by John Marshall

“ In the mean time, the three-gun battery being entirely destroyed, and the guns dismounted, Captain Hallowell was directed to erect another at the distance of ninety toises from the walls. The quick and well-directed fire of this new battery (which was admirably constructed, and cost immense labour [18] ,) aided by a smart cannonade from the others, induced the enemy to surrender; and an officer appeared on the walls with a white flag. The terms of capitulation were soon agreed on; and the French marched out and delivered up the castle to the British [19] . ”

“ At the commencement of the following year Captain Hallowell proceeded in the same ship to Aboukir, with Elfi Bey, an artful and designing Chief of the Mameloucs; who being obliged to leave Egypt, had endeavoured to impose on the liberality and integrity of the British nation. Our officer, on returning to Malta, in his letters to Earl St. Vincent and Viscount Nelson, entered at considerable length on the insidious character of this Bey, and transmitted much valuable information respecting the then state of Egypt. ”

“ The Alexander and Majestic, and occasionally the Swiftsure, were now the only British ships engaged; but Captain Hallowell, finding that he could not direct his guns clear of the former, and fearful lest he should fire into a friend, desisted, although he was severely annoyed by the shot of the French ship Tonnant, which fell thick about him. ”

“ In the battle of the 9th, and glorious victory of the 12th April following, the Alfred was attached to the red division of Sir George Rodney’s fleet, and sustained a loss of 12 men killed, and 40 wounded, including among the former her Captain, W. Bayne, to whose memory a monument was afterwards erected by order of parliament [3] . She also formed part of the detachment sent under Sir Samuel Hood in pursuit of the flying enemy, and was consequently present at the capture of two ships of the line, one frigate, and a corvette, in the Mona Passage, on the 19th of the same month. ”

“ The Frenchman’s principal object having been to dismantle the Swiftsure, her loss in killed and wounded was not so great as might have been expected; only 2 men were killed, and 8, including Lieutenant Davis, wounded, 2 of them mortally; but the ship was so much cut up, that although the whole of the artificers of the French squadron were employed in repairing her damages, it was six days before the Indivisible, by which ship she had been taken in tow, cast her off to make sail. ”

“ Had not the Swiftsure been sent in chase to the southward, in all probability not one of them would have escaped. The prizes had quicksilver on board, to the amount of 140 tons, which was intended to work the mines of Peru and Mexico. Five days after this event, Captain Hallowell took a Spanish schooner from Malaga bound to Vera Cruz, which had taken shelter under the guns of the Moorish Castle of Larache, but put to sea again as soon as the remainder of the squadron left the African coast on their return to Gibraltar. The Swiftsure subsequently received the flag of Sir Richard Bickerton ”

“ In our memoirs of Viscount Keith, Lord Radstock, and Sir W. Sidney Smith, we have already related the proceedings of the British up to the 19th December, on which day the French fleet and arsenal at Toulon were destroyed, and the town evacuated, a measure rendered necessary by the immense assemblage of republicans in its vicinity. The embarkation of the troops on that occasion was successfully performed under the able management of the former officer, aided by the skilful and zealous conduct of Captains Hallowell and Matthews. Subsequent to this event the British fleet anchored in Hieres Bay ”

“ On the 10th a vessel was discovered in the offing; the Swiftsure was ordered to chase, and immediately got under weigh; in the evening Captain Hallowell came up with, and took her; she proved to be la Fortune corvette, of 16 guns and 70 men [15] . On the same day Sir Horatio Nelson, who had been wounded in the late battle, wrote to Earl St .Vincent from the mouth of the Nile; and in his letter we find the following passage; “I should have sunk under the fatigue of refitting the squadron, hut for Troubridge, Ball, Hood, and Hallowell; not but all have done well; but these are my supporters.” ”

