le Brutus

Service History

Notes on Ship

Admiralty-Office, January 2, 1796.

Extract of a letter from Admiral Sir John Laforey, Bart. Commander in Chief of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels at the Leeward Islands, to Mr. Nepean, dated Martinico, October 22, 1795.

I have received an account from Captain Warre, of His Majesty's Ship Mermaid, dated the 12th Instant, that, cruizing to Windward of Grenada, he discovered, on the 10th, off La Baye, a Ship and a Brig at anchor, which, upon seeing him, got under weigh and made sail from him ; but the Brig soon bore up, and pushed into a small Bay called Requain, where the Mermaid followed her, and run aground close to her: The French, however, got on shore to the number of 70 Troops, and 50 that were her crew and upwards of 50, had been landed by the ship while at anchor. Captain Warre got possession of the Brig, which is named the Brutus, of 10 guns

The next day he chased the ship the whole day, but she escaped in the night. And in a subsequent letter, dated the 15 th, he informed me that he discovered her again on the 14th to Leeward of him, when he chased and captured her, after an action of half an hour, with the loss of 1 man killed and 3 wounded in the Mermaid, and 20 killed, and several wounded of the enemy : That both these vessels were Conventional Corvettes. The ship named the Republican, mounting 18 guns and had on board 250 or 260 men at the commencement of the action, with a French General and his staff , destined to command at Grenada. In a letter wrote the following day he acquainted me, that upon his return to Grenada, with his prize, he had the mortification to find that the important Post of Gouyave, or Charlotte Town, had been taken by the enemy the night before.