nière, and was meditating to cross her bows and end the contest by a raking fire, when, at about 4 h. 45 m. P. M., a well-directed broadside from the frigate shot away the jib-stay and foretopsail ties and slings of the 74, and brought her foretopsail yard down upon the cap.

In consequence of this accident the Tremendous dropped astern fast, and, having no immediate alternative, bore up and poured a raking fire into her opponent's stern and quarter, but at too great a distance to produce any effect. As soon as she had repaired her damaged rigging, the 74 again hauled up; but the frigate had now got to windward, and was making so good a use of the advantage, that the few shot afterwards fired by the Tremendous could not reach her. At the time that the latter hauled up, the Charlton Indiaman, Captain George Wood, being ahead of the fleet, hove to and fired her broadside, but at so great a distance, that the Canonnière did not deign a reply. Captain Osborn continued the pursuit until 7 h. 30 m. P. M.; when, the frigate having disappeared since sunset, the Tremendous hove to, in order to await the coming up of the Hindostan and convoy.

Except a few shots in her masts, the damages of the Tremendous did not exceed those already mentioned; and, owing to the high fire of her opponent, she had not a man hurt. The injuries done to the Canonnière were of a more serious description. A shot had penetrated 16 inches into her mainmast, and cut the heart of it; and her fore yard and mizenmast were also badly wounded. One of her iron 36-pounder carronades (of which the frigate had 14, with six long eights, making her guns the same in number as when recaptured from the British, 48) and two of her anchors were broken by shot; she likewise received about 21 in the hull. Her loss, out of a crew of 330 men and boys, amounted to seven men killed and 25 wounded, including among the latter two or three officers. It is related of two "enseignes," or midshipmen, named Prenet and Duplantos, that, after being severely wounded, they went below only to get the blood stanched, and then returned to their quarters.

If any thing can add to the credit of M. Bourayne, for the able management of his ship, and his persevering and successful defence of her against a force so superior, it is the modesty of the account which he transmitted to the minister of marine. No rodomontade; all is plainly, yet minutely told, and, in every material point, agrees with the entry in the British ship's log. Fortunately for the cause of truth and the character of a brave officer, the imperial supervisor of official correspondence either overlooked Captain Bourayne's letter, or, having no immediate purpose to answer by altering the statements it contained, suffered the Moniteur to insert the letter in its original form.

Captain Bourayne's account, however, was too insipid to be

served up, in its simple state, to the French readers of the "Victoires et Conquêtes." The writer has accordingly seasoned it in a way which, he knew, would render it palatable. Not only is the Tremendous made to fly from the field of battle, but the crew of the Canonnière are eager to board her. "Il ne s'agissait plus alors, pour ces braves matelots, de soustraire leur frégate au vaisseau ennemi, ni même de la forcer à une retraite honteuse; ils aspiraient à le prendre, et les cris, à l'abordage! à l'abordage! se firent entendre à plusieurs reprises."*

The action of the Tremendous and Canonnière affords a lesson to officers, who find themselves suddenly assailed by a decidedly superior force. It teaches them that, by a judicious and protracted defence, their ship may escape, even when, in a manner, close under the guns of an opponent, whose single broadside, well directed (the chief point wherein the Tremendous appears to have failed), must either sink or disable her.

The Canonnière had sailed from Cherbourg on the 14th of November, 1805, as a reinforcement to Rear-admiral Linois, whom Captain Bourayne, agreeably to his orders, proceeded to join at the Isle of France. Not finding the admiral there, the frigate was seeking him off the Cape of Good Hope, when fallen in with by the Tremendous and her convoy. After repairing, as well as could be done at sea, the damage she had sustained in this rencounter, the Canonnière steered for Simon's bay, and on the 30th anchored near Penguin island. Deceived by the Dutch colours at all the forts, and on board the merchant ships at anchor within him, M. Bourayne sent on shore a boat under the command of a lieutenant. No sooner had the party disembarked, than the forts, changing their colours, opened a heavy fire of shot and shells upon the frigate. The Canonnière immediately cut her cable and stood out. Several shells broke over, but none did any important injury to her; and not a single shot struck her hull. The French lieutenant and his men were of course made prisoners.

