the Amphion; as did also a battery of 16 long 24-pounders to the left of the town, another called Fort Bouton, and a low battery of 8 heavy guns at the starboard entrance of the bay. This fire Captain Hoste returned on different tacks, while working to windward. At 11 a.m., finding the fire of the British frigate, as she closed, getting too warm, the Baleine slipped and ran on shore.
At 11-30 a.m. Captain Hoste shortened sail, and anchored with two springs, in-shore of the spot on which the enemy had been riding. Having veered to a whole cable, he then commenced a smart fire, within point-blank shot, upon the ship, the fort, and the other batteries: this fire they all returned, and presently cut away the Amphion’s jib-stay. At about 30 minutes past noon, her starboard quarter hammocks and main-top-mast-stay-sail were set on fire by the enemy’s hot shot; and at 1 p.m. a small explosion took place in the marines’ arm-chest, but fortunately injured no one. At 1-30, the Baleine herself caught fire abaft, and a part of her men began leaping overboard and swimming to the rocks. Believing that the crew were abandoning her, Captain Hoste despatched his first lieutenant, Mr. William Bennett, in the jolly-boat to strike her colours; but no sooner had that officer arrived near the stern of the ship, than the enemy opened upon him a heavy fire of round, grape, and musketry. The Amphion instantly threw out a signal of recall, and the jolly-boat put back; Lieutenant Bennett, regardless of the shower of shot, standing up in the stern-sheets, and with his few men, giving the enemy three hearty cheers. At 2-20 p.m., finding that nothing further could be done, and the wind beginning to die away, the Amphion cut her cable and springs, and made sail out to sea. In this spirited little affair, she sustained no material damage, and had only one man killed, together with a few wounded. The loss on board, or the eventual fate, of the Baleine, we have no means of showing. It is a little singular, that Captain Hoste had been sent by Lord Collingwood to endeavour to capture the very same ship at her anchorage in Palma bay, Majorca; but, under an idea that she was a frigate of the largest class, he had been directed to take under
