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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 298: ATTACK ON JERSEY.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ATTACK ON JERSEY.

Early in this year the French, under the Baron de Rullecourt, made another attempt upon the island of Jersey. Its little capital was captured by night, and Major Corbet, the lieutenant-governor, signed a capitulation for the surrender of the whole island. Major Pierson, however, was not so pusillanimous. Collecting all the force he could, he fell upon the French invaders in the market-place of St. Heliers, and, being-assisted by the towns-people, killed a great many of them, and captured the rest. But unfortunately Pierson was himself killed by almost the last shot fired by the French. At the commencement of the action the Baron de Rullecourt received several wounds, of which he died immediately after the surrender. In the whole, nearly eight hundred French were either killed or taken, and they had previously lost two hundred men in a terrible storm which overtook them at the commencement of their expedition, and which drove back many of their vessels to their own ports. This affair cost Major Corbet his honour: he was tried by a court-martial, and deprived of his commission of lieutenant-governor. The states erected a splendid monument in the town-church to the memory of the gallant Major Pierson.