off the Adour; but as the military operations could not be delayed, he determined to force his way, at all hazards, as soon as the increasing strength of the breeze then blowing would enable him to make the attempt: his mortification at having been drifted, by a very strong current, to the westward, it is easy to conjecture.
The whole of the vessels destined to enter the Adour were placed under the command of Captain Dowell O’Reilly, of the Lyra brig, who proceeded in a Spanish-built boat, selected as the safest for the service he was going upon, taking with him the principal pilot, the boats of the British squadron, and two flats, to endeavour to find a passage through the surf: a few troops were at that time seen crossing over to the French side of the river, but evidently much in want of the boats intended for their assistance. All Captain O’Reilly’s attempts, however, proved ineffectual, as the surf was every where beating in an equally dreadful manner.
While thus employed, Captain O’Reilly was hailed and passed by Lieutenant Debenham, who, after breakfasting with Rear-Admiral Penrose, had gone up to the Porcupine’s main-top-mast-head, and was induced, from the observations he made there, to believe that he had descried a place where the passage might be attempted with greater hopes of success than at any other.
Lieutenant Debenham’s boat was a 6-oared gig, with five spare men in her to take alternate spells at the oars, the distance of Porto de Socca from the mouth of the Adour being nearly 16 miles:– her lug fore-sail and mizen were at this time set, and her crew ready to give way the moment she arrived at the edge of the surf; – the extra hands sitting down in the bottom of the boat, at an equal distance from her stem and stern. When advanced so far that the surf broke just without her, the Lieutenant exclaimed “hurrah my boys, strike out;” they did so, and instantly she seemed to fly amidst the deafening sound of breakers, not less than 20 feet in perpendicular height; Lieutenant Debenham steering with one hand, and cheering his men, by waving an old cocked hat, with the other, at the same time telling them to trust in God,
