agreed to furnish the rajah with a subsidiary force; but as the rajah dreaded to have any such arm, with its influences and necessities, within his territories, the negotiation came to nothing; and Lord Minto, with all his peaceful plans, next found himself embroiled in the district called Kotra. The town and district of this name are in Bundelcund, and situated eighty-four miles distant from Gwalior, on the right bank of the Betwa, a river which rises in Gundwana, and after a course of 350 miles, falls into the Jumna. A chief named Gopal Sing had usurped this place, though the legal heir, Rajah Bukht Sing, had been formally recognised by Sir George Barlow, "but more in mockery than in good faith, since on the principles of non-interference, he was denied the assistance necessary to make it effectual." Acting in a bolder spirit, Lord Minto sent a body of troops, to put him in possession, and Gopal Sing dared not resist them; yet he was too fearless a spirit to 417 remain tranquil under dispossession, and retiring to the neighbouring hills began a predatory warfare. on every hand, all the more successfully that the removal of Colonel Martindale's forces to menace Ameer Khan left him at liberty to lay the whole. country in flames. Several detachments of troops were marched against him; but after long eluding them and carrying off enormous quantities of plunder, he was suddenly surrounded in an entrenched post among the mountains. Cutting a way out, he escaped to renew his predatory strife, which he continued with such valour and success that, eventually, he was able to make terms with us; and instead of being hanged or blown from a gun, received a full pardon for four years of massacre and pillage, with a jaghire of eighteen villages as a reward! Policy of this kind, in such a land, could but lead to further depredations and outrages by armed. outlaws. CHAPTER LXXIX. NAVAL AFFAIRS IN THE INDIAN SEAS, 1807 TO 1809. IN 1806, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew having assumed the chief command in the Indian Ocean, Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Trowbridge was directed to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope as commander-in-chief. His flagship was the Blenheim (seventy-four), a second-rate once, but cut down and utterly worn out. Early in 1806 she had gone ashore in the Straits of Malacca, where she received so much injury as to unfit her for crossing the Bay of Bengal; but having patched her up at Pulo Penang, Sir Thomas-a fine old seaman, and one of the heroes of the Nile-whose pride it was to conquer difficulties, rigged her with jury-masts, and took her safely to Madras. Then the defects of the old Blenheim became alarmingly apparent : her back was broken in an extraordinary manner; she seemed to be literally falling to pieces, and the whole labour of the crew at the pumps barely sufficed to keep her from sinking at her anchors. Captain Austin Bissett, a gallant officer, who captured the Lodi, and fought some brilliant actions off Cuba and San Domingo, commanded the Blenheim. He represented her Derilous state to Sir Thomas, who persisted in his purpose, and sailed for the Cape, taking with him several passengers. This was on the 12th January, 1807. The Java (thirty-six), (an old Dutch prize); under Captain George Pigot, and the Harrier | (eighteen-gun brig), Captain Finlay, accompanied him. On the 1st of February, when near the south-east end of Madagascar, the three ships were compelled to lay to in a tremendous gale of wind.. In the evening, the Java bore up, to close with the Blenheim, both ships having signals of distress. flying. The officers of the Harrier observed that the luckless old seventy-four had settled considerably down in the water, and the brig in attempting to give some succour, by running foul, is supposed to have accelerated her destruction. As night came on the brig bore away for the Cape, and from that hour nothing was ever heard either of the Blenheim or the Java. On receiving Captain Finlay's alarming report, Sir Edward Pellew, hoping that Sir Thomas might have put into some port for repairs, ordered his son, Captain Edward Trowbridge, then commanding the Greyhound (thirty-two), to go in search of the missing ships. His orders were to proceed first to the Isle of Rodriguez, then to the Mauritius, and to send in flags of truce for that information which, even in war time, would not be refused by a generous enemy. The gallant and unhappy young officer, says Captain Brenton, commenced his melancholy search, pursuing the course marked out by his admiral. At the Isle of France, General de Caen sent him every information which it had been in his power to collect from the different French stations, together with the description of certain pieces of wreck; but nothing gave a clue to the lost ships. Thus perished the famous and gallant old Trowbridge of the Culloden, so famed in naval annals; and among those who perished with him were Captain Charles Elphinstone, son of the Chairman of the East India Company, and George, Lord Rosehill, in his sixteenth year, son of the Scottish Earl of Northesk, who had been third in command at Trafalgar. In the two vessels exactly 1,000 men went down, and it is remarkable that the little brig, Harrier, which rode out the gale, foundered in the same place, in the following year. In January, Captain Rainier, in the Caroline (thirty-six guns), when cruising in the Straits of St. Bernardine, captured the Spanish register-ship of sixteen guns and ninety-seven men, of whom twenty-seven were killed and wounded in her defence. She had on board a valuable cargo, including 1,700 quintals of copper and half a million of dollars in specie. As singular and bloody a conflict as any in our naval annals occurred in the April of this year. H.M. sloop, Victor, Captain George Bell, captured four of the enemy's brigs in Batavia Roads, and when off Cheribon, a little to the eastward of that coast, brought-to three prows, under Dutch colours. Out of two of these were taken 120 prisoners, over whom a strong guard was placed, under Lieutenant Wemyss. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Parsons, R.N., found it impracticable to get the crew of the third prow up from below; on which Captain Bell fired a carronade into her, and also opened with musketry. To this they replied by throwing spears and firing pistols. As she was hauled close under the quarter of the Victor, he ran a gun out of one the stern ports and fired again into her. of Some of the sparks reached some powder which had been carelessly taken out of the captured prows, and blew up the after part of the Victor. On this, the guard over the prisoners relinquished their arms and ran to extinguish the fire. The prisoners instantly seized these weapons, together with spears and daggers which had been hurled on board, and attacked the crew of the smoking Victor, on the deck of which a furious conflict now ensued while the fire was being got under, and the prows cut adrift For more than half an hour the close combat continued, till eighty of the enemy "lay dead and in a most mangled state," and all the rest—save those who had been blown up—were driven overboard into the sea; but, ere this was achieved, Captain Bell had thirty-one officers and men killed and wounded-among the latter, nine mortally. Nothing short of the most determined valour and perfect coolness could have saved the ship and crew from the complication of perils in which they were involved. With In May, Sir Edward Pellew sailed from Malacca with the Culloden (seventy-four), and eight other vessels, having on board a body of troops. these he arrived off Griesse, where a Dutch naval force was assembled, and sent in a flag of truce to demand its instant surrender, which was granted; thus the Resolute and Pluto (seventy guns each), the Rutkoff (forty), with a sheer hulk, were given up and committed to the flames. Captain George N. Hardinge, a gallant young officer (brother of the future Lord Hardinge), when cruising off the coast of Ceylon in the St. Firenze, of forty-four guns, fell in with the Piedmontaise, a French ship of very superior qualities, both in construction and equipment. This was on the evening of the 7th of March. He showed his colours and threw out a private signal, which was unanswered. At twenty minutes to midnight, under a clear sky, Hardinge, running on the larboard tack, ranged alongside the Piedmontaise, and received her broadside. After only ten minutes' fighting she made off under a cloud of canvas; but Hardinge chased her so closely that, when day broke, the French captain, finding that battle was unavoidable, laid his mainsail to the wind, clewed up his courses, and lay to; and at twenty minutes past six the action began at the distance of half a mile, which Hardinge diminished till a quarter past eight, when the Frenchman let fall his courses, filled his canvas to the yard heads, and bore away, leaving the St. Firenzo sorely disabled aloft. Captain Epron, of the Piedmontaise, had a crew of 566 Frenchmen and lascars. Hardinge had much fewer, yet he repaired his damages, resumed the chase, and on the morning of the 8th, when the Piedmontaise made no attempt to avoid him, he bore down upon her under a press of sail, and resumed the bloody contest. At the second broadside a grape-shot struck young Hardinge in the neck and killed him on the instant; and after an hour and a half of close fighting, the enemy 1809.] "THE QUEEN OF THE EAST." 419 surrendered to Lieutenant George Dawson, whose "Her damage was confined to her masts and losses were thirty-eight, while those of the enemy rigging," says Captain Brenton; "to these the fire were 150. Dawson was posted, and a monument of the enemy had been chiefly directed, and in in St. Paul's Cathedral still commemorates the this he completely attained his object; while, on valour of Hardinge. the other hand, the fire of the Laurel being directed. to the hull, the French frigate had five men killed. and nineteen wounded. The character of Captain. Woolcomb received no blemish from this misfortune, a court-martial having honourably acquitted him. In his mode of fighting he appears to have adhered to the old English maxim of firing at the tier of guns. In a case of this sort, it might have been better to have directed the whole fire at the mainmast-head: that fallen, the ship might have become an easy prey to the Laurel.” As a portion of the penalty for leaguing with France, the Dutch were now to receive one of the most severe blows experienced by their commerce in the Indian seas. Sir Edward Pellew having obtained information of a naval force being in some port of the Isle of Java, took with him a squadron, consisting of his flagship, the Culloden (seventyfour); the Russell and Powerful (also seventy-fours), commanded respectively by Captains William and Plampin; the Bellequeux (sixty-four), Captain Byng (afterwards Lord Torrington), the Sir Francis Drake (thirty-eight), Psyche (thirty-six), Terpsichore (thirty-two), under Captains Harris, Pellew, and Bathurst, with the Seaflower brig under Lieutenant Owen. In sailing through the Straits of Sunda, they captured the armed Dutch ship, Wilhelmina, and on the following morning were off Java, then boasted by the Dutch as "the Queen of the East." Sending a frigate and the brig into the