Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p2.djvu/301

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WILLIAM CHARLES FAHIE, ESQ.
717

after an action of 42 minutes, captured l’Armée d’Italie, French privateer, of 18 guns and 117 men; of whom 6 were killed and 5 wounded. The Perdrix had only one man wounded. We next find him. in the Hyaena, of 28 guns, escorting a fleet of merchantmen from England to the Leeward Islands. In the summer of 1805, he was appointed to the Amelia frigate, and from her removed into the Ethalion, in which ship he assisted at the capture of the Danish West India Islands, in Dec. 1807[1].

Captain Fahie’s next appointment was to the Belleisle, of 74 guns, one of the squadron employed at the reduction of Martinique, in Feb. 1809[2]. He subsequently commanded the Pompée, another line-of-battle ship; and on the 10th April, after a long and arduous pursuit, and close action of an hour and a quarter, in which he was partially joined by the Castor frigate, captured the French ship Hautpoult, of 74 guns and 680 men, between 80 and 90 of whom were killed and wounded. The loss sustained by the British amounted to 11 slain and 41 wounded; among the latter were Captain Fahie and his first Lieutenant. The Hautpoult was a perfectly new ship, and had sailed from l’Orient in the month of February preceding, in company with two other 74’s and two frigates, expressly for the relief of Martinique. Captain Fahie was soon after appointed to the command of his prize, whose name was changed to the Abercromby, on her being taken into the British navy.

Early in 1810, an armament under the orders of Sir Alexander Cochrane and Lieutenant-General Beckwith, proceeded against Guadaloupe; the surrender of which colony on the 6th Feb., was quickly followed by that of the islands of St. Martin, St. Eustatia, and Saba. This latter service was, in conjunction with Brigadier-General Harcourt, most ably performed by Captain Fahie, to whom Sir Alexander had given the temporary rank of Commodore during the expedition.

Soon after this event, by which the flags of France and Holland were expelled from the Antilles, our officer returned to England. He continued to command the Abercromby, on the Lisbon station and in the Channel, during the remainder