Naval battles of the world

by Edward Shippen

Scarcely had these left the deck when the Master was shot through the head, and instantly killed. The only surviving Lieutenant, who had left his sick bed to take part in the defence, was now wounded in the head.

The gunner at this moment came on deck, and reported the ship on fire below and abaft, which so alarmed the uninjured portion of the crew, on account of the neighborhood of the magazine, that they left their quarters on the gun-deck, and went below.

The fire was occasioned by some cartridges which had been carelessly left upon the rudder head, and which, on the discharge of a gun through the cabin window or stern port, into the bows of the Bayonnaise, had exploded, badly wounding every man at the gun, besides blowing out a part of the Ambuscade’s stern, and destroying the boat which was hanging there.

In the height of all this confusion on board the Ambuscade the French soldiers, who, throughout, had behaved splendidly, charged across the bowsprit of their vessel, which formed a bridge to the quarter-deck of the Ambuscade, now undefended, and, after a short struggle on the main deck, found themselves in possession of the frigate. There is no doubt that this result was most humiliating to a nation who had grown to consider themselves irresistible by sea, when the odds were not too great. The great advantage of the Ambuscade, her gun force, was not made the most of; and although she was evidently the faster vessel, the Frenchman, from superior tactics, was enabled to make his superiority in musketeers tell. In fact, the whole story shows that the English ship was sadly deficient in discipline and drill. It was immediately given out that the majority of her crew “were the scum of the British navy,” but the great trouble appears to have been with the captain himself. This officer had been promoted to the command of the Ambuscade from the Carnatic, 74, where he had been first lieutenant, and he had brought with him from that ship a party of seamen whom he chose to call the “gentlemen Carnatics,” and distinguishing those men whom he found on board the frigate by the very opprobrious epithet of “blackguard Ambuscades.” One can hardly speak calmly of the fact that such an idiot as this was placed in such a responsible position; and, as he himself had raised two parties in his ship, the only wonder is that she made so good a defence. When Captain Jenkins and his surviving officers and ship’s company were, some months later, exchanged, a court-martial was, of course, held upon him, for the loss of the Ambuscade. The Captain was suffering still from the effects of his dreadful wound, and he and the rest were acquitted, in spite of the evidence showing that his ship was in bad discipline, and that the action had been conducted in a lubberly manner, on the part of the English, from first to last. No questions appear to have been pressed as to why the Bayonnaise’s character was not earlier ascertained, whereby confusion would have been avoided in the opening of the engagement, and the Ambuscade might have obtained the weather-gage, and kept her adversary from boarding; while in that position, her superiority in metal should have told. It was proved that the hammocks were not in the nettings, in spite of the musketry being so much used, and other equally shameful points were made manifest. Yet Jenkins was acquitted, and the sentence of the court avoided even naming the ship by which he had been captured. The French took their prize into Rochefort, and great were the rejoicings, not without cause, for a French corvette had captured an English frigate. Richer was promoted by the French Directory, over one grade, to that of Capitaine de Vaisseau, and the crew properly rewarded. The gallant officer in command of the troops, to whom so much of the credit of the action is due, was killed on the Bayonnaise’s deck.

SIR SIDNEY SMITH AND HIS SEAMEN AT ACRE. A.D. 1799.

In March, 1799, Commodore Sir William Sidney Smith, in command of the English 74-gun ship, Tigre, then lying off Alexandria, was invested by the British government with the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary to the Sublime Porte.

In consequence of an express received from Achmed Djezzar, Governor of Syria, with the information that Bonaparte had invaded that country, and had carried Jaffa by storm, and that the French were also preparing an expedition by sea, Sir Sidney sent off the Theseus, Captain Miller, to Acre, as well as a small vessel to reconnoitre the Syrian coast and rejoin the Theseus at Caïffa.

Acre was the next town and fortified place on the coast, north of Jaffa, and was in a bay of the same name, the southern port of which was the headland celebrated from very ancient times as Mount Carmel. The bay is very much exposed to winds from every quarter but the east and south, and at all times is a rough and uncertain anchorage. Just within the southern cape of Carmel, where the Mount drops away and the country becomes flat, is the town of Haïffa or Kaïffa, and beyond that, at the turn of the bay, before one comes to Acre, is the mouth of the river Kishon. This mouth, except when the river is in flood, is obstructed by sand bars, and is generally to be forded, with care.