gates, stationed off Elba, to prevent supplies being conveyed to the French troops then on that island.
On the 3d Aug., 1801, at 2h 30’ P.M., a frigate and several small vessels were seen to the southward of the Piombino passage, steering for Port Longone. The squadron went in chace of them immediately, and at 10 minutes past 8, after several shot had been fired from their bow and stern-chasers, Captain Gower, of the Pomone, ran alongside the frigate, and soon compelled her to surrender. She proved to be la Carrere, of 40 guns and 356 men, from Port Hercule, with ammunition for the French army. The vessels under her convoy were laden with ordnance stores, &c.
On the 2d of the following, month, two French frigates were discovered steering towards Leghorn, to which Captain Halsted gave chace. On the approach of the squadron, one of them ran a-shore off Vado, and struck her colours without offering any resistance; she was found to be the Success, formerly British. The other frigate, la Bravoure, of 46 guns and 283, men, got on shore near a battery, to the southward of Leghorn, where her masts soon went by the board, and the ship was totally lost. By the exertions of Lieutenant Thompson, of the Phoenix, and the men employed under him, the Success was got off without receiving any material injury.
Captain Halsted arrived at Portsmouth from the Mediterranean, June 24, 1802. In the spring of 1805, he was appointed to the Namur, a cut down 90, in which ship he assisted at the capture of the four French line-of-battle ships that had escaped from the battle of Trafalgar[1]. On this occasion the Namur had 4 men killed and 8 wounded.
In the month of Dec. 1807, when the late Sir Charles Cotton was appointed Commander-in-Chief on the Lisbon station, the subject of this memoir was selected by that officer to serve as Captain of the fleet under his orders; and accordingly proceeded with him to the coast of Portugal, where he continued until after the Convention of Cintra[2], and the
- ↑ See p. 289.
- ↑ The escape and departure of the Royal House of Braganza previous to the arrival of Sir Charles Cotton on the 15th Jan. 1808, have already been mentioned in our memoir of Sir W. Sidney Smith. The arrival of the
