France, and in the month of November arrived with them at Port-Louis. In the month of February, 1808, the Sémillante quitted port for another cruise in the bay of Bengal. On the 15th of March, in the morning, Captain Motard captured a British merchant vessel, and despatched her to the Isle of France. On the same day, at 3 h. 30 m. P. M., Great Bassas, in the island of Ceylon, bearing north by west distant 64 miles, the British frigate Terpsichore, Captain William Augustus Montagu, having just tacked to the east-south-east, with the wind fresh from the north-east, on her way from Pointe de Galle to Madras, discovered from her mast-head a strange ship, under a press of sail, about two points on the weather beam. At 5 h. 50 m. P. M. the latter, which was no other than the Sémillante herself, hoisted English colours, and fired a shot at the Terpsichore; from whom she then bore north-east by north, and whose disguised appearance indicated that she was an Indiaman. At 6 h. 45 m. P. M. the Sémillante fired a second shot; whereupon the Terpsichore hauled up her mainsail, and hove to on the larboard tack. Having, in the course of the next ten minutes, ascertained that the Sémillante was an enemy, and got all clear for action, the Terpsichore, who from age and weakness had been obliged to leave at Madras the whole of her upperdeck guns but two, and consequently mounted, with her 26 twelves, only two 6-pounders, opened a fire upon the Sémillante, now with French colours hoisted, and distant about 100 yards upon the Terpsichore's larboard and weather beam. The fire was immediately returned, and a smart engagement ensued. At 7 h. 10 m. P. M., when the two frigates were close on board each other, the Sémillante threw into the Terpsichore some combustible materials, which, falling on the main deck, communicated to the salt-boxes, and occasioned a dreadful explosion, that entirely unmanned the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth guns, and set the ship on fire in several places. Having, by an expedient which, fair as it may be in a ship of inferior force, can never be pronounced honourable when resorted to by an enemy who possesses ever so slight a superiority, thrown his antagonist into temporary confusion, Captain Motard did not, as might have been expected, attempt to carry the Terpsichore by boarding; but, as if alarmed by the discovery that she was a British frigate, hastened to get away from her. At 7 h. 20 m. P. M., having, by great exertions on the part of her officers and crew, extinguished the flames, the Terpsichore made sail as well as she could, and recommenced the action. Determined, now, to avoid again approximating too closely, the Sémillante, at 7 h. 30 m. P. M., bore away obliquely across the bows of her antagonist, and, wearing round, came to on the starboard tack. Following the manœuvre of the Sémillante, the Terpsichore also wore round, and steered a course the best adapted for bringing her guns to bear with effect; but the Sémillante constantly evaded every attempt of the latter to close. At 7 h. 45 m. P. M. the fire of the French frigate began to slacken, and at 8 P. M. wholly ceased. At this moment, taking advantage of the crippled state of her antagonist, the Sémillante bore up and made all sail to the southward and westward. Being left with scarcely a brace, bowline, tack, or sheet, having her mizen rigging, fore and main stays, back-stays, main topsail, and spanker cut to pieces, and her main topmast and fore and mizen masts much wounded, the Terpsichore, to the mortification of her officers and crew, was unable, until 8h. 15m. P. M., to set any sail in pursuit of the flying enemy; who, by a well-directed fire from her stern-chasers, did additional damage to the rigging of the Terpsichore, and at 10 P. M. dropped the latter out of gun-shot astern. At midnight the two ships were about one mile and a half apart, the British crew sleeping at their quarters. At 4 A. M. on the 16th the Sémillante, who had changed her course frequently, bore from the Terpsichore west by south distant nearly two miles. