ACTION WITH THE RIFF PIRATES,

BY H.M.S. FRIGATE 'JANUS,' COMMANDER POWELL,

1851.

The Moorish pirates soon forgot the severe lesson they had received from the fire of the 'Polyphemus,' and continued their depredations. Amongst other vessels captured in 1851, were the schooner 'Emelia,' and the brigantine 'Violet.' The latter had carried away her fore-top-mast, and as it was blowing fresh, she stretched across to get under shelter of the Riff coast. When within 15 miles of it, she was becalmed about one o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, 5th October. Four boats then rowed towards them with about 150 men: when about 300 yards off, they lay to on their oars to ascertain whether the brig was armed, and being satisfied on this point, they towed up alongside, two boats on the port and two on the starboard side, and hailed to ask whether the brig were French or English, at the same time commencing so hot a fire that the crew could not get aft to hoist the ensign.

The master was badly wounded, and a seaman shot dead; and, after searching the vessel, the pirates gave the crew charge of her, to take her into the land. Seven more boats came out to meet them, all well armed, and a scuffle ensued amongst the pirates, as to who should take possession, which ended in one man out of each boat coming on board, and the rest taking the vessel in tow. After three days and three nights, they reached a bay where the crew were ordered to let go the anchor, and furl sails. They were then sold to a chief Shereef Alhadary, who came on board, and who treated them with humanity, and would have sent them back to their vessel had not his people threatened to shoot them. The master died of his wounds, and the owner of the brig also.

The four surviving seamen were marched to the chief's house. In the mean time rumours of the capture of the two vessels had reached Gibraltar, and H.M.'s steam frigate 'Janus,' Commander Powell, started from Gibraltar on the 17th October, and reached the Riff coast on the 18th. She found the 'Emelia' a wreck on the beach, stripped by the Moors, and after totally destroying the piratical boats with shot and shell, set out for Cape Tres-Forcas. There she found the ribs of the 'Violet,' and prepared immediately to attack the pirate fleet; but the overwhelming numbers of the pirates compelled the British to re-embark and return to their ship, which during the contest had been firing shot and shell. Commander Powell was severely though not dangerously wounded, and seven men were also wounded, four of them dangerously. Through the intervention of H.B.M.'s Consul at Tangiers, Mr. H. Drummond Hay, the survivors of the 'Violet' were at length liberated, and embarked on board H.M.'s ship 'Dragon,' to be conveyed to Gibraltar on the 10th January.