senger on board the Lady Hobart packet, Captain W. Dorset Fellowes, he volunteered to take charge, as prizee master, of a French schooner, laden with salt fish, which vessel he conducted to England, she having happily escaped the fate of her captor, by steering a different course during the night of the 27th[1]; on this occasion, he lost the greater part of his property, having taken but a few articles with him when he left the packet.
On his return home. Lieutenant Little was appointed to the Vulture sloop. Commander ____ Green, stationed off Boulogne, where he bore a part in many skirmishes with the enemy’s batteries and flotilla. In May 1805, we find him removed to l’Athenienne 64, Captain (now Vice-Admiral) John Giffard, which ship was sent out with stores for the fleet at Gibraltar, after Nelson’s last glorious victory. She subsequently formed part of the squadron under Sir W. Sidney Smith, employed in the defence of Gaieta, at the capture of the island of Capri, and in making frequent descents on the coast of Calabria. When quitting l’Athenienne, Sept. 20th, 1806, in order to assume the command of the Zealous 74, Captain Giffard certified that Lieutenant Little had always “conducted himself very much to his satisfaction, and shewed himself an attentive, zealous, deserving officer.”
On the 20th Oct. 1806, l’Athenienne, then commanded by Captain R. Raynsford, was wrecked on the Esquerques, or Skerki, a reef of rocks in the Mediterranean sea, the existence of which had long been doubted by some, and as positively asserted by other experienced officers, but which must have been accurately laid down in the charts of that day, as Captain Raynsford observed, one moment before the ship struck, “If the Esquerques do exist, we should now be upon them[2].” The following account of this most melancholy disaster was written by one of l’Athenienne’s officers.
- ↑ See Vol. II. Part II. p. 954, et seq.
- ↑ See Brenton’s Nav. Hist. Vol. IV. p. 56.
