Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp3.djvu/428

 rest, Captain Sanders made the signal for the boats manned and armed. Accordingly, three boats were despatched from the Martin, containing 40 officers and men, and four from the Junon, containing 100 officers and men, the whole under the orders of the Junon’s first lieutenant, Philip Westphal. On the approach of the boats, the gun-vessels turned their fire from the Martin against them, but at too great a distance to be effective. The single gun-boat, which was the principal object of attack, kept up a spirited fire, but Was quickly boarded and overpowered. The British boats, in this affair, lost 3 killed and mortally wounded, and 4 slightly wounded; the gun-boats, 7 wounded. The last discharge from the gun, mounted on board the gun-boat, broke its carriage. That prevented the British from returning the fire of the remaining gun-boats, which had dropped down in line, hoping to retake the prize; but which the captors towed off" in triumph. As, in their attempt to save their companion, the gun-boats passed the bow of the Martin, the sloop fired upon them with effect; and the Junon opened her fire, but her shot scarcely fell beyond the Martin.

“Some of the gun-boats having grounded, the remainder anchored for their mutual protection. The tide had drifted the ship’s boats, as well as the captured vessel, to a considerable distance. The gun-boats that had grounded got off, and the whole, as if to renew the attack upon the change of tide, anchored within two miles and a half of the Martin, now weakened by the absence of 40 of her best hands. However, at 5, to the surprise of the Martin’s officers and crew, and, as it afterwards appeared, to the extreme mortification of the spectators on shore, this formidable flotilla weighed and beat up, between the Martin and the shore, without further molesting her, arid arrived in safety, soon afterwards, at their station near the mouth of the river.

“The force that attacked the Martin, consisted of eight gun-boats and two block-vessels. The latter were sloops of 100 tons each, which had been coasters. Their sides had been raised, heavy beams laid across, and the whole planked in, on the top, on each bide, and at the ends; leaving only loopholes for musketry (through which pikes might be used