remain in the bay of St. Jean de Luz, until the arrival of the officer charged with similar despatches from the triumphant Wellington.
Unfortunately, a dreadful gale of wind came on, while Lieutenant Branch was waiting for the military aide-de-camp; and of twenty-one sail then lying in the above bay, not a single vessel escaped destruction. The Gleaner was one of the first that suffered, owing to a transport driving on board; and tearing her down to the water’s edge: providentially she drifted athwart hawse of another transport, by which means the whole of her crew were that day saved. On the following day, the ship in which they were, having only one cable left, and that one already stranded, was obliged to cut, and run for the beach, at high water, as the sole chance of escape remaining for any one on board: the surf was then truly terrific; – yet, of so great a number of persons, not more than two were drowned.
Thus was Lieutenant Branch twice wrecked in the course of twenty-four hours, making the fifth time of his suffering in that way, without ever preserving an iota of his property.
The circumstances attending the loss of the Gleaner were, of course, investigated by a court-martial, when Lieutenant Branch was not only acquitted of all blame, but also strongly recommended to the favorable notice of the Admiralty, for his conduct on that occasion. On the 6th June in the same year (1814), he was at length promoted to the command of the Swinger sloop of war.
In this vessel (formerly rated a gun-brig, and as such commanded by a lieutenant), Captain Branch, while cruising on the coast of Dutch Guiana, engaged and completely silenced a large American privateer of nearly double his own force: owing, however, to the superior sailing and sweeping of the enemy’s vessel, he could not prevent her escape into the Oronoco river; but he had the satisfaction of knowing, that she arrived there in so crippled a state as to be immediately condemned and dismantled. His gallantry and perseverance, in this action and the subsequent chase, were so strongly represented by Sir Philip C. Durham, commander-in-chief at the