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th, the French frigate kept gradually increasing her distance, until sunset on the last-named day, when she was no longer to be seen. On the next morning, however, the two frigates again descried each other, both still running, under a press of sail, to the west-south-west. They continued in mutual sight during that day and the succeeding night. On the 20th, at 10 h. 30 m. A. M., favoured by a heavy squall, the Terpsichore, who by this time had repaired the principal damages in her rigging and sails, was coming up fast with the Sémillante: whereupon the latter reopened a fire from her stern-chasers, double-shotted. That not checking the progress of her persevering adversary, the Sémillante was compelled, in order to lighten herself, to cut away her stern-boat, throw overboard several of her guns, and a considerable quantity of lumber, and start the principal part of her water and provisions. This produced the desired effect, and by midnight the Sémillante had run her pursuer effectually out of sight. Out of her reduced crew of 180 men and boys, the Terpsichore lost, and that almost wholly by the explosion, one lieutenant (Charles Tanes) and 20 men killed, and 22 men wounded, two of them mortally. A French account of the affair represents the Sémillante as having suffered so much in her rigging, as to be obliged to discontinue the action, but states nothing further respecting the loss which the French frigate must have sustained, than that Captain Motard was wounded in the head and shoulder, and compelled, in consequence, to quit his quarters. The captain's wound was, indeed, of a very serious nature if, as is alleged, it prevented the Sémillante from making a prize of the Terpsichore. "Ce combat eût été infailliblement terminé par la reddition de l'ennemi, si son feu, principalement dirigé pour dégréer, n'eût mis la frégate de sa majesté dans l'impossibilité de manoeuvrer au moment décisif, et si le capitaine, blessé à la tête et à l'épaule, n'eût été mis hors de combat."* Little do French officers imagine what a permanent injury they do to their reputations by this habit of boasting, or rather, for such it is, of telling downright falsehoods; and all merely to gain a little temporary applause from the credulous and uninquisitive part of the community. For his activity as a cruiser, and his ability as a navigator of the Indian seas, Captain Motard claims from us the meed of praise. Had he given any thing like a fair account of the different meetings of the Sémillante with British ships of war, we could have excused him for running away from them all; because we know that, what, in one navy, is looked upon as disgraceful and brings down the severest punishment, is, in the other navy, not merely overlooked, but almost enjoined. The captain of a French frigate, that runs from a dozen English frigates in succession, and executes his mission, or returns home from his cruise, receives five times as much applause as the captain, who gallantly engages, and after a hard struggle is compelled to yield to, a decidedly superior force. 28 For a contrast to the conduct of Captain Motard, we need look no further than to the behaviour of Captain Montagu in the case we have just done relating. With a frigate, carrying guns and 180 men, he was cruising in the hope to fall in with a frigate mounting 48 guns, of a much heavier caliber than his own, and carrying a crew of at least 340 men; and although, fortunately for him, he did not encounter the Canonnière, Captain Montagu met, fought, and fairly beat, a French frigate mounting 40 guns, with a crew of at least 300 men. Could the Terpsichore, at any one time during the five days' chase that succeeded the battle, have got fairly alongside the Sémillante, the officers and crew of the former would, we have no doubt, have had their wishes realized. As it was, the Terpsichore returned to Pointe de Galle to refit, and the Sémillante, early in the month of April, reanchored in Port-Louis for the same purpose. The Sémillante, however, was found to be too much cut up in her hull to serve again as a cruiser; especially as, to escape from the Terpsichore, she had thrown overboard a great part of her armament. Captain Motard, therefore, as soon as his frigate was repaired, loaded her with a cargo of colonial produce, valued at seven million of francs, and set sail for Europe. The same good fortune, which had attended the Sémillante ever since she escaped from the British frigate Venus in May, 1793,† still accompanied her; and, in the month of February, 1809, this richly-laden French frigate succeeded in entering a port of France. See vol. i., p. 94. * Dict. Historique, tome iv., p.7. Although, from the damages she had received in her action with the Terpischore, the Sémillante, after her return to PortLouis in April, was unable to put to sea as a cruiser, there still remained upon the Isle of France station two French national ships. One was the 40-gun frigate Canonnière, Captain CésarJoseph Bourayne, of whom mention has already been made; the other, the ship-corvette Jéna, of 18 long 6-pounders and 150 men, commanded by Lieutenant Nicolas Morice. This vessel had sailed from Europe as a privateer, but had since been purchased by Governor Decaen to be employed as a national corvette. Sometime in the month of August, 1808, the Canonnière joined the Sémillante in the harbour of