At this moment, la Nymphe’s barge with 20 men, commanded by her first Lieutenant, Mr. Richard Standish Haly, hooked the Gavotte’s main-chains, which the bowmen let go again upon observing the gig shove off, and at the same time fancying they were ordered to do so likewise. La Nymphe’s launch, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Hodgskins, was now within a cable’s length of the brig; but the time that was unavoidably lost by the boats getting foul of each other, and the rapidity of the tide, then running at the rate of “seven knots an hour,” rendered it impossible to renew the attack with any prospect of success. Lieutenant Haly, however, did not relinquish the attempt until he had sustained some loss, one of his boat’s crew being killed, and a midshipman and one marine wounded.
Captain Pigot, ignorant of the death of his commanding officer, until he returned on board la Nymphe, assigned the following reasons for not boarding according to the abovementioned agreement:– that he did not understand he was to do so before the other boats came up – that his gig not being so well able to make way against the tide as Captain Shipley’s, induced him to keep nearer the opposite shore – and that, when he did approach the Gavotte, he found that all the boats had fallen down the river, and therefore concluded that the intention to attack her had been abandoned. Captain Shipley, on the other hand, adhering most strictly to what he considered a well-understood agreement, and only anxious that the two gigs should support each other, continually encouraged his men to pull strong, that Captain Pigot might not be left destitute of his assistance.
With respect to what happened immediately after Captain Shipley’s unfortunate death, no blame whatever can be ascribed to Lieutenants Haly and Hodgskins, the senior officers then present. We know that Mr. Charles Shipley, whose unbounded affection for his brother had prompted him to share the manifest dangers of such an enterprise, has always publicly declared that it is to be attributed to himself alone; because, not being a naval officer, (“nor even belonging to the naval profession,”) the moment he saw the gallant Con-
