length, after two ineffectual attempts, the French stormed Tariffa on the 19th, when Valdes and many of his adherents escaped to Tangier; but about 150 were made prisoners and taken to Algeziras, where O’Donell ordered 36 of them to be shot on the 23d and 24th of the same month. This merciless order was executed in sight of the Adventure; the rest of the unhappy captives were confined in dungeons to await a formal trial. One of the victims was a Gibraltar Jew, who, by an obsolete inquisition law, which on this occasion O’Donell revived, was sentenced to be burnt alive for appearing in Spain, unless he embraced Christianity: this the unfortunate wretch professed to do; but, after having gone through the forms of solemn abjuration, he was shot on the following morning. Nor was this all, for as if to brand the whole affair with infamy, a poor young woman, whose only crime was attachment to her husband, was put to death along with the others.
We next find Captain Smyth, conjointly with Captain H. E. P. Sturt, of the Phaeton frigate, receiving the thanks of the United States’ consul at Gibraltar, and of eleven masters of American merchantmen, for their prompt, though unavailing efforts, to save a ship in flames from destruction, on the 19th of Sept. 1824. About the same time, the Phaeton was struck by lightning, and set on fire, while lying in the new mole, alongside the Adventure.
Having completed his operations, which together with those of Captain Francis Beaufort, in the Archipelago and Asia Minor, and of Captain Guattier du Parc, in the Archipelago, Levant, and Black Sea, fix and determine every part of the Mediterranean and Euxine, from the Gut of Gibraltar to the Sea of Azof, Captain Smyth returned home, and the Adventure was paid off in November, 1824. On making an official report of what he had accomplished, he stated – “It is with pleasure I am able to add, that though, from the very nature of my mission, I have been obliged to hang on lee-shores and coasts, little known to, and therefore avoided by other navigators, this service has been effected, not only without the ship having touched the ground, but without the loss of a spar, a sail, a cable, or an anchor.”
