ment of Fort Dauphine. The rest of the ships being to ice ward and unable to work up against the current, the Garland was ordered to examine her, and stood in shore for that purpose; but when arrived within a mile of the enemy, she unfortunately struck with great violence upon a pointed rock, fifteen feet under water, unshipped her tiller, and before Captain Wood could run her into an opening in the reef, had settled so far that the water was rushing through the midship ports on the main-deck and the hawse holes. He however succeeded in saving the whole of her crew, rigging, and stores.
The enemy, instead of a frigate, proved to be a large merchant ship, pierced for 24 guns, with a complement of 150 men. She ran ashore on the approach of the Garland; but perceiving the disaster that had befallen that ship, the Frenchmen pushed off in their boats, and endeavoured to recover the possession of their deserted vessel. Very luckily, the Garland’s boats, being to windward, first reached and secured her; a circumstance which proved of essential service to Captain Wood and his crew, during their continuance at Madagascar. This event occured July 26, 1798.
Having succeeded in his endeavours to conciliate the natives, our officer had most of the Frenchmen delivered up to him as prisoners; and, while he remained upon the island, was well supplied with every thing that it afforded. He had built one vessel of 15 tons burthen, and made considerable progress in the construction of another to carry his men to the Cape of Good Hope; when, at the expiration of four months, the Star sloop of war made her appearance at St. Luce, and in her, the French prisoners were conveyed to the Isle of France; the Garland's officers and men returning to the Cape in their prize, and some small vessels taken by the squadron under Commodore Osborne[1].
On Captain Wood’s arrival in England he was appointed to the Acasta, one of the finest frigates in the navy, in which he went to the Mediterranean with despatches relative to the treaty of Amiens. On his return, he was re-commissioned to
- ↑ During Captain Wood's continuance at Madagascar, he surveyed the coast from Fort Dauphiné to St. Luce, and about three miles to the southward of the latter place discovered an anchorage within the reef, sufficient to contain a numerous fleet of line-of-battle ships.
