air being called for,
to accommodate the rear-admiral in getting on board, so impatient was he
for the boat's return, that he desired to have only a single rope thrown
over the side, which he instantly twisted round his left arm, and was
thus hauled up into the ship. It appears, on referring to the account of
the drowned, in the list of killed and wounded, &c. that eighty-three
only were saved; so that ninety-seven men, including officers, from the
different ships, thus miserably perished!

The rear-admiral, on getting aboard the Theseus, immediately suffered
the amputation of his arm; but, some mistake having occurred, in taking
up one of the arteries, which is described as having been united with a
nerve, by an ingenious French surgeon, he long felt the most
excruciating tortures.

The Earl of St. Vincent, in his dispatches to government relative to
this expedition, dated on board the Ville de Paris, off Cadiz, August
16, 1797, observes that, though the enterprise had not succeeded, his
majesty's arms had acquired a very great degree of lustre. "Nothing,"
says his lordship, "from my pen, can add to the eulogy the rear-admiral
gives of the gallantry of the officers and men employed under him. I
have greatly to lament," continues the noble earl, "the heavy loss which
the country has sustained in the severe wound of Rear-Admiral Nelson,
and the death of Captain Richard Bowen, Lieutenant Gibson, and the other
brave officers and men who fell in this vigorous and persevering
assault. The moment the rear-admiral joins, it is my intention to send
the Seahorse to England with him, the wound Captain Freemantle has
received in his arm also requiring change of climate; and I hope, that
both of them will live to render important services to their king and
country."

Accordingly, after receiving the kindest condolences from the Earl of
St. Vincent, and sending into Cadiz the dispatches of the worthy
governor of Santa Cruz, he immediately sailed for England.

This affair of Teneriffe, however unfortunate, being the first
expedition against a place, the whole of which was undertaken and
planned by himself, has been thought worthy of very particular
attention. That the plan was not defective in wisdom, the reader has had
an opportunity of sufficiently judging, by a perusal of the various
preliminary documents actually issued on the occasion. The undertaking
could only be expected to prove with certainty successful, by a secret
an