owing to the eagerness of the gallant fellows employed on this service, so many men got on the first ladder at once that it broke under their weight, and only two were able to obtain a footing on the wall. These (a boatswain’s-mate of the Undaunted, and a marine) were furiously attacked by 40 French soldiers: the sailor was overpowered, and the enemy were dragging him to the oven then lighted for heating shot, when the brave marine fortunately extricated himself, flew to the assistance of his companion, bayoneted two of the Frenchmen, and succeeded in releasing the tar. Notwithstanding their apparently desperate situation, the two Britons now became the assailants; and, incredible as it may appear, their forty opponents not only cried for quarter, but were actually placed in confinement before a single man mounted the second ladder. Speaking of the affair at Port Nouvelle, Captain Ussher says:
“I should be wanting in duty, if I did not express my high sense of the discretion and gallant conduct of the officers and men of the Undaunted, who, in the short time she has been under my command, have taken or destroyed, principally in the boats, seventy of the enemy’s vessels, and with comparatively a very small loss. It affords me very great pleasure to state, that only one man was wounded on this occasion.”
Captain Ussher was next employed as senior officer of the squadron left by Sir Edward Pellew to watch the enemy’s fleet at Toulon, during the severe winter of 1813; and it is scarcely necessary to add, that that important trust could not have been confided to a more zealous and vigilant oflicer[1].
During the night of April 21st, 1814, being then a few leagues to the southward of Marseilles, with the Euryalus frigate in company, Captain Ussher perceived an extraordinary light in the direction of and over that town. Supposing from its brilliancy that the inhabitants were celebrating some joyful event, and having been apprised some days before that a great political change might soon be expected, he immediately stood in shore, under all sail, and at day-light, on the 22d, found himself close to the islands of Pomegue and Iff. The telegraphs, formerly so active on the approach of an enemy, were now apparently deserted; and as the batteries had no colours flying. Captain Ussher approached them with
