upon a French privateer, near Ancona. On the 24th Mar. in the same year, l’Unité’s eight-oared cutter, under his command, and unassisted by any other boat, captured a privateer of 2 guns and 36 men, after a sharp engagement. On the 5th May, he was engaged in cutting out several vessels from under batteries. On the 4th June, he was second in command of the boats at the attack and capture of three Turkish ships and several coasting vessels, under Cape Palero, on which occasion the enemy made a desperate resistance, and did not yield until thirty Mahometans were slain, and several of the assailants killed and wounded. On the 12th Jan. 1809, he led to the attack of six vessels in the harbour of Vieste, where they were protected by two batteries, and secured by cables from their masts’ heads to the shore; which, together with their rudders being unshipped, rendered it necessary to abandon them after they had been fairly carried. On the 23d April, he commanded in an attempt to cut off some vessels full of troops, from the island of Fano, near Corfu, under a heavy fire of musketry from the shore. On the 30th July, the boats, again under his command, sustained considerable loss in cutting out two large merchantmen from under the fort of Calanova.
In addition to the above, Mr. M‘Dougall, while serving as master’s-mate and acting lieutenant of l’Unité, assisted at the capture of a French national xebec and three Italian brigs, each of the latter mounting sixteen brass 32-pounder carronades, and destined to become British sloops of war[1]. Altogether he was eighteen times engaged with the enemy, and bore an active part in the storming of a fort and three batteries.
On l’Unité being ordered home, Mr. M‘Dougall was strongly recommended by Captain Campbell to Lord Collingwood, and for his conduct as a volunteer at the capture and destruction of a French convoy in the Bay of Rosas, Nov. 1st, 1809, he was promoted by his lordship into the Ville de Paris 110, from which ship, upon the demise of that gallant chief,
