It was on Monday, the 6th February 1804, that the Hussar made sail from Ares Bay in Spain, being bound for England with despatches, from our commodore Sir Edward Pellew, and with orders first to communicate with our Channel Fleet off Brest. We had a fresh breeze from the S.W.; and on the succeeding day (Tuesday, 7th) the wind and weather were nearly the same. At noon, to the best of my recollection, we were in lat. 46° 50´, Ushant bearing N. 37° E., distant 113 or 114 miles.

On Wednesday (8th) the wind and weather were the same, and we were steering, as nearly as I can recollect, N.E. by E., and running nine knots an hour. Every heart was elated with the joyful expectation of being safely moored in a few hours in the land of liberty. Some were employed in writing to their friends and relatives; but, alas! how frail and delusive are the hopes of man! How differently had our lot been decreed! The happy arrival, with many, never took place. With all the others it was long delayed; and the vicissitudes and miseries we were doomed to suffer will amply appear in the subsequent pages.[Pg -498]

It was upon this fatal Wednesday, at about 10.45 P.M., whilst steering this course of N.E. by E., and running at the rate of about seven knots an hour, in dark and hazy weather, the Hussar struck upon the southernmost point of the Saintes. We beat over an immense reef of rocks, carried away our tiller in several pieces, unshipped the rudder, and, from the violence of beating over the reef, we damaged the ship’s bottom so considerably that the leak became very serious. At length we got into deep water, and let go our bower anchors, to prevent being dashed to pieces on the immense rocks ahead. We got our top-gallant yards and masts on deck, and used every possible means to lighten the ship. The greater part of the crew were kept at the pumps; whilst the remainder, with the officers, were employed in staving the water-casks in the hold, in shoring the ship up, as the ebb tide was making and she was inclining to starboard, and in doing all that was deemed expedient to the safety of the ship. All was unavailing. The carpenter reported that she was bilged; and we could distinctly hear the rocks grinding and working through her as the tide fell.

At daylight Mr. Weymouth (the master) was sent to sound for a passage amongst the rocks, on the supposition that we might be able to buoy the ship through, but he returned without success; though, had he accomplished it, from the state the ship was in, there could have been little hope of getting her out. A division of the seamen and marines, with their respective officers, was then ordered to take possession of the island, that in the last extremity there might be an asylum secured for the men and officers. The rest of the crew remained at the pumps, but with no success, as the leak kept gaining upon them. The island was taken without any opposition, the only people on it being a few distressed fishermen and their families.

About 11 A.M. we began to land the crew, no hopes remaining of being able to save our ship. However, the remainder of the people kept still working at the pumps, waiting the return of the boats. At noon, the flood making strongly, and we fore-reaching withal, Captain Wilkinson gave directions to let go the sheet-anchor, which was immediately done. Strong gales from S.W.

February 9th.—By about 1 P.M. everybody was safely landed, with two or three pigs and some biscuit, which were the only subsistence we had secured. Captain Wilkinson and Mr. Weymouth came in the last boat. At about 1.30 P.M. Lieutenant Pridham, with Messrs. Carey, Simpson, and Thomas (three warrant-officers), and myself, were ordered by the captain to return to the ship, to cut her masts away, and destroy everything we could possibly get at. On our arrival on board, the water was nearly square with the combings of the lower deck. At about 3.30 P.M. we quitted her, having executed with the greatest accuracy the duty we were ordered upon: the wind still increasing, left us but little hope of her hanging together for the night.

We joined the officers and crew in a small church; and this was the only place on the island where we could conveniently take up our residence. The weather was excessively inclement during the night. At daylight, discovering the ship still apparently whole, Captain Wilkinson despatched Mr. Pridham and Mr. Mahoney (master’s mate), with a party of men, to destroy her by fire. The other officers and people were employed in equipping thirteen fishing-boats, which belonged to the inhabitants,[3] for the purpose of transporting the ship’s company, either to our fleet off Brest or to England, as circumstances might admit. Mr. Pridham and his party returned, and the report of the ship’s guns announced the execution of the duty they had been sent upon.

On the 10th, at about 1.30 P.M., our boats were in readiness, it then blowing hard from the S.W. We all embarked in them. I had the honour to command one, with twenty-five men; Captain Wilkinson, with the master, leading in the barge, which was the only ship’s boat in company. We made sail out of the little creeks in which the boats had been moored, the sea running excessively high, and at about two the barge hauled up to the N.W. We all, of course, followed. About 2.30 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon we bore up again. Several of the boats were in distress, being very badly found, having neither sails, rigging, nor ground tackling that could be at all trusted to. Lieutenants Pridham and Lutwidge (who remained prisoners of war until the peace of 1814), and Lieutenant Barker (who was afterwards killed in a duel at Verdun), were to keep ahead, as no other boat had compasses. At about five, in a very severe squall with rain, we lost sight of the barge. Everybody in our boat was of opinion that she had been upset; and at 5.30 P.M., it blowing extremely hard, with a heavy shower of rain, we lost sight of all the boats. At about six we observed St. Matthew’s Light[4] on the weather bow. The wind now chopped round to the N.W., in a very heavy squall, which carried away our mainmast in the step[5] and fore-tye, and very nearly swamped us, having almost filled the boat with water. We chipped the heel of the mainmast, restepped it, and rove the main-tye and halliards forward, which enabled us to set the foresail, and keep scudding before the wind to Rock Fort, with the expectation of falling in with some of the other boats; but in this we were disappointed. At eleven we determined to anchor at the bottom of Bertheaume Bay, though with very little or no hope of riding long, our only ground tackling being a small grapnel and a very few fathoms of one inch and a half rope.

We providentially succeeded in bringing up, though we were, unfortunately, too near the shore and most miserably situated: the weather tide, running strongly against a violent gale from the N.W., occasioned such a sea as to bury us frequently in its abyss.

At 2 A.M., the sea breaking in a most terrific manner over us, and finding that we were driving and almost touching abaft, expecting every second to be dashed on the rocks astern of us, we hauled in briskly on the grapnel rope, hoisted the foresail and wore round, paying out the grapnel rope just hauled in, until we brought it right over the quarter, which enabled us to get our grapnel on board with ease; then we stood over to the Camaret Bay side, in the hope of falling in with some little haven to shelter us, or with one of the other boats; but we were disappointed in either expectation.

At about 4.30 A.M., finding we advanced towards Brest Harbour considerably, we resolved to try the grapnel once more; although we were not in the smallest degree sheltered from the inclemency of the weather, and were placed immediately under a fort, which we distinguished by its lights, that enabled us to see the sentinels on their posts walking to and fro. We made, if possible, worse weather here than at our former anchorage, with the exception that the grapnel held. At 7.30 A.M. the wind and weather became more inclement than on the preceding night. Not a boat of ours was in sight, every minute we expected to be hailed by the fort, and not a soul amongst us could speak a word of French. We were almost perishing and starved from the fatigue and sufferings of the night, the few provisions we had being totally destroyed by the salt water. Seeing no alternative but the pain and mortification of delivering myself and my boat’s crew prisoners of war, I came at length to that resolution. Accordingly I ordered all the small arms in my boat to be hove overboard, and at eight cut the grapnel rope, and ran into Brest Harbour under the foresail.

Imagining that the boat’s crew and myself might be better received and treated on board the commander-in-chief’s ship than in a private vessel, I went alongside the Alexandre, which ship bore his flag, and I surrendered myself and my crew as prisoners of war.