“ On the 30th of the same month, Captain Hallowell was entrusted with the command of a detachment from Lord Collingwood’s fleet, sent to attack some armed vessels and transports that had separated from the above ships and made for the Bay of Rosas. The enterprise proved successful; and at day-break on the morning of Nov. 1st, every one of the enemy’s vessels was either burnt or brought off, notwithstanding the protection afforded them by the Castle of Rosas, Fort Trinity, and several newly erected batteries. ”

“ The enemy’s loss amounted to 33 killed and wounded.
When Lord Keith despatched the Swiftsure for Malta, he took out many of her best men, by which means she was 86 short of complement, besides having 59 sick on board, from a bad fever brought off by those who had acted with the army before Alexandria. Had it been Captain Hallowell’s good fortune to have had with him such a force as might have attacked the French squadron with any fair estimate of success, the result cannot be questioned [24] . ”

“ Unhappily, on his passage he fell in with the hostile squadron on the 24th June, 1801. Perceiving the very superior force of the enemy, he endeavoured to escape from them; but the leaky and foul condition of the Swiftsure was ill-matched for the fast sailing Frenchmen. Captain Hallowell, finding there was no prospect of getting away from them by keeping on a wind, determined to bear down and engage the ships to leeward, consisting of two sail of the line and a frigate, in hopes that if he crippled them he might obtain his object ”

“ The Swiftsure, after touching at Palermo, Minorca, and Gibraltar, proceeded to Lisbon, at which place she arrived on the 30th Nov. in company with the Leviathan, Powerful, Vanguard, and Bellerophon, the whole under the orders of Rear-Admiral Duckworth. On the 6th Dec. the squadron again put to sea, and cruized for some time, in very stormy weather, on the coast of Spain, during which Captain Hallowell captured two merchant vessels. ”

“ Several of the officers and men, seeing the impracticability of extinguishing the fire, which had now extended itself along the upper decks, and was flaming up the masts, jumped overboard; some supporting themselves on spars and pieces of wreck, others swimming with all their might to escape the dreadful catastrophe. Shot flying in all directions dashed many of them to pieces ”

“ As soon as the whole were collected and formed, they moved forward and attacked the enemy’s advanced works, which were carried with little loss. The British force then went round by Pompey’s Pillar, to the southward; and on the afternoon of the 20th, finding that farther opposition would be useless, the Governor offered to capitulate. Terms were accordingly agreed upon; and, on the 21st, the place was in the full possession of the English. In the old or western port were taken two Turkish frigates and a corvette, all mounting brass guns ”

“ During the ensuing peace Captain Hallowell was appointed to the chief command on the coast of Africa, and proceeded thither with his broad pendant in the Argo, of 44 guns. Touching at Barbadoes, on his return to Europe, he there learnt that hostilities were likely to be renewed between Great Britain and France; and Sir Samuel Hood, the Commander-in-Chief on that station, being daily expected from Antigua, he resolved to await the arrival of that officer, whom he afterwards accompanied on an expedition against St. ”

“ Ben. Hallowell [17] .” “Swiftsure, May 23, 1799.”
The astonishment that prevailed amongst the crew of the Vanguard, Lord Nelson’s flag ship, when they were actually convinced it was a coffin which had been thus conveyed on board, will be long remembered by their officers: “We shall have hot work of it indeed,” said one of the seamen; “you see the Admiral intends to fight till he is killed, and there he is to be buried.” ”

“ The squadron continued in the vicinity of Naples until the 15th May, when it returned to Palermo, and from thence proceeded on a cruize off Maritimo. On the 23d of the same month, Captain Hallowell presented Lord Nelson with a coffin made from the wreck of l’Orient, accompanied by the following letter ”

“ The nails in the coffin were also made from the spikes taken from the mast. ↑ In front of one of the embrazures of this battery stood a tree, which it was necessary to remove. The Neapolitan labourers did not at first like to expose themselves by going to cut it down. Captains Troubridge and Hallowell, with Colonel Tchudy a Swiss, and M. Monfrere, an emigrant of great merit and abilities, advanced before the works, to encourage them by their example ”