GALLANTRY OF FORTUNATUS WRIGHT.

Sir Edward Hawke, being disappointed in his hope of encountering La Galissonniere, and relieving the English garrison of St. Philip’s, at least asserted the empire of Great Britain in the Mediterranean, by annoying the commerce of the enemy, and blocking up the squadron in the harbour of Toulon. Understanding that the Austrian government at Leghorn had detained an English privateer, and imprisoned the captain, on pretence that he had violated the neutrality of the port, he detached two ships of war, to insist, in a peremptory manner, on the release of the ship, effects, crew, and captain; and they thought proper to comply with this demand, even without waiting for orders from the court of Vienna. The person in whose behalf the admiral thus interposed, was one Fortunatus Wright, a native of Liverpool; who, though a stranger to a sea life, had in the last war equipped a privateer, and distinguished himself in such a manner by his uncommon vigilance and valour, that, if he had been indulged with a command suitable to his genius, he would have deserved as honourable a place in the annals of the navy, as that which the French have bostowed upon their boasted Guai Trouin, Du Bart, and Thurot. An uncommon exertion of spirit was the occasion of his being detained at this juncture. While he lay at anchor in the harbour of Leghorn, commander of the St. George privateer of Liverpool, a small ship of twelve guns and eighty men, a large French xebeque, mounted with sixteen cannon, and nearly three times the number of his complement, chose her station in view of the harbour, in order to interrupt the British commerce. The gallant Wright could not endure this insult: notwithstanding the enemy’s superiority in metal and number of men, he weighed anchor, hoisted his sails, engaged him within sight of the shore, and after a very obstinate dispute, in which the captain, lieutenant, and above threescore of the men belonging to the xebeque were killed on the spot, he obliged them to sheer off, and returned to the harbour in triumph. This brave corsair would, no doubt, have signalized himself by many other exploits, had he not, in the sequel, been overtaken in the midst of his career by a dreadful storm, in which the ship foundering, he and all his crew perished.