Port-Louis; and on the 5th or 6th of September the British 22-gun ship Laurel, Captain John Charles Woollcombe, arrived off the Isle of France from the Cape; whence she had been despatched by Vice-admiral Bertie, the new commander-in-chief on that station, with provisions for two ship-sloops expected to be cruising upon the Isle of France station. Not finding these sloops, nor any other British cruiser, off Port-Louis, Captain Woollcombe conceived it to be his duty, till relieved as he soon expected to be, to watch the motions of the Sémillante, then supposed to be the only French frigate in the harbour. In a day or two after her arrival off the island, the Laurel recaptured a Portuguese ship, bound last from the rendezvous of French prizes in St.-Paul's bay to Port-Louis. On board this ship, as passengers from Bourbon, were some ladies belonging to the Isle of France. The gallantry of Captain Woollcombe induced him to despatch one of his boats with a flag of truce to Governor Decaen, requesting the general to send out a vessel to bring on shore the ladies and their baggage. In the middle of the night the second captain of the Canonnière, as he afterwards proved to be, came on board the Laurel in a flag of truce; and, having to remain until seven or eight in the morning before the baggage could all be embarked, monsieur made himself thoroughly acquainted with the Laurel's force in guns and men. On the 12th, in the afternoon, the Laurel chased a ship almost under the batteries to the north-east of Port-Louis harbour, and, discovering the vessel to be a cartel, was about to wear off the shore with a light breeze from the east-south-east, when a sail was discovered on the lee bow steering nearly the same course as the Laurel. The latter consequently stood on, but, from the position of the stranger, could only make out that she was a ship. A difference of opinion prevailed as to her force; some of the officers taking her for a prize Indiaman, others for the Sémillante, frigate. In a little while the strange ship hove in stays; and her pursuers saw at once that she was a large French frigate with a commodore's broad pendant. This was, as may be conjectured, the Canonnière herself. Upon the return to Port-Louis of the flag of truce with the ladies on board, the French officer made such a representation of the Laurel's insignificant force, that Governor Decaen resolved to send out the Canonnière to endeavour to bring her in. In order, too, that the contest might be quickly decided, and the least possible damage done to the prize, whose services as a French cruiser were so much in request, a party of at least 70 soldiers from the garrison, with a captain to command them, were added to the 340 or 350 officers and seamen composing the crew of the Canonnière. Armed, as has elsewhere appeared, with 48 guns,* manned, as we have just shown, with full 420 men, and, as a proof that she had no other object in view than the capture of the Laurel, supplied with only a few days' provisions, the Canonnière put to sea from PortLouis. The force of the Laurel was precisely that of her sistership, the Comus;† 22 long 9-pounders on the main deck, with six carronades, 18-pounders, and two long sixes on the quarterdeck and forecastle. But, of her complement of 175 men and boys, having quitted the Cape short-handed and since manned a prize, the Laurel had only 144 on board, and a few of these were sick. In point of relative size, one ship was 526, the other 1102 tons. Notwithstanding all this, the Laurel stood on to meet the Canonnière; and, as the two vessels approached each other on opposite tacks, Captain Woollcombe called out to the master, "Lay me as close to her as you can." It was now about 6 h. 30 m. P. M.; and, just as the Laurel, edging away on the larboard tack for the Canonnière's starboard bow, was about to discharge her foremost starboard maindeck gun, the Canonnière wore. Either from the lightness of the wind, or, as was considered to be the case on board the Laurel, from the mismanagement of her crew, the French frigate came so slowly round, that the former was enabled to pour into her stern a deliberate, and, as acknowledged, a destructive fire. At length the Canonnière came to on the larboard tack, and discharged her broadside. So well, however, did the master obey the directions given him by Captain Woollcombe as to running close to his antagonist, that, after that first broadside, nearly all the Canonnière's shot flew over the heads of the British crew. In this way, the wind gradually sinking by the cannonade to nearly a calm, did the two vessels engage, until a few minutes before 8 P.M.; when, having had her rigging of every sort completely destroyed, the slings of her main yard and her gaff shot away, |