at some distance from the battery. The same night he landed a party of seamen and marines, and marching into the rear of the enemy, took them by surprise at a moment when they were watching the movements of the Trent, with their guns loaded and primed. The battery was immediately destroyed; the sails, rudder, and cargo of the schooner brought down from a house half a mile in the interior, reshipped, and the prize sent off for Jamaica by day-light the next morning. This service was performed with the loss of only one man killed on the part of the British. About 20 of the enemy were put to the sword in the battery.
A few weeks after this affair, as Captain Otway was again reconnoitring on the south side of Porto Rico, accompanied by the Sparrow cutter, he discovered l’Alexandre and le Revenge, two French privateers, each mounting 18 guns, a Spanish brig of 10 guns, and some coasting vessels, at anchor under a small battery within the Dead Man’s Chest. The enemy’s guns on shore were soon silenced by the Trent, and her boats sent under cover of the Sparrow to attack the vessels. On their approach each of the privateers hoisted the bloody (red) flag, as an indication that no quarter would be given, notwithstanding which they resolutely pushed on, and after a smart action carried the whole without losing a man, whilst the enemy had no less than 50 killed and wounded.
Captain Otway continued to command the Trent on the Jamaica station till Sept. 1800, when he sailed for England with the flag of Sir Hyde Parker. During the six years that he had served in the West Indies, he is supposed to have captured and destroyed about two hundred of the enemy’s privateers and merchantmen, mounting on the whole 1000 guns. Nothing can mark the character of this officer more strongly than the following anecdote, of the authenticity of which we are well assured:– A party of seamen belonging to the Trent were on shore at Portsmouth returning stores, when the Master-Attendant of the Dock-yard asked them how they liked their Captain; one of them replied, “he was a man who would never deceive his crew, for if any of them deserved a couple of dozen, and he promised it, they were sure to get it; but that he did not make them polish shot or stanchions, and that he made the officers do their duty as well as the men.”
