Endymion. About thirty persons in all, including wives, children, and attendants, availed themselves of our protection. We built them up a large cabin on the main-deck, made the party as comfortable as we could, and, at their own request, landed them at Vigo some days afterwards; for they deemed it most prudent to keep at a distance from home for a time[1].”
Here terminated the operations of the Endymion on the coast of Spain. In June following we find her proceeding to Madeira.
Lieutenant Thruston was subsequently ordered out to the Cape of Good Hope, on the admiralty list for promotion; and sailed for that station in the Scipion 74, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Robert Stopford; with whom he also proceeded to Java, in 1811. On their arrival at Batavia, he was selected to land and keep up a communication between the naval and military head-quarters, a service highly pleasing, as it gave full leisure for observing the operations of a campaign, unshackled by any fixed duty assigned. The following narrative (written by himself) of his subsequent proceedings in the Hesper sloop, will, we are sure, be perused with lively interest.
“In the autumn of 1811, the combined British naval and military forces, under the respective commands of Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Stopford and Major-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty, employed on an expedition against the island of Java, succeeded in carrying by storm the intrenched camp of General Jansen, in the neighbourhood of Batavia. The fortification had been projected and finished by General Daendals, who had lavished all the resources of military talent on a situation extremely strong by nature; but the Malay troops, though bold, and trained in European tactics, were unable to stand against the assault of our veteran regiments, assisted by the Indian troops, who emulated their companions in arms; and after a severe and bloody attack, their entrenchments were successively carried, and their remaining detached corps were in a few days either destroyed or forced to capitulate. This affair decided the fate of the Dutch empire in the east, as in the capitulation were included their various settlements in the Indian seas. The course of operations had carried the admiral to the port of Sumbaya, the most eastern establishment on the island, and there, when the arrangements were finally closed, I received the command of the Hesper, sloop of war. The climate and hard
