Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp1.djvu/305

 supported by acting Lieutenants James Bradley, ___ Dawson, and Edward Brown Addis; and Mr. Pierre, a passed Midshipman belonging to the Belliqueux. The subsequent capture and destruction of a French flotilla, by the Sir Francis Drake and her boats, is thus described by Captain Harris, in a letter to Commodore Broughton, the then senior officer in India, dated off Rembang, May 23, 1811:

“Sir,– In lat. 6° 35' S. and long. 111° 32' E. Rembang bearing S.W., 13 miles, being on my passage, to put in force your order of the 1st April, and having been necessitated to anchor during the night of the 22nd inst. from contrary winds and a strong current setting to the westward, I had the satisfaction, at day-light, to observe a flotilla of the enemy’s gun-vessels, consisting of nine feluccas and five proas, at anchor, close in shore, about three miles from us. They weighed and stood for Rembang, but were so closely chased, that, by seven o’clock, three or four well-directed broadsides brought five of the feluccas under our guns to an anchor, which were instantly taken possession of. The others, finding themselves cut off from their port, furled sails, and pulled up in the wind’s-eye of us, direct for the shore, out of reach of our guns. Shoaling our water considerably, made me despatch Lieutenants Bradley and Addis; Lieutenant George Roch, R.M.; and Messrs. George Groves, John Horton, and Matthew Phibbs, Midshipmen; with Lieutenant Knowles, Mr. Gillman, and 12 privates of H.M.’s 14th regiment, in four six-oared cutters and a gig, to board them, the frigate keeping under way, working up to windward, ready to cover the boats.

“It is with peculiar pleasure I have to state, that the undaunted and gallant conduct of this small party of officers and men, made prizes of all the rest by eight o’clock, without the loss of a man, notwithstanding a sharp fire of grape from several pieces of ordnance, with continual musketry, which commenced the moment tae boats got within grape-shot distance, and did not cease until our seamen laid their oars in to board; when the crew of each vessel either jumped overboard, or went away in their boats. I am sorry to state the loss of the enemy must have been great, as their boats being small, and overloaded with men, arms, and ammunition, many were capsized, and most of the men in them, as well as those that jumped overboard, drowned; the scene I understand was truly piteous, as the officers commanding our boats were prevented from affording that relief which humanity would have dictated, from having to launch two of the feluccas off the beach, in the face of a brisk fire of small arms, from the men who had escaped and fled into the jungle.

“Being an eye-witness of the conduct of this brave detachment, from the quarter-deck of the Sir Francis Drake, I beg leave to represent it in