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212 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. '

fi'uns siifTiciontly to sweep their decks, and thus it liappeDcd
that while the iinll escaped with few shot holes, the spars and
rig-ging of the two little ships were much cut up. During the
rigorous blockade of Ternate, an American ship, with supplies
from Batavia, attempting to force an entrance, was captured by
the ' Swift,' and amongst the cargo on board were hams, cheese,
wines, and spirits, for the Governor, Mr. Cranstone. Captain
Hayes, with chivalrous feeling, forwarded these luxuries under
a flag of truce, to the Governor, but the equally high-spirited
Dutchman returned all the packages with the reply, " that he
could do well without them, preferring to share the rations of
the garrison to such luxuries.''
A sloop of war of sixteen guns, launched at Bombay during
the year, received the name of ' Ternate,' in honour of this
achievement of an officer of the Service.
Subsequently to this gallant service, the crew of the ' Swift
was attacked with a malignant fever from which Captain Hayes
nearly lost his life; and many officers and men, engaged in this
expedition, fell victims to the epidemic. Hearing of the depreda-
tions of a fleet of Magindanao pirates. Captain Hayes, notwith-
standing the shattered state of his own health, and the short-
handedness of his crew, owing to the ravages of disease, on the
1st of August sought out the fleet, consisting of forty sail, and
attacked them single-handed, though he might, without dis-
honour, have declined to encounter so superior a force, as an act
of temerity. After a severe action, in which the 'Swift' was, at
times, in great peril, owing to the determined efforts of the
pirates to board, he beat them off with immense loss ; nor did
the 'Swift' escape unscathed, her casualties being three men
killed, and five, including her connnander, wounded. By this
action he saved the Company's settlement in the Celebes which
had been threatened by these marauders.
The following account of this brilliant action, is from the
pages of the "Annual Register" of 1803:— "By a letter
officially received this day, ford February) from Bombay, it
appears that, on the 29th of July last, Captain Hayes, of the
Company's ship-of-war ' Swift,' received a requisition from the
Resident at Amboyna, to proceed to the relief of an outpost,
named Amoorang, then closely infested by the Magindanao
pirates ; their fleet consisted of forty large proas, from which
one thousand two hundred men had been landed, with twelve
pieces of brass ordnance, of 8 and 6-pounders, On the
Ist of August, at half-past five p.m., the ' Swift' came up with
the piratical fleet, and instantly opened a cannonade upon them,
which continued to half-past nine. Besides the annoyance of
the enemy, Captain Hayes' attention was imperiously called to
the critical situation of his own vessel, which was surrounded
by islands, and upon a dangerous reef; to this circumstance