1797. Guayra, a port of the Spanish Main; representing Sept. to the spanish governor, that they had turned their officers adrift in the jollyboat. The governor, soon afterwards, in spite of the remonstrances of the british commander in chief on the Leeward-island station, rear-admiral Henry Harvey, who fully explained the horrid circumstances under which the ship had been taken possession of, fitted the Hermione for sea as a spanish national frigate.

Could we descant upon the humanity or general kind behaviour of the Hermione's late captain, it might serve to heighten, if any thing could heighten, the guilt of his murderers; but a regard to truth compels us to state, that captain Hugh Pigot bore a character very opposite to a mild one in short, he has been described to us by those who knew him well, as one of the most cruel and oppressive captains belonging to the british navy.

Many of the Hermione's mutineers were afterwards taken, and suffered for their crimes; crimes that, had they each a dozen lives, merited the sacrifice of the whole. If the Ali Pacha of the ship had been the sole victim of their rage, the public indignation would have been appeased, the instant the daily practices of the tyrant became known; but the indiscriminate slaughter of their officers, even to the young clerk and midshipman, gave a shock to public feeling, which vibrates even yet when the subject is touched upon. That the mutineers of the Hermione should turn traitors to their offended country, was the natural consequence of the enormity of their guilt. Of those subsequently taken and brought to punishment, some, from repentance, others, from hardened shamelessness, confessed their guilt, and gave minute details of the horrid transaction.

EAST INDIES.

Although no event of a strictly warlike character happened in the eastern quarter of the globe during

the year 1797, an occurrence equally within the 1797. province of the naval annalist forces itself upon our Sept. attention. Sometime in the month of October that baneful spirit of mutiny and insubordination, which had caused such a sensation in England, burst forth among the few british ships of war stationed at the Cape of Good Hope. It began in the form of a complaint against the captain of a particular ship, and then spread over the whole squadron. Nothing but the most prompt measures on the part of the governor, lord Macartney, and of rear-admiral Pringle and general Dundas, put a stop to the violence of the mutineers. At length, the latter delivered up their delegates. Many of these were executed, and others severely flogged; and, after a while, good order and discipline again prevailed in the squadron.

152

Jan.

BRITISH AND FRENCH FLEETS.

1798. DIRECTING our attention, as usual, to the abstract of the british navy, drawn up for the commencement of the present year,* we find an increase, though small, in the total of the line-of-battle cruisers, but a decrease, of equal amount, in those in commission. The whole number of cruisers, line and under-line, has increased considerably since the last abstract; and so, as a necessary consequence, has the grand total of the navy. The vessels, captured from the French, Dutch, and Spaniards, amount to less than half those in the preceding abstract; but, among the latter, were only three sail of the line, while the line-ofbattle ships in the former amount to 12: of these, however, one only, the San-Josef, was of any value as a cruiser. The continuance of the stormy weather of 1796, through the winter months of the following year, filled the casualty-list of the latter with several melancholy cases of shipwreck. In other respects, the loss sustained by the british navy during the year 1797 was of trifling amount.‡

The "launched" columns of this abstract present nothing worthy of remark; except that we may notice the foundation of a new frigate-class, the 40, carrying 24-pounders on the main deck. The new individual was the Endymion, a ship built as nearly as possible after the Pomone, captured from the French in April, 1794; but measuring 38 tons more owing to an error in the mode of taking the dimensions of the Pomone. Had that been rectified, the two ships would have measured nearly alike.

See Appendix, Annual Abstract No. 6. + See Appendix, Nos. 8, 9, and 10.

See Appendix, No. 11.

§ See vol. i. p. 291.

Jan.

We formerly stated, that the reign of the Pomone 1798. was a short one. In the year 1796, through the ignorance of a french pilot, the ship was run ashore in the night, on the Boeufs off Nantz, and was with difficulty got off by daylight. The Pomone's leaky state sent her home; nor could sir John Borlase Warren, the commander of the squadron of which she formed a part, spare a ship to accompany her. At one time the leak, which was under the step of the foremast, had so depressed the ship, that no water could be got to the pumps; but finally, by great exertions on the part of her officers and crew, the Pomone reached Plymouth. Captain Eyles, her commander, ran her at once into the harbour, without asking the usual leave; and he and his officers and crew, received the thanks of the admiralty for their promptitude. After being docked, the Pomone was refitted for sea, but received on board 18, instead of 24 pounders for her main deck, on account of the weakness of her frame from the shock she had received. Subsequently the Pomone was again run on shore, at the island of Jersey. The ship again got off and returned to port; but was found to be so shaken in her frame, that she never afterwards went to sea.

There were two reasons why so few ships among the larger classes were ordered in the year 1797: one was, the great number, particularly of line-ofbattle ships, already on the stocks, or about to be placed there; the other, the great number of fine frigates that, since the commencement of the war, had been captured from the French, among which were nine of one class, that averaged nearly 1100

tons.

In the early part of the preceding year, several applications had been made by captains of 74-gun ships to have their ships fitted with carronades, similar to the Minotaur; for which ship, since November, 1793, carronades had been ordered, in lieu of her 9s, at the request of rear-admiral Macbride.

1798.

Jan.

This induced the board of admiralty, on the 17th of March, to order that every line-of-battle ship, coming forward to be fitted, should be prepared to receive carronades all along her quarterdeck and forecastle, except in the wake of the shrouds. These carronades, except in special cases, were to be 32pounders, and usually amounted to within four, or at most six, of the whole number of long guns originally established upon those decks. As an example of one special case, the carronades, 18 in number, of the Gibraltar, then refitting at Plymouth, were ordered to be 24-pounders; thus making all her guns, except the two forecastle 9s, of the same caliber: see notes § and K* to the first Annual Abstract. As another exception, the Neptune, a smallclass 98, was at a subsequent day, May 6th, 1800, also ordered 24-pounder carronades for her quarterdeck and forecastle.

Although no general order had as yet issued to arm frigates with 32-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle, yet most of the captains, especially of the 38s and 36s, managed to get the greater part of their long 9s exchanged for carronades of that highly effective caliber. Six of the eight bomb-vessels, that had been purchased in the year 1797, were each ordered to be fitted with eight 24-pounder carronades, instead of eight long 6-pounders as formerly; and the 42 launched and purchased vessels of the gun-brig class (see the Annual Abstract for the year 1798) were armed wholly with 18-pounder carronades, except for

chasers.

The number of commissioned officers and masters, belonging to the british navy at the commencement of the year, was,