Shortly after their arrival before Hamburgh, a division of these gun-boats, under Commander Marshall and Lieutenant Edgecombe, in flanking a reconnoissance of the troops investing Haarburgh, had some sharp firing with the enemy’s batteries, during which one of them was sunk, but no loss in men sustained.
Although the allies entered Paris on the 30th March, the restoration of Louis XVIII. was not fully known before Hamburgh until late in April when the Count de Bennigsen lost no time in sending a summons to Davoust. After this, it was evident that great excitement existed in the city, Napoleon’s colours being hoisted on several of the forts, while others displayed those of Louis. Under these circumstances, Lieutenant Woollnough was directed to go in with a flag of truce, bearing a letter from Commander Marshall, sanctioning, on the part of England, the convention by which Hamburgh was to be surrendered. He was also directed to insist on the flotilla being considered an independent co-operating force, and not at the disposal of the Count de Bennigsen, as the Russian officers had affected to represent it. In this Mr. Woollnough perfectly succeeded.
After the embarkation of the French army, the charge of the arsenal at Hamburgh was given to Commander Banks; and Lieutenant Woollnough was sent with some gun-boats to Gluckstadt, to claim the brass guns and mortars belonging to that fortress, and to equip and bring away the late Danish flotilla. On his arrival at Stadt, he had the mortification to find that the transports which were to have received the guns, &c., had sailed for England; and at Gluckstadt, where he was left with only twelve seamen (the Danes, Hanoverians, and Russians having all been discharged,) every possible obstable was thrown in his way. On the 19th May, 1814, Commander Marshall, then at Altona, wrote to him as follows:–
