the time he served in H.M.S. Sirius under my command, deserving my particular approbation, I do hereby certify, that he had charge of the beach in landing Lieutenant-Colonel Frazier with his brigade from that ship, at the attack of the Isle of Bourbon, composed of the whole of the 80th regiment, a large party of artillery, parts of two regiments of sepoys, and fifty pioneers, amounting together to 960 men, with howitzers and ammunition, not any part of which was injured; and that in the space of less than two hours and a half the whole were landed and on their march; and that the said Lieutenant Watling, and the seamen under his orders, did their duty in an astonishing fine style, though not without great personal risk, in saving the soldiers, and keeping the ammunition dry, from the heavy surf, and rolling stone beach. That, with the small-arm men, he afterwards executed my orders in keeping possession, during the night, of the heights between the town of St. Paul’s and Colonel Frazier’s rear, by which he prevented any reinforcements being sent from the former to St. Denis. He also drove in all their sharp-shooters, and took several cavalry horses. A service rendered of great importance in consequence of a total failure in the landing attempted to be effected to windward by the commodore and the rest of the squadron, with the three brigades under Lieutenant-Colonels Keating, Campbell, and Drummond, and by which the surrender of the island was effected on the following day, before Lieutenant-Colonel Keating had joined Lieutenant-Colonel Frazier[1].
Shortly after this event. Captain Pym, then cruising off the N.W. end of the Isle of France, sent his boats, under the command of Lieutenants Norman and Watling, to cut off a deeply laden three-masted schooner; which vessel, however, succeeded in getting into an intricate narrow passage, between reefs of coral, and was run aground by her crew within 200 yards of the shore, where she was protected by a large military force, and one or two field-pieces on the beach. Notwithstanding this opposition, the boats pushed on, the pinnace, under Lieutenant Watling, taking the lead, and succeeded in boarding and setting the vessel on fire. By the time her destruction was effected, the tide had ebbed so considerably as to preclude the possibility of the boats returning through the same channel by which they had approached the schooner, and their only alternative was to force a passage in another direction, exposed at a very short range to the fire
