Admiral De Rigny landed from the Conquerant on his arrival, and such of the battering train as the weather enabled us to disembark, were fairly established in the two breaching batteries, named by Lieut.-Gen. Maison, Charles X. and George IV., the French and English guns being promiscuously placed in each; and at day-light this morning, together with the mortar battery and the AEtna bomb, opened such a tremendous fire on the castle as to produce, in four hours, an unconditional surrender.
“I am sure you will be glad to find, that the zeal and professional talent exhibited by Captain Stephen Lushington, his officers, and ship’s company, have excited the admiration of all. The AEtna was worked up in the night, under reefed courses and close-reefed topsails, anchored, and sprung with such precision, within eight hundred yards of the castle, as to enable that intelligent officer. Lieutenant George Logan, of the royal marine artillery, to throw 102 shells into the castle, only the first four going too far. Captain Lushington assures me that he received the most valuable assistance from Lieutenant Baldwin Wake Walker.
“I am persuaded. Sir, that in your well-known wish to appreciate and encourage merit, I shall find an excuse for dwelling so much on the conduct of my officers and ship’s company; and really. Sir, when I reflect on the peculiar situation in which they have been placed, and know that their gallantry in the batteries, their excellent discipline in their tents, (which were in the centre of the French army,) are highly extolled by the French officers, I feel it to be but fair that it should be reported to their admiral.
“Any thing I could say in praise of Lieutenants Luckraft and Dacres would fall far short of the universal feeling in the French army in their favor; but, perhaps, I may be permitted to say, that the former has been nearly twenty years[1] a lieutenant. All the mates are highly deserving, and have passed many years.
“My duties having frequently called me from the ship, the command devolved on the second lieutenant, the Hon. Edward Roper Curzon, whose conduct fully justified all I had expected from an officer of first-rate professional talent.
“The French had many casualties in the batteries, but I am happy to add we have only one man severely wounded. I have the honor to be, &c.
“To Sir Pulteney Malcolm, K.C.B., &c. &c. &c.”
- ↑ Upwards of eighteen years.
