76     LIGHT SQUADRONS AND SINGLE SHIPS     1812

and brought out the remaining 17, including the two gun-boats. Besides Lieutenant Cannon mortally wounded, and who died on the 22d, there was one seaman killed, another mortally, and three slightly wounded. Lieutenant Festing, it appears, still holds the same rank that he did, when he succeeded to the command in this successful and truly gallant exploit.

On the 2d of February, as the British 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Southampton, Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo, was lying in the harbour of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Petion's dominions in the island of Saint-Domingo, intelligence arrived, that a large frigate, a corvette, and a brig of war, belonging neither to Petion, nor to his rival chief Christophe, but to a third party, formed out of revolters from both, were cruising on the south side of the adjacent island of Guanaboa. Although bound by his instructions to respect the flags of Petion and Christophe, Sir James had received no orders to acknowledge any other Haytian flag ; he considered also that, if the squadron was allowed to quit the bight of Leogane, the commanding officer would be less scrupulous about the national character, than about the lading, of the merchant vessels he might fall in with ; in short, that M. Gaspard, well known as an experienced privateer's man, might feel it to be his interest to turn pirate.

Those, who communicated the information respecting this frigate, pointed out, in reference to the Southampton, her superior force, particularly in men, of whom the number was stated to be upwards of 600. Far from deterring such a man as Sir James Lucas Yeo, all this stimulated him the more to execute a service which, hazardous as it might be, a sense of duty taught him was necessary; and accordingly, in the night, the Southampton weighed her anchor, and proceeded in quest of this formidable frigate and her two consorts.

Some account of the force of the two frigates may here be introduced. The Southampton was at this time the most ancient cruiser belonging to the British navy, having been built since the year 1757. * The Améthyste was the late French frigate Félicité, captured in June, 1809, when armed en flûte, by the British frigate Latona. † She was deemed unfit for the British navy, and was sold, as already stated, to an agent of Christophe's : to whose little navy she was afterwards attached. Treachery, or something of the kind, subsequently removed her into the possession of M. Borgellat ; who had assumed the command of the department of the south in Saint-Domingo, upon the death of the revolter Rigaud. The frigate's name was then changed from Améthyste to Heureuse-Réunion ; but, in all the accounts respecting her, she is called Améthyste. The Southampton mounted 38 guns, including ten 24-pounder carronades and two sixes ; and the Améthyste, 44 guns, consisting of 18 long French

* See vol. I., p. 28. † See vol. V., p. 166.

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