I3S] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1S13. 



tinued, till three boats, with about 

 70 men and 4 officers, were sent 

 on shore from the ship, who deli- 

 vered themselves up as prisoners. 

 The French are then said, with an 

 inhumanity which appears to have 

 been merely gratuitous, to have 

 refused permission for the boats to 

 return for the remainder of the 

 crew, who would have been their 

 prisoners ; and they must all have 

 perished, had not Captain Somer- 

 ville, against the remonstrance of 

 his pilot, gallantly worked his ship 

 up among the rocks, brought her 

 to anchor, and taken the men oiF 

 the wreck, after they had been 

 upon it in a very perilous situation 

 for several hours. The French fired 

 on the boats till they were out of 

 reach. 



A letter from Captain Taylor, of 

 the Apollo, to Vice-admiral Pel- 

 lew, dated Feb. 14, mentions, that 

 on the preceding day, on rounding 

 Ca|)e Corse, he I'ell in with a 

 French frigate-built store-ship and 

 a corvette. On closing with them, 

 the former vessel struck, and 

 proved to be the Merinos, com- 

 manded by M. Honore Coardonan, 

 captain of a frigate, and a member 

 of the legion of honour, the ship 

 quite new, of 850 tons, pierced for 

 36 guns, but carrying only twenty 

 8-pounders, with 126 men. She 

 was bound to Sagoiia for timber. 

 The Apollo sufiered no loss, 

 though exposed for four hours to 

 batteries on shore. The corvette 

 made her escape with the assist- 

 ance of boats from the shore. 



Capt. Talbot of the Victorious, 

 senior officer of the upper part of 

 the Adriatic, communicated on 

 March 3rd to Capt. Rowley, an ac- 

 count of his success incaptiiring a 

 line-of-battle ship of the enemy. 

 On Feb. 21, the Victorious, in 



company with the Wea2el sloop, 

 descried a large ship with several 

 small ones proceeding from Venice 

 to Po!a in Istria. A signal for 

 chace was made, the enemy be- 

 ing in a line of battle, with two 

 gun boats and a brig a-head of the 

 large ship, and two brigs astern. 

 The Weazle, Capt. Andrews, was 

 directed to bring the brigs astern 

 of the commodore to action, in 

 onler to induce him to shorten 

 sail, which had the intended ef- 

 fect. At half past four in the af- 

 ternoon the Victorious commenced 

 action with the line-of-battle ship 

 the Rivoli, of 74 guns, at the dis- 

 tance of half-pistol shot, neither 

 ship having hitherto fired a gun ; 

 and the water being smooth, every 

 shot told, and the carnage on both 

 sides was dreadful. At five, one 

 of the brigs engaged with the 

 Weazel blew up, and that vessel 

 went in chase of the rest, but was 

 recalled by captain Talbot, who 

 thought that as they were iu only 

 seven fathoms water, one or the 

 other of the great ships might get 

 aground and want assistance. Capt. 

 Andrews, on being recalled, placed 

 his brig on the bow of the Rivoli, 

 and raked her with three broad- 

 sides. That ship, for nearly two 

 hours, had been rendered perfectly 

 unmanageable, and had been able 

 to keep up only a very slow fire. 

 At nine o'clock she struck, and 

 was taken possession of. She bore 

 the broad pendant of Commodore 

 Bar re, the French commander in 

 chief of the Adriatic, who dis- 

 played great skill and valour in the 

 action. He lost 400 killed and 

 wounded, including his captain 

 and most of his officers, out of 862 

 persons, with whom he entered 

 into action. The Victorious also 

 sustained a severe loss of men, not 



enume- 



