On the 31st, at daylight, the 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Circe, Captain Hugh Pigot, cruising off the harbour of Fort-Royal, Martinique, observed a brig under jury-masts coming before the wind. The instant the frigate made sail, the brig, which was the Palinure on her way from Marin into the harbour of Fort-Royal, hauled close round the Diamond rock. It being nearly calm, the brig was enabled, with her sweeps and a boat, to get under the protection of a battery on Pointe Salomon, before the Circe could get near her. As soon as the frigate arrived within gun-shot, an action ensued ; and in 10 or 15 minutes the Palinure hauled down her colours, with the loss, out of her 79 men on board when the action commenced, of seven killed and eight wounded. The Circe herself, from the fire of the battery, which was too much above her to be fired at with effect, lost one man killed and one wounded. On board the Palinure were found nine of the surviving seamen late belonging to the Carnation ; which brig had either put back to Marin after sailing, or had been left there by the Palinure.

On the 6th of November the late master of the Carnation, one of the officers recaptured in the Palinure, died on board the 98-gun ship Neptune, in Carlisle bay, Barbadoes, of, we believe, the wounds be had received in the action ; but a contemporary states, that he died of the yellow fever. * On the 1st of February a court-martial was held at Carlisle bay upon a badly wounded quartermaster and a captain of the mast late belonging to the Carnation, and they were honourably acquitted. On the 28th, at Fort-Royal bay, Martinique, where, as we shall see presently, the British commander-in-chief, Rear-admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, then was, the remainder of the surviving officers and crew, having been recaptured at the surrender of the island, were put upon their trial ; and the two lieutenants, the surgeon, the two master's mates, the three midshipmen, the gallant boatswain, and a few seamen and marines, were honourably acquitted. Others that were on duty or wounded below, including among the former the gunner and his two mates, were also acquitted of all blame.

In justice to the memory of the officers who were killed in the action, or died of their wounds, the following declaration was made by the court: " That the conduct of Captain Gregory, from the commencement of the action to the period of his being killed, was most exemplary. And it also appears, that Mr. Anthony Metherell, late master of the Carnation, Mr. Morgan Thomas, the late purser, Mr. Thomas Griffiths, the late carpenter, and all those of her crew who were killed during the action, did perform their respective duties as became them. " Of the remainder of the late Carnation's crew present to take their trial, 32 seamen and marines were found guilty of gross cowardice, and

* Brenton, vol., iv., p. 269.

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