The trembling seaman. Storms afar
Thicken to mock thy strength: beware.
Thou, who wast late my anxious fear,
Thou now my fondest, tenderest care:
O shun, dear Ship, those tossing seas
Which part the white-cliff’d Cyclades!
[Muskein was an inhabitant of Antwerp, whom the Directory not only appointed to superintend the construction of the flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of Great Britain (usually called by the French sailors “bateaux à la Muskein”), but made a “capitaine de vaisseau”. An attack was ordered to be made upon the two small islands of Saint Marcouf (each not more than 200 yards in length), of which, in July, 1795, Sir Sidney Smith, with the Diamond frigate, had taken unobstructed possession, and which were considered to give to the English great facility in intercepting between the ports of Havre and Cherbourg. The islands are situated off the river Isigny, on the coast of Normandy, and about four miles distant from the French shore. After being garrisoned with about 500 seamen and marines, including a great proportion of invalids, these small islands were placed under the command of Lieut. Charles Papps Price, of The Badger, a cruiser-converted Dutch hoy, mounting four, or at most six, guns.
On the 8th April, 1798, Muskein, with 33 flat-bottomed boats, with a body of troops on board, and a few gun-brigs, was about to make a combined attack on the two islands, but was driven off by two British frigates, The Diamond, Capt. Sir R. J. Strachan, and The Hydra, Capt. Sir Francis Laforey, and stood into Caen river. While there for three weeks, repairing damages, he was joined by seven heavy gun-brigs, and about 40 flat-boats and armed fishing vessels, bringing with them additional troops.
On the 6th May, Lieut. Price received information that an attack was meditated during the night. By 10 p.m., owing to the prevailing calm, the small naval force on the station, consisting of the 50–gun ship, Adamant, Capt. Wm. Hotham, 24–gun ship, Eurydice, Capt. John Talbot, and 18–gun brig-sloop, Orestes, Capt. W. Haggitt, had not been able to approach nearer to the islands than six miles—precisely what the assailants wanted. The attacking force consisted of 52–gun brigs and flat-bottomed boats, having on board, as was reported, about 6000 men. At day-break, on the 7th, the flotilla was seen drawn up in a line opposite to the south-west front of the western redoubt; and instantly was opened, upon the brigs and flats composing it, a fire from 17 pieces of cannon, consisting of four 4, two 6, and six 24 pounder long guns, and three 24 and two 32–pounder carronades, being all the guns that would bear. The brigs remained at a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, in order to batter the redoubt with their heavy long guns, while the boats, with great resolution, rowed up until within musket-shot of the battery. But the guns of the latter, loaded with round, grape, and canister, soon poured destruction amongst these, cutting several of the boats “into chips,” and compelling all that could keep afloat to seek their safety in flight. Six or seven boats were seen to go down, and one small flat, No. 13, was afterwards towed in, bottom upwards. She appeared, by some pieces of paper found in her, to have had 144 persons on board, including 129 of the second company of the Boulogne battalion.
The loss sustained by the British garrison amounted to one private-marine killed, and two private-marines and two seamen wounded. According to one French account, the invaders lost about 900 in killed or drowned, and between 300 and 400 wounded. As a reward for their conduct on this occasion, Lieutenants Price and Bourne were each promoted to the rank of Commander. The former died a Post Captain, at Hereford, in 1813, aged 62.—James’s Naval History, vol. ii., pp. 128–131: ed. 1886.—Ed.]