that skirts the harbour.

The Sirius picked up the Néréide's boat with Lieutenant Deacon on board; and on the 22d, at 11 h. 10 m. A. M., arrived off the island and exchanged numbers with the Néréide, still at anchor within it; and who immediately hoisted the signals: "Ready for action;" "Enemy of inferior force." Having, from the situation of the French squadron, decided on an immediate attack, Captain Pym made the signal for the master of the Néréide. Mr. Robert Lesby accordingly went on board the Sirius, to conduct her, as he supposed, to the anchorage at the back of the island. The Sirius now made all sail, with the usual east-south-east or trade wind, and bore up for the passage; and at 2 h. 40 m P. M., agreeably to a signal to that effect from the Sirius, the Néréide got under way, and, under her staysails only, stood after her consort down the channel to Grand - Port. At 4 P. M., having still the Néréide's master on board, but not her black pilot, who was the only

person that knew the harbour, the Sirius unfortunately grounded upon a point of the shoal on the larboard side of the channel; and, having run down with her squaresails set, and consequently with a great deal of way upon her, the ship was forced a considerable distance on the bank. The Néréide immediately brought up, and Captain Willoughby went on board the Sirius, to assist in getting her afloat. Notwithstanding every exertion, this could not be effected until 8 h. 30 m. A. M. on the 23d; after which the Sirius dropped anchor near the Néréide.

At 10 A. M. the Iphigenia and Magicienne were seen beating up for Isle de la Passe; and Captain Willoughby immediately sent his master, who had returned from the Sirius, to conduct them to the anchorage. At 2h. 10 m. P. M. the two frigates anchored in company with the Néréide and Sirius. Although it was not until 4 P. M. that the decks of the latter could be cleared of the hawsers and ropes which had been used in heaving the ship off the bank, at 4 h. 40 m. P. M., by signal from the Sirius, the four frigates got under way; and, preceded by the Néréide with her black pilot on board, stood down the channel to GrandPort. The order of attack, as previously arranged, was for the Néréide to anchor between the Victor, the rearmost ship, and the Bellone, the Sirius, having 18-pounders, abreast of the Bellone, the Magicienne between the Ceylon and Minerve, and the Iphigenia, having also 18-pounders, upon the broadside of the latter ship.

The Néréide, still with staysails only, cleared the tortuous channel, and stood along the edge of the reef that skirts the harbour directly for the rearmost French ship. The Sirius, about a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes after she had weighed, keeping this time too much on the starboard hand, touched the ground. Very shoal water appearing ahead, the best bower anchor was let go; but the velocity of the ship was so great, as to run the cable out in spite of stoppers and every other effort to check her way. The small bower was then let go, but to no purpose, the ship continued to tear both cables out with great rapidity; and unfortunately, the helm having been put a-port, the ship struck on a coral rock, which, a minute or two before, must have been on her starboard bow. Just as the Sirius had taken the ground, the French ships began firing, and their shot passed over the Néréide.

With the Sirius as a beacon, the Magicienne and Iphigenia súccessively cleared the channel; but at 5 h. 15 m. P. M., while steering for her station, and of course wide of the track in which the Néréide with the only pilot in the squadron was steering, the Magicienne grounded on a bank, in such a position that only three of her foremost guns on each deck could bear upon the enemy; from whom she was then distant about 400 yards. Seeing what had befallen the Magicienne, the Iphigenia, who was close in her rear, dropped her stream-anchor, and came to by

the stern in six fathoms: she then let go the best bower under foot, thereby bringing her starboard broadside to bear upon the Minerve; into whom, at a pistol-shot distance, the Iphigenia immediately poured a heavy and destructive fire. By this time the Néréide was also in hot action, and to her we must now attend.

Just as, regardless of the raking fire opened upon the Néréide in her approach, he was about to take up his allotted position on the bow of the Victor, Captain Willoughby saw what had befallen the Sirius; and, with characteristic gallantry, steered for, and in his 12-pounder frigate anchored upon, the beam of the Bellone, at the distance of less than 200 yards. Between these two ill-matched ships, at about 5 h. 15 m. P. M., a furious cannonade commenced, the Victor, from her slanting position on the Néréide's quarter, being also enabled to take an occasional part in it. At 6 h. 15 m. P. M., after having received an occasional fire from the bow guns of the Magicienne and the quarter guns of the Iphigenia, the Ceylon hauled down her colours; and Captain Lambert and one of his lieutenants immediately hailed the Magicienne, to send a boat to take possession. At that instant the Ceylon was seen with her topsails set, running on shore. At 6h. 30 m. the Minerve, having had her cable shot away, made sail after the Ceylon. Both these ships grounded near the Bellone; but the Ceylon first ran foul of the latter, and compelled her to cut her cable and run also aground. The Bellone, however, lay in such a position, that her broadside still bore on the Néréide. Captain Lambert would have instantly cut his cable and run down in pursuit of the Minerve, had not a shoal intervened directly between the Iphigenia and the French squadron.

At a few minutes before 7 P. M. the Néréide's spring was shot away, and the ship immediately swang stern-on to the Bellone's broadside. A most severe raking fire followed. To avoid this, and bring her starboard broadside to bear, the Néréide cut her small bower cable, and, letting go the best, succeeded so far in her object. At about 10 P. M., or a little afterwards, a piece of grape or langridge from one of the Néréide's guns cut Captain Duperré on the head, and knocked him senseless upon the deck. As the fire of the Minerve was now completely masked by that of the Bellone, Captain Bouvet removed from the former on board the latter and took the command.

