1805.] THE "CLEOPATRA" AND THE "VILLE DE MILAN." 357 The damage which the San Fiorenzo had sustained rendered it impossible for her to pursue the Equivoque.1

Early on February 16th, the Cleopatra, 32, Captain Sir Robert Laurie, Bart., to the south-east of Bermuda, sighted the French Ville de Milan, 40, Captain J. M. Renaud, on her way from Martinique to France with despatches and orders not to speak any ship on her voyage. The Cleopatra gave chase, and, at about 11 A.M., ascertained that the French vessel was of very superior force. As the stranger did not shorten sail, Laurie resorted to the device of hoisting American colours; but the Ville de Milan paid no attention. The Cleopatra then made all possible sail and continued her pursuit all the 16th. At 10.30 A.M. on the 17th she was within threequarters of a mile. At about noon, the stranger hoisted French colours and the Cleopatra showed the British ensign. The British ship, then within long range, opened with her bow chasers, as the Ville de Milan seemed to draw ahead. The French vessel replied from time to time with those of her guns which would bear. The French fire was so well directed, and of such weight, that the Cleopatra, to avoid being continuously raked, was forced to steer for a point broad on the Ville de Milan's quarter. At last, at about 2.30 P.M., the Cleopatra closed to within a cable's length, whereupon the Ville de Milan luffed and fired two broadsides. The Cleopatra held her fire till only one hundred yards parted her from her enemy, and then began a close action in which she quite held her own. At length she knocked away the Ville de Milan's main topsail yard and at once shot ahead, though she herself had sustained very serious injuries to her masts, sails, and rigging. Her running rigging, in Laurie's words, was "cut to pieces so as to render it impossible to either shorten or back a sail, and both main and spring-stays were shot away." In such a plight he determined to attempt to rake the Ville de Milan by hauling up and crossing her bows. But, at the critical moment, a shot struck the wheel, jamming the broken spokes against the deck; and simultaneously the rudder-head was choked with splinters, and with a number of pistols which had been placed near it. Thus the Cleopatra was left ungovernable, at the mercy of her opponent. The Ville de Milan at once drove her bows upon the British ship abaft the main rigging; and her men, covered by a heavy fire of musketry, attempted to board. They were beaten back for the moment, and a hot fire was maintained by the Cleopatra's 1 Nav. Chron., xiv. 164; James, iv. 122; Troude, iii. 413; Chevalier, iii. 302.

small-arm men and by the only two guns which she could bring to bear, without, however, inflicting much of either loss or injury upon the enemy. The condition of the Cleopatra was, in fact, desperate. The French, from the fact that the Ville de Milan was a so much bigger and higher vessel, were able to fire down upon their enemy's deck and to clear it of men. At the same time, the great weight of the French frigate, pressing upon the Cleopatra's hull, threatened to break it in two at each heave of the ship. There was a heavy sea running, and the Cleopatra's sails were shivering or aback. At the suggestion of his first Lieutenant, William Balfour, Laurie ordered the fore topmast staysail and the spritsail to be set; but the order could not be obeyed, as every seaman who showed himself on deck was struck by the French bullets. At 5.15 P.M. the French boarded and carried the Cleopatra, then a complete wreck, and with more than one-fourth of her crew killed or wounded. Immediately after the surrender the bowsprit, and main and fore masts went by the board, leaving only the mizen mast standing.

The Ville de Milan, according to her captor's account, carried only long guns-twenty-six 18-prs. and twenty long 8-prs.; the Cleopatra carried twenty-six 12-prs., two 9-prs., and ten 24-pr. carronades a great part of her broadside being thus delivered from weapons of very limited range and power.

1 Including Lieuts. William Balfour, James Crooke, Charles Mitchell (actg.), and William Bowen (2) (supernumerary), and Lieut. Thomas Appleton, R.M.

The Ville de Milan had her captain killed, and her second in command wounded. Her main and mizen masts went by the board during the night after the action, and her hull was much cut up by the British shot. She was so much the stronger ship in every way that no surprise can be expressed at the result of the fight. Captain Laurie was probably led to conclude that his enemy was weakly manned or ill prepared for battle, by her seeming anxiety to get away when chased. His courage was fully rewarded when,

1805.]

CAPTURE OF THE "VILLE DE MILAN."

