Tranquebar for refreshments."[1]He would appear to have kept his word.
After the return of L'Uni to the islands, Lemême made two more cruises in the Indian seas, the first in the Clarisse; the second in the Grande Hirondelle. The cruise in the Clarisse was at least as successful as the cruises which had preceded hers. Hostile ships of war were successfully avoided and merchantmen were successfully encountered. But the same fortune did not attend the Grande Hirondelle. After making three captures, she herself was forced to succumb, on the 31st December, 1801, to the British frigate La Sybille, 48 guns, commanded by Captain Charles Adam.[2]
Released from confinement by the treaty of Amiens, Lemême, who had realised an enormous fortune by his cruises, renounced the sea, and started as a merchant. But he managed his affairs so unsuccessfully, that when the war broke out again in 1803, he had lost all he had possessed. Again he resumed his earlier profession, and hoisting his flag on board a three-masted vessel, the Fortune, carrying 12 guns and a crew of 160 men, he
- ↑ Asiatic Annual Register.
- ↑ The fact of the capture of the Grande Hirondelle when under the command of Lemême has been ignored by all the French authorities I have been able to consult. In his biographical sketch of Lemême M. Gallois merely mentions that before the peace of Amiens he had cruised in the Clarisse and Grande Hirondelle. Yet I have before me not only Captain Adam's official report of the capture, dated 2nd January, 1802, but also a letter from Lemême himself, dated the 7th idem, written when a prisoner, and addressed to Captain Adam himself. — Asiatic Annual Register, 1802, pages 42, 45, 46.
