between him and their captain, not very much to the advantage of the latter. On the third day, the prisoner made a short, but unnecessary defence, and the sentence pronounced was, – “That the charges had not been proved against the said Captain Thomas Bennett; that no blame whatever was imputable to him for his conduct while serving as first lieutenant of H.M.S. Crescent, but that the imputations against him were unfounded and vexatious. The court did therefore adjudge him, the said Captain Thomas Bennett, to be fully acquitted.”
We must not omit to mention, that the subject of this memoir had previously preferred several charges against Captain Quilliam, one of which was – “neglect of duty in not doing his utmost to come up with a ship supposed to be an enemy’s frigate.” Suffice it to say, that Captain Bennett, with others, thought his charges had been proved (although one of the principal evidences for the prosecution had been provided with money, and permitted, by Captain Quilliam, I to absent himself before the trial commenced); but, possibly from the supposition that they originated in a wish to recriminate, or on some such ground. Captain Quilliam was acquitted; – not, however, with any softening qualification.
On the 2d July, 1819, Captain Bennett was appointed to the Cygnet, a new 10-gun brig; and in the following month, he had the honor of dining with his late Majesty, then Prince Regent, on board the Royal George yacht, at Spithead.
The Cygnet first cruised on the Irish station, but was subsequently sent to St. Helena, where she continued with the squadron under Rear-Admiral Lambert, until the death of Napoleon Buonaparte, when she carried despatches to the Isle of France, and then joined Commodore Lillicrap at the Cape of Good Hope.
Since the publication of the latter officer’s memoir (in Suppl. Part II.), a circumstance has been made known to us, with which we were not at that time acquainted. The boats of the Cygnet, it appears, were the first to go to the assistance of the Hon. East India Company’s extra-ship Albion, and were of equal service with those of the Hyperion frigate, in