359

some days later, the Ville de Milan fell an easy victim to a larger British vessel, and the Cleopatra was recaptured.1

On February 23rd, the two vessels were sighted in squally weather by the Leander, 50, Captain John Talbot. The Cleopatra was jury rigged and had a French crew of 50 men on board; the Ville de Milan had been also in some measure refitted, with a topmast for mast and a top gallant mast for topmast The Leander, in these circumstances, being herself undamaged in masts and rigging, closed very rapidly upon the two. At 4 P.M. she was within range, whereupon the French frigate and her prize separated. The Leander pursued the Cleopatra, and, in half an hour, was within musket-shot of her. One gun was fired from the British 50-gun ship's lower deck, and the Cleopatra hauled down her colours. Several of the British crew on board her came on deck when she struck, and they were hailed by Talbot and directed to take possession of her and make all sail after the Leander, which gave chase to the Ville de Milan. In an hour's time the latter was overhauled, and struck at once, without a shot being fired on either side. Unquestionably this was due to the very severe handling which the Ville de Milan had sustained from the Cleopatra's guns. The French officers were enthusiastic and generous in their praise of Laurie and his crew. Though there was no real dishonour in the surrender of a virtually disabled vessel to a ship of superior force, perfectly fresh, French official accounts pretended that the 40-gun British frigate Cambrian had assisted the Leander in her capture of the Ville de Milan and Cleopatra. The Cambrian's log proves that she was at Bermuda at the date of the action. The Ville de Milan was purchased for the Navy and, under the name Milan, rated as a 38. Laurie was her first Captain.2

On March 20th, the Renard, 18, Commander Jeremiah Coghlan, to the north of Hayti, encountered the notorious French privateer Général Ernouf, 20 (ex Lily), and, after an action of thirty-five minutes' duration, set her on fire. Very little later the Général Ernouf blew up. Only 55 out of her crew of 160 could be saved by the British boats.3 Three days later, on the coast of Puerto Rico, the boats of the Stork, 18, Commander George Le Geyt, cut out the

1 James, iv. 124; Nav. Chron., xiii. 409; Troude, iii. 416.

2 Nav. Chron., xiii. 407; James, iv. 127; 'Précis des Evèn.,' xi. 259; Log of Cambrian; O'Byrne, 635, 1157.

3 James, iv. 129; Nav. Chron., xiii. 502.

Dutch privateer Antilope, 5, and a brig, with the loss of only two wounded.' On April 5th, the boats of the Bacchante, 22, Captain Charles Dashwood, were sent in to the small harbour of Mariel, in Cuba, to cut out three French privateers which had committed great depredations upon British trade. To secure a safe retreat it was necessary to carry a martello tower at the entrance to the harbour, forty feet high and loopholed for muskets. This was gallantly stormed by Lieutenant James Oliver and only thirteen men, without any loss, though in the tower were thirty-one Spanish soldiers. The British boats then pushed into the harbour, but found to their chagrin that the privateers had gone. They carried off, however, two sugar-laden schooners, and regained the Bacchante with the loss of but one man badly wounded.3

2

The constant recurrence of actions with privateers in the West Indies at about that time proves that such craft were both numerous and troublesome, though they seem rarely to have been able to make a good fight against British warships of anything like equal force. On April 8th, the schooner Gracieuse, 12, Midshipman John Bernhard Smith, after a smart exchange of fire, drove a French armed schooner ashore on the San Domingo coast. The Gracieuse sent in a boat, which removed from the schooner a long 12-pr. and burnt the wreck, and this with the loss of only 3 wounded.* On April 15th, the Papillon, 14, Commander William Woolsey, while lying in the Jamaican harbour of Savanna La Mar, placed twenty-five men under Lieutenant Peter Stephen Prieur on board a coasting vessel, which was borrowed for the purpose, and sent them out to capture a small Spanish privateer which was cruising off the west of the island. The coasting vessel was fallen in with by the privateer, which promptly lashed herself alongside. The British seamen as promptly boarded; and the enterprise had quite a different ending from that which the privateersmen had anticipated. The British loss was 2 wounded. The Spaniards, out of 25 men, had 7 killed or drowned and 8 wounded. On May 6th, off the island of San Domingo, in a dead calm, the Unicorn, 32, Captain Lucius

2 James wrongly ascribes the exploit to Lieutenant William Sandford Oliver.

3 James, iv. 130. Dashwood captured on April 3rd the Elizabeth, 10, and on May 14th the Felix, 6, both Spanish letters of marque. O'Byrne, 263; Nav. Chron., xiii. 496.

4 James, iv. 131.

5 James, iv. 132.

1805.]

SUCCESSFUL CRUISE OF THE "PALLAS."

361

Ferdinand Hardyman, sighted the French cutter-privateer Tape-àbord, and sent boats to capture her. In this they succeeded without loss. On May 27th, the boats of the Seine, 32, Captain David Atkins, captured a small armed schooner off the Puerto Rican coast, and later destroyed an armed felucca.2

Turning to a different field: on May 4th, the boats of the Seahorse, 38, Captain the Hon. Courtenay Boyle, cruising in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Spain, cut out an ordnance

brig, laden with powder and stores, from the harbour of San Pedro, while the frigate herself engaged three gunboats and two armed schooners. The Seahorse had one man killed.3

In March, 1805, the Pallas, 32, Captain Lord Cochrane, returned from a month's very successful cruise in the latitude of the Azores. She had taken several rich Spanish prizes, amongst them the Fortuna, with 432,000 dollars on board. This was the occasion Ib., iv. 133.

1 Nav. Chron., xiii. 503.

2

James, iv. 133.

3