Watchful and Pincher, enabled them to do this most conspicuously; and I am sure with the greatest effect. Nothing could excel the Arab, whose draught of water made her closing with thetn still more difficult.
“Of the conduct of Lieutenant Marshall on former occasions I have had to speak, and you, Sir, know full well the high opinion I had of this most estimable officer. It was his fate to fall; and no one could fall more admired, or more regretted. I can say nothing which will do justice to my feeling of his merit; his vessel was still conducted well by the Sub-Lieutenant.
“My own ship’s company and officers acted fully up to every good opinion I had formed of them; they were cool and steady. I have so frequently spoken of Lieutenant Payne’s merits, that it is needless to say more than that I had his assistance: he and every officer was what I have always found them. Mr. Taper, the Master, merits my warmest approbation, for the coolness and steadiness with which he directed the ship’s course along shore.
“Of the enemy’s loss in such an action it is impossible to judge; but from the direction of the shot, and every thing of which I could form a supposition, it must have been very great. I have the honour to be, Sir,
(Signed)“E. W. C. R. Owen.”
“To Billy Douglas, Esq.
Rear-Admiral of the White.”
The Immortalité on this occasion had her fore-mast, main-top-mast, spanker-boom, and three boats shot through; her rigging and sails much cut; her hull struck in several places; two carronades disabled; 4 men killed and 12 wounded, several of them severely. The damages sustained by her consorts, will be noticed in the memoirs of their respective commanders or senior surviving officers.
The decisive trial that was intended to have been made of Mr. Congreve’s rockets, in Nov. 1805, having been thwarted by the too advanced season of the year, the ensuing winter was employed in preparations for returning to the charge in the spring: but this attempt was almost as ill-fated as the first. No sooner was all in readiness at the proper season, than negociations for peace were act on foot, and the passage of our Plenipotentiary was counted a sufficient reason for tacitly suspending hostilities against Boulogne, and the summer of 1806 was consequently consumed in the journies of messengers; till at length, on the 8th Oct., the Earl of Lauderdale being then known to have quitted Paris re infecta, Captain Owen, who had some time before hoisted a broad
