beneath the heavy and unremitting fire of the Peacock, no alternative remained but to strike the colours, to save the lives of the few remaining good men in the vessel. This was done at 11-5 a.m., after the firing had lasted an hour; during three quarters of which the combatants lay close together, and during more than half of which, owing to the defects in the brig’s armament, the successful party had it all to himself.
“Besides the damages already detailed, the Epervier had her fore rigging and stays shot away, her bowsprit badly wounded, and her foremast cut nearly in two, which nothing but the smoothness of the water saved from falling. Her hull, as may be imagined, was pierced with shot-holes, both above and below water. Her loss, out of a crew of 101 men and 16 boys, amounted to eight killed and mortally wounded, and fifteen severely and slightly wounded, including among the former her very gallant first lieutenant, John Hackett, who, about the middle of the action, had his left arm shattered, and received a severe splinter wound in the hip, but who yet would hardly suffer himself to be carried below. Captain Warrington states, we believe with truth, that the Peacock’s principal injury was the wound in her fore-yard. Not a shot, by his account, struck the ship’s hull, and her loss, out of a crew of 185 picked seamen, without a boy among them, amounted to only two wounded, neither of them dangerously.
“At the time she engaged the Peacock, the Epervier had but three men in a watch, exclusive of petty officers, able to take helm or lead; and two of her crew were each 70 years of age! She had some blacks, several other foreigners, lots of disaffected, and few even of ordinary stature: in short, the crew of the Epervier was a disgrace to the deck of a British man-of-war. We must be allowed to say, that, had her carronades been previously fired in exercise, for any length of time together, the defect in the clinching of her breeching bolts, a defect common to the vessels of this and the smaller classes, nearly all of them being contract-built, would have been discovered, and perhaps remedied. Even one or two discharges would have shown the insufficiency of the fighting-bolts. We doubt, however, if any teaching at the guns would have amended the Epervier’s crew; the men wanted, what nature alone could give them, the hearts of Britons.”
Captain Wales was promoted to post rank, while commanding the Childers brig, at the Leeward Islands, Jan. 1, 1817.
JOHN MACPHERSON FERGUSON, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1817.]
A younger son of the late celebrated Dr. Adam Ferguson, Professor of Mora! Philosophy in the University of Edin-
