1811	Boats of Impérieuse and Thames at Palinuro	373

that name. The brig immediately anchored close to the town ; and, having by her guns driven away the troops there collected for the protection of the ketch, Captain Nicolas despatched the boats, under the orders of Lieutenant Campbell, to bring out the vessel. This officer and his party gallantly landed under the ruins of the castle, and after some opposition, advanced to the town ; whence the few troops remaining there precipitately fled. Finding the ketch bilged, he threw her guns overboard and set her on fire. The seamen then, while the marines took post at the castle, loaded their boats with a quantity of corn and flax, and returned on board the sloop by 4 p.m. without having sustained the slightest loss.

On the 11th of October, in the morning, the British 38-gun frigate Impérieuse, Captain the Honourable Henry Duncan, being off Possitano in the gulf of Salerno, discovered three gun-vessels, of one long 18-pounder and 30 men each, moored under the walls of a strong fort. At 11 a.m. the Impérieuse anchored within range of grape, and in a few minutes sank one of the gunboats and silenced the fire of the fort ; but a shot from the latter had previously cut away the frigate's foretopsail yard. The fort being walled all round, the ship could not dislodge the soldiers and crews of the gun-vessels, who had sheltered themselves within it ; and yet that measure became necessary, before possession could be taken of the two remaining gun-boats. Captain Duncan therefore despatched the boats of the Impérieuse, under the orders of Lieutenant Eaton Travers, first of the frigate, assisted by Lieutenant of marines Philip Pipon. These two gallant officers, at the head of a detachment of seamen and the whole of the marines, forced their way into the battery, under a heavy fire of musketry from more than treble their numbers ; all of whom, except about 30 men left behind, with 50 stand of arms, the British compelled to fly in every direction. The guns mounted on the battery, which were 24-pounders, were then thrown over the cliff, the magazines destroyed, and the two gun-vessels brought off : nor was any greater loss sustained, in executing the whole of this dashing exploit, than one marine killed and two wounded. The Impérieuse, however, had had her rigging damaged, and, as already stated, her foretopsail yard shot away, by the commencing fire of the battery.

In a few days afterwards the Impérieuse was joined by the 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Thames, Captain Charles Napier ; and on the 19th the two frigates anchored close to the shore near Palinuro on the coast of Calabria. The boats, commanded by Lieutenant Travers, then landed under cover of the fire of the ships, and launched and brought off without the slightest casualty, 10 armed polacres laden with oil, although the vessels, for their better security, were banked up with sand, and were defended by a large detachment of Neapolitan troops.

On the 21st the Impérieuse and Thames discovered 10 Neapolitan

^ back to top ^