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At 9 P. M. the Amethyst, having got within a quarter of a mile, discharged her bow gun at the Thétis, who smartly returned the fire from one of her stern-chasers. Convinced now that the latter was an enemy, Captain Seymour, as his duty prescribed, let off one or two rockets, and soon saw them answered by three flashes in the east-north-east. The ship that did this was the Triumph 74, Captain Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, and who instantly made sail in the direction of the rockets. Shortly after firing her stern-chasers, the Thétis took in her lower studdingsails, and the Amethyst the whole of her studding-sails and her royals. At 9 h. 15 m. the Thétis, then going nine knots, suddenly luffed to on the starboard tack, with the intention of raking the Amethyst, who was advancing upon her weather quarter. To avoid the rake, and yet be ready to close, the Amethyst put her helm hard a-starboard; and, the instant the Thétis had discharged her starboard broadside, the Amethyst shifted her helm to hard a-port, and, just clearing the French ship's starboard quarter, shot up in the wind right abreast of her to windward. In this way a close and furious action commenced between the two frigates; who, losing their way, fell round off and stood again to the westward, engaging broadside to broadside.

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At 9 h. 40 m. P. M., the Amethyst shooting a little ahead, the Thétis attempted to cross her opponent's stern, and rake or gain the wind of her; but, not having room, ran her jib-boom between the Amethyst's main and mizen rigging. After being a few minutes in this position, the two ships separated, and went off in hot action, steering nearly the same course as before. At 10 h. 5 m. P. M., having got sufficiently ahead to execute the manoeuvre, the Amethyst put her helm hard a-starboard, and, crossing her opponent's hawse, raked her severely. The Amethyst then put her helm hard a-port, and brought the Thétis a little before her starboard beam, still running with the wind about a point on the starboard quarter. At 10 h. 20 m. P. M. the mizenmast of the Amethyst came down, and, falling in-board, broke and damaged the wheel, and encumbered the whole quarterdeck. Scarcely had the Thétis increased her distance by this disaster of her antagonist, than her own mizenmast fell over the side, and the two ships again lay abreast of each other.

At 11 P. M., having for the last half hour been gradually sheering closer, the Thétis put her helm a-starboard, and steered to lay the Amethyst on board. Aware that the Thétis, after striking the Amethyst on the bow, would rebound off and bring the quarters of the two ships together, Captain Seymour reserved his fire. The ships met at the bows, and then at the quarters, and off went the whole broadside of the Amethyst, with doubleround from the maindeckers and grape from the carronades. As, just before the discharge, the French officers, troops, and seamen were assembled on the quarterdeck ready to spring on board the British frigate, its destructive effect may be partly

imagined: one proof of it was, that four guns only were returned by the Thétis. In a minute or two afterwards the outer arm of the Amethyst's best bower anchor entered the foremost maindeck port of the Thétis, and held her fast. In this way the action was maintained, with destructive effect on both sides, particularly to the Thétis, who had been set on fire in several places, until about 20 minutes past midnight; when, having completely silenced the guns of her antagonist, the Amethyst boarded and carried her.

The following diagram will explain the manœuvres that took place in this action; but we must observe, that the straight tracks, as in many other similar cases, are necessarily shortened, to suit the space to which we are restricted. The difference in the time, and the rate at which the ships may be supposed to have been sailing, will show the impracticability of an adherence to truth in this unessential point.

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It was not until 45 minutes past midnight, after several prisoners had been received by the Amethyst, that her cable was cut and the Thétis disentangled. In five minutes afterwards the fore and main masts of the Thétis went over the side. At 1 h. 15 m. A. M. on the 11th, a light was observed in the north-east, and the Triumph soon came up under a press of sail. In about another quarter of an hour the 38-gun frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, joined from the westward, and, after receiving on board several prisoners, took the prize, now wholly dismasted, in tow.

The Amethyst (of same force as San-Fiorenzo, at vol. iv., p. 123) had her rigging and sails cut to pieces, and, besides the fall of her mizenmast, had her fore and main masts greatly injured. She had also three feet and a half water in the hold from the number of shot-holes in her hull. Her loss, out of a crew of 261 men and boys, amounted to one second lieutenant of marines (Bernard Kindall), 10 seamen, and eight marines

killed, and one first lieutenant of marines (Samuel John Payne, dangerously), one master's mate (Richard Gibbings, mortally), one midshipman (Lawford Miles, severely), her boatswain (Leonard Taylor), captain's clerk (Thomas Gilson), 32 seamen, 12 marines, and two boys wounded; total, 19 killed and 51 wounded. The Thétis (same force as Minerva, at vol. iv., p. 232) was dreadfully shattered as well as dismasted; and, out of a crew, including 106 French soldiers, of 436 men and boys, had her captain, and 134 officers, seamen, and soldiers killed, and 102 wounded.

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Here stands another frigate action, in which the comparative statement, in every line of figures on the French side, exhibits a superiority of force, particularly in crew. There is, however, a circumstance or two, which, fairly considered, will be allowed to bring the odds a little nearer to an equality. The object of the Thetis, from the first, was to gain her destination, not to fight; and even, had it been otherwise, an exchange of nightsignals, at the commencement of the chase, must have informed her that a friend to her antagonist, and consequently a foe to her, was not many miles distant. Still the Thétis fought manfully, and did not surrender till every hope had fled.

The crew of the Amethyst, in the heavy loss and damage they inflicted upon the Thétis, proved the high state of discipline to which they had been brought by their commander and his officers. If any thing can add to the merits of Captain Seymour on the occasion, it is the modesty of his published account, and the handsome eulogium he pays to the gallantry of Lieutenant Joseph Dedé, the surviving commander of the Thétis; who, he says, acted with singular firmness, and was the only Frenchman on the quarterdeck when the British boarded.

