The Crescent lost her fore-top-mast; her sails and rigging were much damaged, but very few shot struck her hull; and the only man hurt was at the first broadside, when his leg was fractured by the recoil of a gun.
La Réunion, on the contrary, had many shot in her hull, and her stern was very much shattered. After she was in dock, we saw where a shot had entered the starboard quarter, and made its way out of the larboard bow. It was said to have killed and wounded twenty-one men! The head of her rudder and wheel were shot away, and the fore-yard and main-topsail-yard came down early in the action: she was, in short, a complete wreck, as represented in the plate. The hopes that the ship seen to the eastward under the land was a friend, induced the French captain to delay surrendering after defence could no longer be effectual.
The head-money was only paid for three hundred men; but there was no doubt that three hundred and twenty-one were on board at the commencement of the action, as many of the slain were thrown overboard, and the French officers, for obvious reasons, wished to make their force less than it was. According to Captains Tancock and Mansell, forty men were killed, and eighty wounded. The cutter which was in company, believed to be L'Espérance, mounting fourteen guns, made off for Cherbourg with sweeps and sails as soon as the firing commenced. La Réunion's consort, believed to be the Semillante, made an attempt to get out of Cherbourg, but was prevented by the tide, when she sent a boat full of men, it was supposed, to reinforce the former, but which returned when it was observed that her fate was decided. The French shore, only five miles distant, was crowded with spectators.
There is no action between two single ships on record, where consummate skill in naval tactics has been so brilliantly and successfully displayed as in that which we have just described. The patriotic reader must not imagine that, because the Crescent had "none" either killed or wounded, the captain and officers of La Réunion did not do their utmost, and far less that they were deficient in courage. The severe loss they sustained, and the obstinacy with which their ship was defended, has fully proved their bravery. Had the Crescent at once boarded the Réunion, which was in her power, and carried her sword in hand, as in the case of the Nymphe and Cléopâtre, it would have been perhaps better calculated to excite feelings of admiration in the general reader, who is not acquainted with naval affairs; but this mode of attack is one which, we must acquaint them, might readily be made by any officer moderately skilled in naval tactics. It is where the commander of a ship, by his presence of mind and skilful manœuvring, succeeds in the defeat and capture of an enemy, that the superiority is manifest; and it is to him who has thus proved that he possesses the tact to accomplish his object, and yet spare the valuable lives of his men, that the meed of praise is most justly due.
Crescent, Spithead, 23rd October 1793.
Sir,
I beg you will be pleased to inform my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty of my arrival at Spithead in H.M. ship Crescent, under my command, and the prize La Réunion, and from thence into Portsmouth Harbour, conformable with orders from Sir Peter Parker.
I have the honour to be,
Your obedient humble servant,
James Saumarez.
To Philip Stephens, Esq.