Returning to Naples, an embarkation took place against Gaieta on the 30th of July, where they landed on the 3d of August, gained possession of its gates on the next day, and upon the 5th, delivered up the town to the loyal subjects of his Majesty the King of Naples.
The retreat of the French armies was felt throughout Italy, and their disasters roused the Tuscans to arms, who drove them from their bosom. Florence was abandoned, and Leghorn was evacuated; but Rome was unsubdued. Its besiegers had been driven from its walls, and every effort to reduce it was ineffectual. It did not, however, resist against the tenders of British honour; for on Captain Trowbridge appearing off the mouth of the Tiber, and a summons being sent to General Garnier, he agreed to surrender Rome, Civita Vechia, and every dependency within the state, to that Commander.
Some Seamen, and the Marines of the Culloden and Minotaur, occupied Corneto and Tolsa, as well as Civita Vechia, during the 29th and 30th of September, while the enemy, amounting to 5000, were sent off, agreeable to the terms of capitulation.
Captain Trowbridge maintained the acknowledged faith of his Country, in every article, with a dignity becoming the high character in which he stood. Colonel Strickland supported that discipline in his Corps, which must have ensured success against a contending enemy. This train of important services, derives a double merit, from that rapidity with which they were performed.
During the present year Earl St. Vincent resigned the command of the Mediterranean Fleet. The system by which he maintained its good order, is worthy of being adopted by every Officer in the British Navy.
One of the most gallant boarding contests took place upon that station, during the day of the 9th of June, which appears on the face of this war. It was cutting out a Spanish polacre of 10 guns and 113 men, from the port of La Selva, supported by a heavy battery, and a large body of men under arms on the shore, by the boats of the Success, carrying only 42 men.
Lieuts. Facey and Stupart, of the Navy, and Lieut. Davison, of my Corps, headed this daring enterprize. They were all distinguished; but limiting the detail of it to my peculiar province, I am led to notice the cool courage of that promising brother Officer, who, taking a steady aim with a pistol amidst this confused scene, shot a Swiss Soldier in the mouth, who had levelled his musket at Mr. Pomeroy Peter, a brave young Midshipman, in the act of boarding over a high close netting. Mr. Peter did the rest with a pike. A gallant Marine, Thomas Needham, having his right arm broken by a grape shot, on being asked by Lieutenant Facey, if it was not disabled? answered "Yes, but, thank God, I can pull a trigger with my right, and with my left hand I can still manage a cutlass." In this state he continued to fight until the vessel was carried.
In the West Indies the Dutch Colony of Surinam was taken without opposition. Lieutenant M'Gee, of Marines, and his party from the Trent, behaved most handsomely, in union with their brethren the Seamen, by storming a battery in a bay near Cape Roso, and afterwards bringing from under it a large Spanish ship and schooner.
It was on the morning of the 25th of October that Captain (now Sir Edward) Hamilton, at the head of 100 Seamen and Marines, attacked and carried the Hermione, of 44 guns, after having killed and wounded 216 men, with the single loss of Lieutenant J. Busey, acting Lieutenant of the Surprize. After the greatest feats of valour in all, he brought her out from under the formidable batteries of Porto Cavallo. John Ingram and Joseph Titley, private Marines, were wounded upon this honorable occasion, which sufficiently speaks its own praise.
In the East, La Forte, of 50 guns, was captured by the British Sybille, after a desperate resistance, during which Captain Cooke unfortunately fell.