ment of the present service, embracing duties of perhaps as severe and harassing a nature as ever were experienced by either sailors or soldiers, and under privations of the most trying nature. Any number of Malay sailors you may require, to assist in navigating the Larne to Penang, are at your service.
At the request of Sir Archibald, Captain Marryat left Lieutenant Dobson, with sixteen of the Larne’s crew, and nine supernumerary seamen belonging to the Alligator, in charge of the armed transport Satellite, stationed at Pagoda Point, where he had been for several weeks, “performing the anxious and important duties imposed upon him, in every respect as a valuable officer[1].”
On the 11th September, the Arachne was reported off the bar. Captain Marryat, with only 27 of his original ship’s company, including officers, on board, was then dropping down from Rangoon; but he deferred quitting the river for two days, in order to give Captain Chads every information in his power. At this period, the European portion of the army fit for active service in the field was reduced to less than 1500 men. Seven hundred and forty-nine British soldiers had fallen victims to the climate, and upwards of 1000 were in the hospitals. Nearly one-fourth of the Sophie’s crew had died, and as many more were sick.
We must here remark, that the command held by Captain Marryat, under such peculiar circumstances, from May 31st to Sept. 11th, 1824, was so important, that, had it been in time of extended war, it would, in all probability, have been delegated to a flag-officer; that, during a period so novel and trying to a young commander, he never once incurred censure ; and that he did not give over the charge to Captain Ryves until the enemy had been so decidedly repulsed that Sir Archibald Campbell officially stated to him his conviction that the Sophie and Satellite were sufficient protection for the shipping. His various official reports were transmitted to the Admiralty, with the following letter from
- ↑ In order to give protection to boats passing up and down the Rangoon river, gun-vessels, with ten sepoys in each, were anchored off all the creeks, from the bar to Pagoda Point.