roadstead, Sir Edward took a more circuitous route between Java and the Isle of Ornust, to capture the enemy's squadron. The latter, on perceiving the coming attack, cut their cables and ran on shore, and our ships of the line were unable to approach them, as the water shoaled. The Sir Francis Drake and Terpsichore covered with their guns the boats of the fleet which ran in, and the men, led by Captain Fleetwood Pellew, boarded and set on flames every vessel in the roadstead, undeterred by the heavy fire of the great shore batteries. The whole merchant shipping, to the number of twenty sail, perished there, and with them nine vessels of war, carrying 160 guns and 688 men; while we had only one man killed and four wounded. Similar destruction overtook another Dutch squadron off Samarang, when five sail of armed vessels were sunk, or taken, by Captain Pellew, in the month of September.* In the following year, 1809, our naval squadron. in the East was commanded by Rear-Admiral William O'Brien Drury, who dispatched twofrigates and nine Company's cruisers, under Captain. John Wainwright, of La Chiffone (thirty-six), into the Persian Gulf to punish the pirates there; and we are told, that "the manner in which that gallant officer executed his orders, and supported the interests of his country and the honour of her flag in that distant region, should render his memory dear to Britain." He had with him a detachment of troops, under Colonel Smith. On the afternoon of the 11th of November he was at Ras-el-Khyma, the stronghold of the pirates; but the water shoaled too much, and prevented even the smaller vessels approaching the town nearer than two miles; and to increase the impatience of all, a British ship, called the Minerva, which the pirates had captured, was seen helplessly in flames that evening. On the following day our gun-boats and smaller craft crept inshore, and bombarded the town for three hours. This was continued on the 13th, while Lieutenant Leslie of the Chiffone, with two gun-boats and a party of soldiers, made a false attack on the north; but the principal attempt was to be essayed on the opposite side. There Colonel Smith, with the rest of the troops, and Captain Wainwright, with all the seamen and marines that could be spared, landed, entered the town at the point of the bayonet, and drove out During the year 1808, the naval operations of the enemy in the East were confined to predatory excursions of the frigates and privateers. Captain the enemy, whose rout was completed by a grape J. C. Woolcomb, with the Laurel, of twenty-two guns, when cruising off the Isle of France, fell in with La Canonnière, a fully-manned vessel of thirty-eight guns, and having no wish to engage at such disadvantage, he declined the action, but was compelled to fight for an hour and half, after which, the Laurel, being disabled, had to surrender. "Naval Hist.," vol. iv. shot fire from the gunboats. By four in the afternoon, every vessel in the harbour, and all the store-houses, were enveloped in sheets of flame. Captain Gordon, of the Caroline (thirtysix guns), aided Captain Wainwright in this service. All the towns of the pirates along the coast were destroyed, after which the squadron proceeded to Luft, near the island of Kishm (at the entrance of after which the sloops of war and gunboats bombarded it with such severity, that the governor agreed to surrender it to us next day, but in favour of the Imaum of Muscat. Meanwhile, the seamen in the gun-boats burned eleven piratical vessels that lay in the harbour, and having thus completely chastised and crippled these ferocious freebooters, Captain Wainwright received from the admiral the highest marks of his approbation. All that now remained to France, eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, were the Isles of France and Bourbon. The resources possessed by the first of these islands, and the shelter afforded by footing on these islands, and thus deprive the French cruisers of their usual basis of operations; for by the year 1809, their depredations had exceeded all bounds, and our navy, though triumphant, failed to destroy the evil, either by blockade or bringing their ships to action. As a preparatory step to the intended measures, Vice-Admiral Bertie, commanding at the Cape of Good Hope, was ordered to enforce a vigorous blockade; and Captain (afterwards Sir Josias) Rowley was entrusted with the performance of this duty. Colonel Keating, who commanded a strong body of troops on the Isle of Diego-Ruys, or Rodrigues, Suzanne, a brave French officer, commanded, that | Captain Rowley sent him, with the Otter and Sapphire, to bring the troops from Rodriguez. H.M.S. Boadicea blockaded Port Louis, in the Isle of France; and the commodore, in the Raisonnable (sixty-four guns), assembled the squadron to windward of the island. As soon as the arrangements were complete, the troops under Colonel Keating, consisting of only 368 Europeans and sepoys, to whom were added a body of seamen and marines, making in all 604 small-arm men, with the squadron, joined by the Sirius, drew near the shore after dark. With her stern within pistol-shot of the beach, the Sirius came to anchor, and had bravely sustained the fire of the batteries, a frigate, two Indiamen, and a brig. Not a shot was returned till both her anchors were let go and her courses. clewed up, and then she covered the advance of the troops, who rushed on with such fury, that in twenty minutes every French flag was struck. In hissing showers, the grape of the Sirius reached the most distant ships of the enemy; and so severely and so well was her fire maintained, that even the enemy expressed their admiration. |