Since the early part of the action, Captain Willoughby had been severely wounded by a splinter on the left cheek, which had also torn his eye completely out of the socket. The first lieutenant lay mortally, and the second most dangerously wounded: one marine officer, and the two officers of foot and one of artillery, and the greater part of the remaining crew and soldiers were either killed or disabled. Most of the quarterdeck, and several of the maindeck, guns were dismounted; and the

hull of the ship was shattered in all directions and striking the ground astern. His ship being in this state, and five hours having elapsed since the commencement of the action without the arrival of a single boat from any one of the squadron, Captain Willoughby ordered the now feebly maintained fire of the Néréide to cease, and the few survivors of the crew to shelter themselves in the lower part of the vessel. He then sent acting Lieutenant William Weiss, with one of the two remaining boats, on board the Sirius, to acquaint Captain Pym with the defenceless state of the ship; leaving it to his judgment, as the senior officer, whether or not it was practicable to tow the Néréide beyond the reach of the enemy's shot, or to take out the wounded and set her on fire: an act that would have greatly endangered, and might have been the means of destroying, the Bellone herself, as well as the whole cluster of grounded ships, the situation of which cannot be better expressed than in the words of Captain Pym himself, "the whole of the enemy on shore in a heap."

At about 10 h. 45 m. P. M. a boat from the Sirius, with a lieutenant of that frigate, also Lieutenant Davis of the engineers and Mr. Weiss, who had left his boat behind, came on board the Néréide, with a kind message from Captain Pym, requesting Captain Willoughby to abandon his ship and come on board the Sirius. But, with a feeling that did him honour, Captain Willoughby refused to desert his few surviving officers and men, and sent back word that the Néréide had struck. Shortly afterwards a boat from the Iphigenia came on board, to know the reason that the Néréide had ceased firing. At 11 P. M. Captain Willoughby sent an officer in a boat to the Bellone, who still continued a very destructive fire, to say that the Néréide had struck; but, being in a sinking state from shot-holes, the boat returned without having reached the French ship. At about 30 minutes past midnight the mainmast of the Néréide went by the board. At 1 h. 30 m. A. M. on the 24th several of the Néréide's ropes caught fire, but the flames were quickly extinguished. At about 1 h. 50 m. A. M., after having been repeatedly hailed without effect by one or the other of the 20 French prisoners who were on board the Néréide, the Bellone discontinued her fire. The Iphigenia and Magicienne, a portion of whose fire had already dismounted the guns at the battery de la Reine, then ceased theirs; and all was silent.

At daylight the Bellone reopened her fire upon the Néréide. To put a stop to this, French colours were lashed to the fore rigging; but still the French frigate continued her fire. It was now surmised, and very naturally too, that the cause of this persevering hostility was the union jack at the mizen topgallantmast-head. That could not be hauled down; for, by one account, it had been nailed there, and, by another, which we hope is the more correct, the halliards had been shot away, as

well as all the rigging and ropes by which the mast could be ascended. As the only alternative, the mizenmast was cut away, and the firing of the Bellone instantly ceased.

Captain Pym, speaking in his official letter of the loss on board the Néréide, says: "Sorry am I to say, that the captain, every officer and man on board are killed or wounded." This information probably reached the Sirius by some of the men, about 15 in all, who took the opportunity, first of the Néréide's boat, and then of the boat of the Sirius, to escape the horrors of a French prison: they naturally would make the case appear as bad as possible to excuse, what might be considered, a desertion of their commander and comrades. But, even then, the expression is to be taken figuratively; being meant to except all who, from the duties of their station, and in a frigate they are no small number, were attending below. In the statement we formerly gave, as gleaned from the ship's muster-book, that the killed amounted to 35, we were decidedly wrong, and shall now proceed to show, upon such authorities as have since come to hand, that the killed amounted to nearly three times that

amount.

The Néréide's established complement, deducting her three. widow's men, was 251 men and boys: of this number, on quitting the Cape in the preceding April, she was 23 men short. In skirmishes with her boats, the ship had lost, in killed and invalided out of her, 10 men; and had away in a schooner tender a master's mate and 15 men. This left her with 202 officers, men, and boys of her proper crew. But the Néréide had since received, as her quota of prisoners obtained at Port-Louis in exchange for those she captured at Jacolet, 10 raw recruits going to India, and had also on board, 69 officers and men of the 33d and 69th regiments and Madras artillery; making a total of 281 in crew and supernumeraries on board the Néréide when she commenced her action with the Bellone.

Of those 281 men and boys, the Néréide had her first lieutenant (John Burns), Lieutenants Morlett of the 33d regiment, and Aldwinkle of the Madras artillery, one midshipman (George Timmins), and about 88 seamen, marines, and soldiers killed; her captain, second lieutenant (Henry Collins Deacon), one lieutenant of marines (Thomas S. Cox), her master (William Lesby), Lieutenant Needhall of the 69th regiment, her boatswain (John Strong), one midshipman (Samuel Costerton), and at least 130 seamen, marines, and soldiers wounded; total, in killed and wounded together, about 230 out of 281. Nor will 130 be considered a large proportion of wounded to 92 killed, when it is known that, in consequence of the Néréide's upperworks being lined with fir, the splinters were uncommonly numerous. Captain Willoughby received his dreadful wound from a splinter, and Lieutenant Deacon was wounded by splinters in the throat, breast, legs, and arms.