Vigie, 1804
Type: French schooner ; Armament 2
Notes:
17th of January-8th of March 1804 (Vol iii - page 290-1)
On the 17th of January, late in the evening, a French squadron commanded by Lieutenant Jean-Michel Mahé, consisting of the armed ship Oncle-Thomas, of 20 guns, and the schooners Renommée of 14, Oiseau of 10 guns, and Rosalie, Vigie, and another, of two each, fitted out at Cayenne, and having on board 565 officers, soldiers, and sailors, anchored off the British settlement of Gorée. The officer commanding there, Colonel Fraser, had at his disposal only 54 white men including officers, and made the best dispositions in his power for resisting an attack.

On the 18th, at 3 A. M., eight boats from the squadron disembarked 240 troops upon the rocks to the eastward of the town, where the surf happened to be unusually low. An engagement immediately ensued ; when, after a loss of 19 men killed and wounded on the part of the British (most of whom were in a sickly state), and 75 on the part of the French, Colonel Fraser surrendered on a capitulation, and the port was taken possession. of by the troops and seamen of Lieutenant Mahé.

The French remained in quiet possession of their conquest until the 7th of March, in the morning, when the British 18-pounder 36-gun frigate Inconstant, Captain Edward Stirling Dickson, accompanied by a store-ship and three transports, arrived off the settlement. The appearance of English colour, on the citadel occasioned Captain Dickson to send Lieutenant Charles Pickford on shore in the cutter, to ascertain in whose possession the place was. Not having, by 10 P.M., received any information, Captain Dickson despatched three boats, manned and armed, under Mr. Runciman, midshipman, to cut out a ship in the harbour. The service was executed, under a heavy fire from the batteries, which sank one of the boats and wounded one of the men. The strength of the garrison having by this means been obtained, the Inconstant weighed and stood to the westward, to prevent any succours being thrown in from Sénégal. Having, on the following day, been joined by a fourth merchant ship or transport, the three boats of the latter made the number sufficient to carry the allotted portion of troops ; and Captain Dickson commenced preparations to disembark the men on the following day ; when, at daybreak on the 8th, English colours were seen flying over French at the fort, the French garrison having the night previous capitulated with Lieutenant Pickford. Thus was the settlement of Gorée restored, without the loss of a man, to its former masters.