Unfortunately, Lieutenant Dedé lost the esteem of his generous captor, by uniting with the two officers who were next to himself in command on board the Thétis, in swearing before the prize-court, by way of making the thing go down better with the French government, that the Thétis was captured by a 74 and two frigates. This is easily disproved. When the Thétis had been, not only taken possession of by, but cut clear from, the Amethyst, the appearance of a large ship, coming down under a press of sail from the eastward, occasioned Captain Seymour to ask Lieutenant Dedé, if he had previously seen any ship, or expected any other to sail from Lorient. The lieutenant

answered decidedly, that he had seen no ship, and did not know that any was to sail that night. But a more satisfactory refutation of the sworn assertion of the French officers is contained in the following extract from a letter written by an officer on board the Triumph, and published at or about the same time as Captain Seymour's official letter: "At 12 they ceased firing, and at 1 A. M. we saw the two ships close to us. "And the Shannon, it is admitted, did not join until a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes after the Triumph.

Soon after the return of the Amethyst to port, her first lieutenant, Mr. Goddard Blennerhasset, was promoted to the rank of commander. Captain Seymour, in his official letter, speaks also in high terms of his second and third lieutenants, William Hill and Edward Thomas Crouch; as well as of the master of the Amethyst, Mr. Robert Fair. The prize was purchased for the British navy, and, under the name of Brune (a Thetis being already in the service), was subsequently added, as a cruising frigate, to the large class of 38s.

On the 12th of November the three new French 40-gun frigates Vénus, Commodore Jacques-Felix-Emmanuel Hamelin, Junon, Captain Jean-Baptiste-Augustin Rousseau, and Amphitrite, with whose captain's name we are unacquainted, accompanied by the brig-corvettes Cigne and Papillon and two armed schooners, put to sea from the road of Cherbourg; the Vénus bound to the Isle of France, and the remaining two frigates and smaller vessels to Martinique and Guadaloupe, with ordnance stores and provisions.

Just as this squadron reached the Antilles, a separation, either by accident or design, appears to have taken place. At all events the Cigne, and the two schooners, at 11 A. M. on the 12th of December, were discovered at anchor off the Pearl rock, by the gun-brig Morne-Fortunée, Lieutenant John Brown; who immediately made a signal to that effect to Captain Francis Augustus Collier, of the 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Circe, the commodore of a small British squadron stationed between that rock and the town of St.-Pierre.

Immediately the Circe, accompanied by the 18-gun ship-sloop Stork, Captain George Le Geyt, 16-gun brig-sloop Epervier, Captain Thomas Tudor Tucker, and advice-schooner Express, Lieutenant William Dowers, made sail towards St.-Pierre's; which one of the French schooners was endeavouring to reach, by being towed alongshore under cover of a body of troops on the beach. Finding it impossible, owing to the near approach of the Stork, to get between the port of St.-Pierre and the Circe, the schooner ran on shore under a battery of four guns, flanked by two smaller ones, and defended also by the troops that had accompanied her from her anchorage at the Pearl. Immediately the Circe, followed by the Stork and Morne-Fortunée, stood in to attack the batteries; and, engaging them within pistol-shot,

soon silenced the two smaller batteries and drove the troops from the beach.

Observing at this time that the French brig and the schooner in her company were unlading, Captain Collier directed the Morne-Fortunée to watch the motions of the schooner on shore, and to give similar orders to the Epervier on her coming up; and then, with the Circe, Stork, and Express, he made sail towards the Cigne and her consort, now lying well to windward, close to the rocks, and under the protection of four batteries and a considerable number of troops, with field-pieces, assembled on the beach. Having manned her barge and two cutters, with 68 officers and men, under the command of Lieutenant Charles Henry Crooke, Mr. William Collman the purser, and Mr. William Smith the master, and directed Lieutenant Crooke to lie off until the French brig's fire slackened, the Circe, followed by the Stork and Express, stood in and opened a close and welldirected fire upon the brig, the batteries, and the troops on the beach.

As soon as the Circe and Stork, which latter ship had manned her boats to assist those of the former, had run past the batteries and brig, Lieutenant Crooke, without waiting for the Stork's boats, dashed on, in the most gallant manner, and boarded the Cigne. It happened, in this instance, that gallantry did not meet its accustomed reward. The three boats were defeated with dreadful slaughter. One boat was taken, another sunk, and the third entirely disabled; and, out of the 68 men detached from her, the Circe lost nine killed, 21 wounded, and 26 missing: total 56, including, among the badly wounded, Lieutenant Crooke, in four places, and Mr. Collman the purser. It being, when the issue of this unfortunate business was known, quite dark, the Circe stood off from the shore; leaving the 18-gun brig-sloop Amaranthe, Captain Edward Pelham Brenton, who had just joined company, to watch the Cigne during the night.

At daylight on the 13th the French brig got under way, and, aided by her sweeps and boats, stood alongshore for St.Pierre's. Captain Brenton having in the handsomest manner volunteered to bring out the Cigne, the Amaranthe, towed by "the boats of the Circe and Stork, used her utmost endeavours to close with her. At 10 A. M. the Cigne grounded near several batteries to the northward of St.-Pierre's: whereupon the British brig tacked and worked in, under a heavy fire from the French brig, and particularly from the batteries, by which the Amaranthe had one man killed and five wounded. The Circe and the rest of the squadron, meanwhile, were engaging the batteries to leeward. By her close and well-directed fire, the Amaranthe soon obliged the crew of the Cigne to quit their vessel and take to the shore: immediately on which the boats of the Amaranthe, Circe, and Stork, led by Lieutenant James Hay, first of the Amaranthe, gallantly boarded and carried the Cigne,

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