INTRODUCTION. xlix 
(he writes) I was obliged to officiate for myself, and 
set it in a truly sailor like fashion, so that in a week 
after it was again obliged to be broken, by the advice of 
the surgeon.” Mr. Tuckey never completely recovered 
the use of this arm. 
From the intense heat and the suffocating smell of an 
active volcano, to which they were exposed in Amboyna 
Roads for ten months, where they experienced the evils of 
famine and sickness in addition to that of rebellion, they 
were glad to escape to Macao, where, in the month of 
January, they found the weather so intolerably cold as 
several times to have snow. From hence they proceeded 
to Ceylon; and when at Colombo, on the 15th January, 
1798, a serious mutiny broke out on board the Suffolk, 
then bearing the flag of Rear Admiral Rainier, in the 
quelling of which Mr. Tuckey exerted himself with so 
much success, that though wanting eighteen months for 
the completion of his servitude to qualify him for a lieute- 
nant’s commission, the Rear Admiral appointed him, the 
following day, acting lieutenant of that ship: from her he 
was removed to the Fox frigate; and when belonging to 
that frigate, but being at Madras in a prize, intelligence 
was there received that La Forte, a French frigate, was 
cruising in the bay of Bengal. His Majesty’s ship La Sy- 
bille immediately prepared for sea, and Mr. Tuckey, with 
a small party of seamen belonging to the Fox, volunteered 
their services in her. In the night of the 28th February 
they fell in with their opponent, and after a most brilliant 
action of two hours, frequently within pistol shot of each 
other, La Forte having lost all her masts and bowsprit, 
struck to the Sybille. In this action Lieutenant Tuckey 
h 
