frigate opened her fire, pouring into her antagonist two whole broadsides before the latter returned a shot. A warm action now commenced, one ship pointing her guns chiefly at the hull, the other at the rigging. Still the Blanche maintained her position in the chase, and at 1 h. 30 m. A.M. on the 19th compelled the Guerrière, whose mizen topmast had previously fallen, to haul down her colours.

The loss on board the Blanche, whose damages were of the most trifling description, amounted, out of her 265 men and boys (being 16 men short), to only one lieutenant (Robert Bastin) and three marines wounded ; while that sustained by the Guerrière, whose lower masts were all badly wounded, and hull shattered above and below water, amounted, out of the 317 men and boys, which the scurvy had left out of a complement on quitting port of 350, to 20 officers, seamen, and marines killed, and 30 wounded, 10 of them dangerously.

According to this statement, the Blanche and Guerrière were tolerably well matched. But it was only in appearance ; for a great proportion of the latter's crew were ill in their cots, and the remainder, to judge by the impunity with which the British frigate escaped, seemed to have been very indifferent marksmen. During this running fight of 45 minutes' duration, not one round shot struck the hull of the Blanche. The three marines were wounded by a single discharge of grape, while standing on the fore part of the gangway near the forecastle ; and the second lieutenant, M. Bastin, was wounded through both thighs with a musket-ball at his quarters on the main deck. The chief object of the French frigate appears to have been to cripple her antagonist, in order that she herself might escape. Failing in this, the Guerrière protracted the defence, until she could no longer withstand the vigorous and well-directed fire of the Blanche. We must suppose, in justice to M, Hubert, who, at this very time, was a member of the legion of honour, that his men were really in a deplorable state, or he would not, from the first, have fled from a frigate, not superior in size, as he might see, nor in force, as he might conjecture, to the one he commanded.

The Blanche, with her prize, arrived on the 26th in Yarmouth roads ; and the Guerrière, on being transferred to the British

*  Carronade in the bow-port not included.

^ back to top ^