having all her lowermasts, fore and main-yards, gaff, spanker-boom, and mizen -top-mast fished, and upwards of 30 round shot in her hull on the starboard side below the quarter-deck. In her cabin was the drawing of an action, said to have taken place on the 7th Feb., off the coast of Africa, between her and an English frigate; and on the sides of this view was her list of 31 killed and 74 wounded. * * * * L’Aréthuse is a large frigate, and appeared very full of men[1], mounting twenty-eight French 18-pounders on the main-deck, sixteen 36-pounder carronades and two long guns on the upper-deck. From her very crippled state, and chasing us three days to the N.E., which I don’t think she would have done had not our courses laid together, I am inclined to suppose she was bound into port[2]."
Finally, Lieutenant Charles M‘Arthur, who had served with Captain Irby as a Midshipman, previous to his sailing for Africa, being at Rennes in 1816, met with a young man applying to the Prefect of that Department and to the Marquis de Boissiere, to sign a petition to the Minister at War, praying for a commission in one of the regiments about to embark for the colonies. This young man, whom the Marquis described as being of a respectable family, had been forced into the service by the conscription, and was severely wounded on board l’Aréthuse, when she encountered the Amelia. He acknowledged that the slaughter among his countrymen was very great, estimated their total loss at 195 men, and stated that himself and four other marines were all that escaped out of the whole detachment, 50 in number.
By the enemy’s own account it thus appears very evident,
- ↑ Captain Olivier and the whole of la Rubis’s crew were at this time on board l’Aréthuse, the former frigate having been burnt on the 8th Feb. in consequence of its being found impossible to get her afloat. Query, might she not have been saved by the assistance of her consort, had no English ship appeared in sight, and drawn the Commodore off from the land, which he did not make again till the day after her destruction?
- ↑ Lieutenant Chad’s conjecture was right; l’Aréthuse arrived at St. Maloes on the 19th of the following month. See Nav. Chron. v. 29 .386.
