A comparison having been drawn between the above action and that of the Java and Constitution[1], we feel it due to Captain Irby and his gallant companions to state, that Lieutenant-Governor Browell, of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, after examining the Amelia’s wounded men, preparatory to their being placed on the pension-list, told Captain Irby, he wondered how he could have done any thing with people in so debilitated a state; and that he could not help remarking the great difference between them and the Java’s men, who were surveyed at the same time.
The following extracts, from letters addressed to Captain Irby, after his arrival in England, will show how much the Amelia had suffered through sickness, some months previous to her meeting l’Aréthuse, which ship Mr. James admits “was not filled with conscripts and raw hands, in number crowding each other; but had a fair complement of experienced seamen, and good artillerists,” “commanded by one of the best officers in the French navy[2].”
From Robert Thorpe, Esq. Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Sierra Leone, to Captain Irby, dated London, July 23, 1813.
“When I consider the infirm state of the Amelia’s crew, which you preserved even in an enfeebled state, by running to St. Helena (in Aug. 1812), I congratulate you on your escape, and wonder at what you have done.”
From Captain Edward Scobell, of H.M.S. Thais, to Captain Irby, dated Portsmouth, Dec. 13, 1813.
“You rightly calculate that my last months in Africa were mo st tedious and fatal, justly to be dated so from the time of our parting (in Nov. 1812); for shortly after we were assailed by sickness, more calamitous than what I even met you in, and which rendered both our ships inefficient: scarce a man escaped disease, nor was there an exception to general enervation and lassitude, – an helplessness which does not easily wear off, nor does it yet seem to give way to our native climate.”
- ↑ “The Amelia, like the Java, had a number of supernumeraries on board; but owing to the general sickness of the men, Captain Irby says, ‘We had barely our complement fit for duty, and they much enervated.’ A sickly old, and a healthy new ship’s company, are about equal in effectiveness.” See James’s Naval Occurrences between Great Britain and America, p. 196.
- ↑ See id. p. 197, and Nav. Hist. v. 5, p. 362.
