The Sun.
London, England, 1829-06-01 00:00:00

THE UNITED SERVICE JOURNAL

If variety, incident, and gossiping lively de-
tails of campaigns by land, and engagements by
sea, can make a journal popular, then will this
be eminently so. It is in fact a record, and in so
far it is a sort of national history, in which all
classes are alike interested, of the chivalrous
achievements of our brave army and navy, more
especially as relates to their deeds during the last
twenty years. Among the most entertaining of
the papers, is the account of the Battle of
Algiers : a graphic sketch which sets the whole
action, with all its terrific appendages, fully
before our eyes. The following is an extract.
Its interesting nature will apologize for its length,

-
The ship's company were piped to dinner, and at one
o'clock the captain and officers sat down to theirs in the
gun-room, the principal dish of which was a substantial
sea pie; wine was pledged in a bumper to a successful at-
tack, and a general expression of hope for an unsuccestid
negotiation. At this time, the officer of the watch reported
to the Captain, that the Admiral bad made the general
telegraph Are you ready?' Chetham immediately di
rested that our answer ready ' should be shown, and at
the same moment the like signal was flying at the mast-
heads of the entire squadron. The mess now broke up,
each individual of it quietly making 4rrangements with
the other in the event of accident, and we had scarcely
reached the deck, when the signal to bear up' was our,
the Commander-in-chief leading the way, with a fine
stea,ly breeze blowing on the land. We ran in on the
Admiral's laiboard_beam, keeping within two cables'
length of him, the long guns were loaded with round and
grape, the carrimades with grape only ; our sail was re;
duced to the topsails, and top-g tllant sails, the mainsail
furled, and the boats dropped astern in tow. The ships
were now steering to their appointed stations, and the
gun-boats showing their eagerness, by a crowd of sail, to
get alongside the batteries. As we drew towards the
shore, the Algerines were observed loading their guns, and

a vast number of spectators were assembled on the beach,
idly gazing at the approach of the squadron, seemingly quite
unconscious of what was about to happen. Far different
were appearances at the mouth of the mole as it opened ;
the row-boats, fully manned, were lying on their oars,
quite prepared for the attack, and we fully expected they
would attempt to board should an opportunity offer ; each
boat had a flag hanging over the stern. A frigate was
moored across the mouth of the mule, and a small brig was
at anchor outside of her.
"At fifteen minutes before three p.m. the Queen
Charlotte came to anchor by the stern, at the distanve of
sixty yards from the beach, and, as was ascertained by
measurement, ninety yards from the muzzles of the guns
of the mole batteries, unmolested, and with all the quietude
of a friendly harbour ; her flag flew at the main, and the
colours at the peak; her starboard broadside flanked the
whole range of batteries from the mole head to the light-
house ; her topsail yards (as were those of the squadron),
remained aloft, to be more secure from tire, and the sails
brought snugly to the yards by head-lines previously fitted ;
the top-gallant sails and small sails only were furled, so
that we had no man unnecessarily exposed aloft.
The Leander, following the motions of the Admiral,
was brought up with two anchors by the stern, let go on
his larboard brain, veered away, until she obtained a posi-
tion nearly a-head of him, then let go an anchor under
foot, open by this to a battery on the starboard side at the
bottom of the mole, and to the Fish-mat ket battery on the
larboard side. At this moment Lord Exmouth was seen
waving his hat on the poop to the idlers on the he ,ch to
get out of the way, then a loud cheer was heard, and the
whole of the Queen Charlotte's tremendous broadside was
thrown into the batteries abreast of her; this measure
was promptly. taken, as the-smoke of a gun was observed
to issue from some part of the enemy's works, so that the
sound of the British guns was heard almost in the same
instant with that to which the smoke belonged. The
cheers of the Queen Charlotte were loudly echoed by these
of the Leander, and the contents of her starboard broad-
side as quickly followed, carrying destruction into the
groups of row-boats ; as the smoke opened, the fragments
of boats were seen floating, their crews swimming and
scrambling, as many as escaped the shot, to the shore; an-
other broadside annihilated them. The enemy was not
slack in returning this warm salute, for almost before the
shot escaped from cur guns, a man standing on the fore-
castle bits, hauling on the topsail buntlines, received a mus-
ket bullet in his left arm, which broke the bone, and com-
menced the labours in the cockpit. The action became
general as soon as the ships had occupied their positions,
nod we were engaged with the batteries on either side; so
close were we, that the enemy were distinctly seen loading
their guns above us. After a few broadsides, we brought
our starboard broadside to bear on the Fish-market, and
our larboard side then looked to seaward. The rocket-
boats were now throwing rockets over our ships into the
mole, the effects of which were occasionally seen on the
shipping on our larboard bow. The Dutch flag was to be
seen flying at the fore of the Dutch Admiral, who, with his
squadron, were engaging the batteries to the eastward of
the mole. The fresh bre, ze which brought us in was
gradually driven away by the cannonade, and the smoke of
our guns so hung about us, that we were obliged to wait
until it cleared ; for the men took deliberate and certain
aims, training their guns until they were fully satisfied of
their precision. But our enemies gave us no reason to
suppose that they were idle ; so great was the havoc which
they made amongst us, that the surgeon in his report stated,
that 65 men were brought to him wounded after the that
and second broadsides. Poor Baxter, the subaltern ef
marines, who had been presiding at the mess-table just half
an hour before in all the vigour of health, wa, shot through
the head by a musket bullet, while he was leaning on the
hammock-rails, looking towards the shore. The Captain
of marines, (Wilson,) in a later stage of the busines, fell by
a double-headed shot, which carried away both his legs :
the marines were at the great guns, so that their officers
had but little to do, and no doubt Baxter was picked off.
A very fine boy, Stott, a midshipman at the gangway
quarters, came running past severely wounded by a musket
bullet likewise, and another Mid. llanwell, at the same
quarters, fell, shot in the spine, in the same way."
" Disasters at Sea and their Prevention" is a
wseful practical article, the result of experience
and a long and perfect acquaintance with the
caprices of " the most fickle of elements." " An
Account of the British Campaign of 1809" teems,
as might be expected, with incident, but is some-
what defective in novelty. The late military
publications on the subject of the Peninsular
War have already so completely exhausted the
subject, that little or nothing remains to be
gleaned. " A Hussar's Life on Service" is a
hasty anecdotical and epistolary sketch, the nature
of which the title itself sufficiently suggests."
" Naval Reminiscenses" is amusing anti intel-
ligent ; and the " Recollections in Quarters" is
a paper similarly characterized. In fact we ven-
ture little, in the way of opinion, when we
assert that there is not a dull or unamusing arti-
cle in the present number.