Algerine cruiser, or a Malay pirate, than a French national ship of war. The dismasted state of the Warren-Hastings at her surrender, assisted by the force of the heavy sea then running, caused the ship to fall off ; and the Piémontaise, lying close to leeward, under her three topsails, with the mizen one aback and the main one shivering, bore up, to avoid being run foul of. Having by this evolution filled her main topsail, and being unattended to at the helm, the frigate again came to, and ran foul of the larboard bow of the prize. The two ships then dropped close alongside of each other, producing, in the disturbed state of the sea, a crash that rendered the situation of both extremely hazardous.

A party of Frenchmen, headed by the first lieutenant, Charles Moreau, now rushed on the decks of the Warren-Hastings, and, with uplifted daggers and horrid imprecations, threatened the lives of all on board. After one ruffian had dragged Captain Larkins about the ship, charging him with an attempt to run the frigate on board, in order to cripple her masts, and calling him by every opprobrious epithet, another, in the person of M. Moreau himself, stabbed the captain with a poniard in the right side. The instrument passed through the right lobe of the liver, and occasioned so great a flow of blood that Captain Larkins fainted. Even this did not save him from the savage fury of his persecutor, who ordered him, in his weak state, to jump on board the Piémontaise, and, but for the humanity of a M. Baudin, an acting lieutenant of the frigate, would have driven him into the sea. The man afterwards admitted that he had stabbed Captain Larkins, but attempted to extenuate the base act, by charging the latter with having purposely run the ship on board the Piémontaise. * The simple fact that M. Moreau, as well as many of his followers, was highly intoxicated, may account for the oblivious state of his memory as to the origin of the accident.

With such an example set them by their chief officer, the prize-crew were comparatively merciful in not absolutely slaying their victims : they merely stabbed three of the officers, John Wood, second officer, John Barnes, surgeon, and John Ball, boatswain's mate. So that, including the captain and a midshipman, Mr. James Bayton, who was pierced in seven different places in his two arms by the monster Moreau, five persons were wounded in cold blood, after the honourable surrender of their ship. Pillage of every description of course followed these tyrannical proceedings ; but, after a while, the furious passions of the captors subsided, and Captain Epron, and some of his officers, did their best to conciliate and render comfortable Captain Larkins and the survivors of his crew.

*  See a translation of Lieutenant Moreau's letter to the editor of the " Isle-of-France Gazette, " in the Naval Chronicle, vol xx., p.193,

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