Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p1.djvu/325

Rh  to burn the Héros and Thémistocle, prison-ships, in the Inner Road, which he effected, after disembarking all the captives. This service was scarcely performed, when the explosion of the Montreal, another powder-ship, took place, by means equally unsuspected and base, with a shock even greater than the first; but the lives of Sir W. Sidney Smith, and the gallant men who served under him, were providentially saved from the imminent danger in which they were thus a second time placed.

Our officer returned to England with Lord Hood’s despatches relative to the evacuation of Toulon, and early in 1794, he was appointed to the command of the Diamond frigate, in which he gave repeated proofs of his zeal and ability.

On the 2d Jan. 1795, Sir John Borlase Warren sailed from Falmouth with a squadron of frigates, to reconnoitre Brest, Government having received accounts that the French fleet under Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse had sailed on a cruise. Sir W. Sidney Smith, in the Diamond, was commissioned by the Commodore to execute this hazardous enterprise; which he performed with great intrepidity in the evening of the 3d, in the night, and following morning. In returning out he passed within hail of a French line-of-battle ship, without suspicion of deception, so completely had he disguised his frigate. Having satisfied himself that the enemy’s fleet was actually at sea, he then successfully made off, and rejoined the squadron.

In the month of May following, our officer assisted at the capture of a convoy of transports ; and on the 4th July, in the same year, he distinguished himself exceedingly in a bold but ineffectual attempt on two French ships, having under their protection a number of merchant vessels, near the batteries of la Hogue. On this occasion the Diamond had 1 man killed and 2 wounded. About the same time her boats took possession of the islands of St. Marcou, (situated about four miles from the coast of Normandy) from whence a communication was afterwards established with the French royalists.

