1810	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	236

consequence, as to render amputation necessary. The French had 14 men killed in defending the battery upon Pointe du Ché : what loss the party from the village sustained by the fire of Captain Shearman's division and the carronade in the launch could not be ascertained.

On the 7th of September the British 98-gun ship Dreadnaught (sic), Captain Valentine Collard, bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Thomas Sotheby, while cruising off the coast of France, was informed by the 4-gun schooner Snapper, Lieutenant William Jenkins, that a ship was among the rocks on the west side of Ushant. The Dreadnaught made sail to the eastward, and about 6 p.m. on the 8th, on rounding the island, discovered the ship at anchor in a small creek, surrounded by rocks. Rear-admiral Sotheby determined to attempt cutting her out with his boats at daybreak on the following morning. To prevent suspicion, the Dreadnaught stood on until dark : she then bore up for the spot ; and at 5 a.m. on the 9th, seven boats, well manned and armed, pushed off from her, under the orders of Lieutenant Thomas Penman.

No sooner had the boats approached within gun-shot of the shore, than they were received by a heavy and destructive fire of musketry from a number of troops concealed among the rocks, and from two 4-pounder field-pieces on the beach. In the face of all this, the British pulled towards the ship, lying within half-pistol shot of the beach ; and, exhilarated by the sight of the French troops, that had been stationed on board to defend her, hurrying over the side in the greatest confusion, boarded and carried her. Now came the most serious part of the enterprise. A body of French soldiers, supposed to be 600 in number, stationed on a precipice nearly over their heads opened on the British in the ship and in the boats a tremendous fire ; a fire to which no return could be made, except occasionally by the 18-pounder carronade in the launch. The consequence was that, in recapturing this Spanish merchant ship, the Maria-Antonia, from the French privateer who had taken her, and now lay an apparently unconcerned spectator in another creek at about a mile distance, the British sustained the serious loss of one master's mate (Henry B. Middleton), one midshipman (William Robinson), two seamen, and two marines killed, two lieutenants (Henry Elton and Stewart Blacker), two midshipmen (George Burt and Henry Dennis), 18 seamen, and nine marines wounded, and five seamen and one marine missing ; total, six killed, 31 wounded, and six missing, or prisoners. Two of the boats had also drifted on shore during the action, and were taken possession of by the enemy.

On the 14th of October, at noon, the British 10-gun brig-sloop Briseis (eight 18-pounder carronades and two sixes, with 75 men and boys), acting-commander Lieutenant George Bentham, cruising about 80 miles west by south of Horn reef, in the North

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