Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p1.djvu/437

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
414
commanders.

orders, for embezzling, or designing to embezzle, the cargo of a prize settee, and for attempting to desert; as were also Francis Baynson and François Richie, seamen, for aiding him therein, and attempting to desert. It appeared in evidence, that the settee was detained on the 18th Oct. 1812, and the prisoner Morris sent on board to take charge of her, with orders to accompany the Carlotta to Malta. He, however, parted company on the night of the 10th, and went to Port St. Vito, from thence to Palermo, where he remained twenty days, and sold great part of the cargo. The morning after he sailed from Palermo, he proposed to the crew to sell the vessel and every thing remaining on board: he then directed the oakum to be picked out of her bottom, so as to cause a leak forward; and having anchored between Rochelle and Cephalu, landed the remainder of the cargo, and agreed with a Sicilian to sell it and the wreck for 373 doubloons; having done which, two holes were made underneath the counter, and the settee run on shore. From Cephalu, Morris and part of the crew, with whom he had divided the money, proceeded to Messina, where they continued some days, and were apprehended by the British deputy-quarter-master-general, as they were on the point of taking a boat to go over to Calabria. The Court decided that the charges had been proved against the three prisoners, and adjudged the following punishments; viz. Hugh Stewart Morris to be mulcted of all pay and prize-money then due to him, to be imprisoned two years in solitary confinement, and to be rendered incapable of ever again serving His Majesty, his heirs and successors, either as an officer or petty-officer. Francis Baynson to be mulcted of all pay and prize-money due to him, and to receive two hundred lashes. François Richie to be mulcted of all his pay and prize-money, and to be disposed of as a prisoner of war.

The Carlotta was paid off in Feb. 1815; and Lieutenant Fleming soon afterwards joined the Impregnable 98, bearing the flag of Sir Josias Rowley, from which ship he was appointed to the temporary command of the late Neapolitan sloop of war Joachim, May 22d following. In that vessel, he