of the French squadron cut, and stood down the inner channel, within the Braak sand; on the following morning, they regained their anchorage, without our ships being able to molest or cut them off.
Captain Campbell’s prize proved to be la Desirée, mounting 40 guns, long 24-pounders on the main-deck, with a complement of 350 men, some of whom were on shore. Captain Inman, in his official letter to the Admiralty, says, “the handsome and intrepid manner of his completely carrying her in less than a quarter of an hour, and bringing her out, must convince their Lordships of his unparalleled bravery, and the very gallant conduct of his officers and ship’s company, as the enemy’s frigate was so much superior in force[1]; and had it not been so instantly done, the ship could not have been got over the banks, as the water had begun to fall.” The Dart’s loss on this occasion amounted to no more than 1 man slain, and her first Lieutenant and 10 men wounded; la Desirée is said to have had nearly 100 killed and wounded, including among the former every officer on board, with the exception of one Midshipman. Only 6 men were wounded on board the other vessels of Captain Inman’s squadron. The Earl of St. Vincent pronounced this to have been one of the finest instances of gallantry on record.
Three days after the capture of la Desirée, the subject of this memoir was advanced to post rank in the Ariadne, a 20-gun ship. His next appointment was about Sept. 1803, to the Doris frigate, stationed in the Channel.
On the 12th Jan. 1805, as the Doris was proceeding to Quiberon bay, she struck upon a sunken rock, called the
- ↑ “The Dart was a curiously constructed sloop of war, after the plan of General Bentham, mounting 30 guns. Her bow and stern were of the same shape, and she could anchor by either end; though it must be observed, but very awkwardly, particularly in bad weather. She carried her water in wooden tanks, and was so sharp in her construction, that a traverse section taken amid ships, had nearly the form of a wedge: she had two top-masts on the same lower-mast, parallel to each other, and her gangways were outside of the lower rigging: she had no stability in the water, and was found in blowing weather to be a very unsafe vessel. Captain Campbell made the only use of her for which she was calculated, vis. that of laying an enemy on board.” See Brenton’s Naval History of Great Britain, vol. ii, p. 425.
