gun-boats, three of which he has captured, and also a new brig laden with provisions: the captured gun-boats had on board 137 men, besides 23 in the brig. They are very complete and well found. Were it possible for me to say any thing which could add to the meritorious conduct of so gallant and good an officer as Captain Forrest, I should most willingly do it; but I trust the success of this brilliant action will do more justice to the intrepidity of every officer and man employed on this service, than any language I can possibly use.
The prizes taken on this occasion were very dearly purchased, no less than 70 of the British being killed and wounded, including among the latter Captain Forrest, who in his own official letter says:
“Our loss is severe indeed, as might be expected from the nature of the force, and the extreme obstinacy with which the enemy defended their charge; the crew of one gun-boat being to a man killed or dangerously wounded. I cannot find words to express the zeal and intrepidity exhibited upon this occasion by all, and the manifest superiority of our seamen when it came to the cutlass.”
The enemy’s total loss amounted to 87 killed and wounded. Sir James Saumarez, when reporting the sanguinary affair to the Admiralty, informed their lordships that “the undaunted bravery displayed by Captain Forrest, the officers and men employed under his orders, was beyond all praise[1].”
For his gallantry in the above action, Captain Forrest was immediately advanced to post rank, and his commission dated back to July 25, 1809. On the 9th Feb. 1812, we find him appointed to the Cyane 22, in which ship he accompanied Rear-Admiral Durham to the Leeward Islands at the commencement of 1814. “His meritorious conduct, not only in assiduously keeping sight of, but repeatedly offering battle to the Iphigenia, a French frigate of the largest class,” during her flight from the Venerable 74, was duly acknowledged by that officer, in his public letter reporting the subsequent capture of the enemy’s ship[2].
- ↑ A lieutenant and 2 men of the Prometheus had been killed, and 4 men wounded, in a previous boat attack, which will be noticed in our memoir of Captain Frederick E. V. Vernon.
- ↑ See Captain James Andrew Worth.
