mission as a Commander bears date April 29, 1802; at which period he was appointed to the Bonne Citoyenne sloop of war, on the Mediterranean station.
The Bonne Citoyenne being paid off in 1803, Captain Carteret remained on half pay till the spring of 1804, when he received an appointment to the Scorpion brig of 18 guns, employed in the North Sea, where he captured, April 11, 1805, l’Honneur, Dutch national schooner, of 12 guns, having on board 1000 stand of arms, a complete set of cloathing for that number of men, and a considerable quantity of warlike stores, including two 12-pounder field-pieces, 2 mortars, tents for troops, &c. Among the prisoners taken on this occasion, was M. Jean Saint-Faust, member of the Legion of Honor, a person long noted for his successful depredations on British commerce, and considered by Napoleon Buonaparte as one of the most brave, able, and enterprising officers in the French or Batavian service. He was going to Curaçoa, there to assume the command of a Dutch naval force, and from thence to attack, by a coup-de-main, some of our West India possessions. L’Honneur was also charged with important despatches, which the enemy endeavoured In vain to destroy[1].
Captain Carteret was advanced to post rank, Jan. 22, 1806; but being then absent on foreign service, a variety of circumstances, of which the following is an outline, prevented him from leaving the Scorpion until the spring of 1807.
Having received orders, when on the eve of promotion, to join Sir Alexander Cochrane at the Leeward Islands, Captain Carteret proceeded thither, and was employed by that officer on various services, in the course of which he had the good fortune to be mainly instrumental in saving a valuable fleet of merchantmen from being captured by a French squadron, under the orders of Rear-Admiral Villaumez, who had arrived at Martinique on the 20th June, 1806; and the better to conceal
- ↑ Mons. Saint-Faust commanded the four Dutch vessels mentioned in our memoir of the late Captain Alexander Campbell. See Vol. II. Part II. p. 902.
