Pelican v Medee – 23 September 1796
The sloop Pelican 18, Captain John Clarke Searle, was cruising some twenty miles to the north-west of La Désirade, a French island off the eastern coast of Guadeloupe, when on the break of day on 23 September she found herself in the lee of a large sail. This vessel would prove to be the French frigate Mèdèe 32.
Once he had ascertained the stranger’s provenance, Searle, who had been posted captain two months previously but was yet to vacate the command of the Pelican in accordance with his new rank, decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and putting his helm over, he took flight to the north-west. The crisp breeze and the weather-gauge nevertheless favoured the faster sailing Frenchman, which soon began closing in. Realising the improbability of making good an escape, Searle resolved to fight, and after defiantly shortening sail and clearing for action, he addressed his men in spirited terms which reminded them of their ability and the successes they had enjoyed to date.
The Pelican had been launched in the summer of 1795, and Captain Searle had taken her out to the Leeward Islands in the previous autumn as her first commander. She was heavily armed with carronades, sporting sixteen 32-pounders on her upper gun deck in addition to a couple of 6-pounder bow-chaser cannons, giving her a broadside weight of metal of two hundred and sixty-two pounds. At this time, she had twenty-three men missing in prizes from her normal crew of one hundred and twenty men. Searle, a mature officer with over twenty years’ service, did have some experience of engaging a larger adversary, for shortly after the commencement of the war in 1793, his cutter Liberty 14 had been chased for ninety minutes by the French frigate Sans Culotte 22 off Guernsey before almost luring her enemy on to the Casket Rocks.
Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Ussher served aboard the Pelican as a lieutenant in 1796 an for a short while remained a prisoner of war.
The Mèdèe was an older vessel which had been launched in 1779 at St. Malo, and which had seen service in the West Indies during the American Revolutionary War. Her armament consisted of twenty-six French 12-pound cannons on her upper gun deck and six 6-pound cannons on her quarterdeck and forecastle, giving her an estimated broadside weight of metal of one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, thereby equating to about a third less than that of the Pelican. Her nominal complement was two hundred and eighty-eight men.
Upon the Mèdèe coming within range of her long guns at 7 a.m. she opened fire; however, for the moment the Pelican did not respond but instead waited until her short-range carronades could be brought into play. At 8.10 the French frigate came abreast of the sloop at musket shot range and now Captain Searle gave the order to fire. Such was the effect of her first broadside that it took down the man at the French wheel, as well as wounding three others. A hot action followed for the next three quarters of an hour, and it was the apparently confounded Frenchman which curtailed it a little before nine o’clock by hauling off. Setting a course to the north, the Mèdèe was then raked to such effect that a dozen men reportedly fell on the main deck. Making what sail she could, she was soon out of sight, for even though the Pelican’s casualties amounted to just one man wounded, the sloop had nevertheless sustained a great deal of damage aloft and was thus totally unable, even if Captain Searle had so desired, to immediately chase her opponent.
Not long after the conclusion of the engagement a large ship was sighted on the Pelican’s lee bow by the masthead lookout, and by about 11 a.m. the sloop had completed sufficient repairs to allow her to give chase. Four hours later, with Englishman’s Head on Guadeloupe a mile and half distant in the south-east, Searle’s command shot down the other vessel’s main topsail-yard, whereupon the chase hauled up and surrendered. She was found to be a British victualler, the Alcyon, which had been captured two weeks previously by the Mèdèe off Barbados. Acting-Lieutenant Thomas Ussher led a prize crew aboard and she was taken in tow to the south, although during the night she had to be cast off after a heavy swell had forced her aboard the Pelican not once but three times.
Come daybreak on 24 September the Pelican sought out the victualler, but to British despair she was found off Anse la Barque within gunshot of the Mèdèe herself. Knowing that two other French frigates were in the port, there was nothing Searle could do but accept the advantage of a favourable breeze and stand away. The Mèdèe’s boats easily took possession of the Alcyon, and although one of the frigates came out to join her, the two did not attempt to chase the Pelican, which retired unmolested to the Saintes to effect repairs.
An interesting footnote to the engagement occurred when an emissary from Victor Hugues, the governor of Guadeloupe, arrived at the Saintes to establish whether the Mèdèe’s opponent had in fact been a frigate with her mizzen mast removed. Only once the gentleman had been received aboard the two-masted Pelican was he satisfied that she was but a sloop mounting eighteen guns. Captain Searle’s delight at his opponent’s confusion was soon ornamented by the arrival of an ex-prisoner, an army officer of the 60th Regiment, who had been released from the Mèdèe when she had reached Guadeloupe, and who confirmed that she had carried three hundred men into the action, over thirty of whom had become casualties.
When news of the action reached Britain, it was eulogised in the Press as not only one of the most gallant of the current war, but one that was almost unparalleled in naval history. Drafting a letter dated 29 September which reached the newspapers in early December, Captain Searle praised his lieutenants, Fortescue and Usher, along with the sailing master, a Mr Fangee, even though the latter officer had been absent from the Pelican in a recaptured vessel at the time of the action. Meanwhile, once the Committee of Merchants for encouraging the capture of French ships of war and privateers learned of the action, they voted Searle a gift of plate worth one hundred guineas. As for Lieutenant Ussher, he remained a prisoner in French hands for a short while before being exchanged, and he went on to have a long career in the navy, eventually being knighted and achieving the rank of rear-admiral.
The Pelican remained in service until she was paid off at Jamaica in February 1802, seeing much employment in the West Indies and taking a number of small prizes, whilst also providing an experience of their first command to as many as sixteen officers in succession to Captain Searle. As for the Mèdèe, she was captured in somewhat ignominious circumstances by two East Indiamen off Brazil in August 1800 when, in company with two consorts, she was attacked by a homeward-bound convoy under the orders of Captain Rowley Bulteel of the Belliqueux 64. Upon being carried to Britain, she was converted into a prison ship.