Page 264 - INDIANNAVYV1

232 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
over to Captain, (cifterwards Admiral Sir) Pulteney Malcolm,
of H.M's. ship ' Suffolk,' and the ' Mornington' was directed to
afford convoy to three country ships returning to Calcutta, in
whose company she encountered one of those severe tempests
Avhich not infrequently occur in the Indian Ocean, about the
Lreaking up of the south-west monsoon. The ' Mornington'
was totally dismasted, and reduced to the extremity of peril.
Captain Macdonald gives a vivid picture of the terrific hurricane
and the narrow escape she had from foundering. The ship, how-
ever, succeeded in reaching Calcutta under jury masts, and her
commander was succeeded by Captain Frost, an officer of rare
judgment and enterprise, whose gallantry at Coupang has
already been related. At Calcutta a fleet of merchant ships,
arrived from England to load with rice in that year of scarcity,
was lying at anchor, and the ' Mornington,' having taken her
pick of seamen from these ships, who were disgusted at the
ill-treatment they had received, proceeded to sea well manned
and found. Mr. Macdonald says that her usual cruising-ground
was in the upper part of the Bay of Bengal and Sand heads,
and, when once the south-west monsoon had fairly set in, it
was customary to run down to the eastward, as far as the
entrance to the China Seas, taking care to be back in Atcheen
roads by September, in readiness to resume her station as soon
as the season would permit, which was generally towards the
early part or middle of October.
Returning about this time in 1801, with a Danish Indiaman,
which the ' Mornington' had captured in the Bay of Bengal,
richly laden with spices and an assorted cargo, besides a large
reniittance in gold dust from Batavia, they fell in with one of
the enemy's cruisers off Ganjara, in chase of a small English
ship under a press of sail. It was late in the afternoon,
and in the midst of a heavy squall of wind and rain, that the
' Mornington' came so unexpectedly to the rescue, and but for
her opportune arrival upon the scene the capture of the chase
was inevitable, as the Frenchman was overhauling her " hand-
over-fist." On the subsidence of the squall, the latter dis-
covering the 'Mornington' so close to his lee-beam, went about
imder all the canvas hecould spread, whilst themerchantman bore
up and joined the cruiser. Captain Frost lost sight of thp. enemy
owing to the darkness of the night, but succeeded in saving
from his fangs one of the Honorable Company's packets,
' Georgiana,' Captain Leigh, bearing despatches from England
for the Governor-General, and having on board, in charge of
them, the Hon. H. Wellesley, afterwards Lord Cowley, who was
proceeding to join his noble brother at Calcutta. It was shortly
afterwards ascertained that the enemy's ship was La Confiance,'
'
M. Surcouff, the same officer who captured the ' Kent,' Indiaman,
after a sanguinary conflict, and committed the most brutal and