On the 25th of April a British squadron, composed of the 50gun ship Leander, Captain Henry Whitby, 18-pounder 40-gun frigate Cambrian, Captain John Nairne, and 18-gun ship-sloop Driver, Captain Slingsby Simpson, cruised off the port of New York, to search American vessels coming from foreign ports for enemy's property and for goods contraband of war, also to gain information respecting the routes of two or three French squadrons then known to be at sea. At about 2 P. M. on that day Captain Whitby went on board the Cambrian, to dine with Captain Nairne, leaving the Leander in charge of her first lieutenant Mr. John Smith Cowan. At 3 P. M., when standing in upon the larboard tack, Sandy-Hook lighthouse bearing west-north-west

* Victoires et Conquêtes, tome xvii., p. 289.

distant about five leagues, the squadron discovered several sail in the south-west by south, apparently about four leagues from the Jersey shore, steering towards the Hook.

Soon after 4 P. M. the Cambrian, at that time the leading ship of the three, and distant about three miles and a half from the land, fired at some of the nearest vessels, and, heaving to, sent her boats on board three or four of them. The Leander then passed astern of the former, and stood on, to endeavour to bring down several brigs, one or two schooners, and a ship that had brought to at the distance of two or three miles from the squadron, with their heads in shore and their foresails set. After firing two guns at two brigs, that lay close together, and were more advanced than their companions, the Leander, being within about three miles of the shore, tacked, and continued occasionally firing single guns ahead and astern of the brigs, until the latter wore and stood towards her. The brigs were then boarded by her boats, and suffered to proceed; as were all the other vessels boarded by the squadron on that afternoon, except the ship, which, being detected in an illicit trade from Havana, was detained and sent to Halifax, where the greater portion of her cargo was legally condemned. Among the brigs not boarded was one from the West Indies, laden with a full cargo of contraband, and commanded by the nephew of the celebrated Paul Jones.

No sooner had the two first-mentioned American brigs altered their course to approach the Leander, than a small sloop discovered herself at a short distance in shore of them. Little did the Leander's captain imagine what a powerful instrument of persecution against him this apparently insignificant object was to be made: insignificant, indeed, for who, beyond some half a dozen citizens of New-York, had ever heard of the "American coasting-sloop Richard, Jesse Pierce, master?" It appears (for there is no positive evidence of the fact) that a shot from the Leander killed John Pierce, the brother of Jesse, as the former was standing at the helm. A splinter was said to have struck him under the jaw, and to have caused instant death. The man never moved after he fell, but his brother acknowledges that he neither saw John Pierce fall, nor the splinter strike him. The sloop was presently in New-York, and alongside of one of the wharfs. An election was at this time going on in the city. The body of the man was carried on shore, and the scenes that followed were a disgrace to the citizens.

In mockery of all justice, a grand jury collected among the citizens found a bill for wilful murder against Captain Whitby. The impulse, once given, extended all over the United States. Even the president was induced to issue a proclamation, declaring the captain of the Leander to be a murderer, and calling upon the citizens to seize him, Captain Whitby, that he might be proceeded against according to law. By the same procla

mation, the Leander, and the two ships in her company at the time the unfortunate occurrence happened, as well as all other vessels commanded by the same three captains, were prohibited from entering the harbours and waters of the United States. At a subsequent period Captain Whitby, at the instance of the British admiralty, was tried by a court-martial for the murder of John Pierce, and, there not being a particle of evidence to prove the charge, was acquitted.

On the 25th of May, in the afternoon, the British 18-gun shipsloop Renard (sixteen 18-pounder carronades and two sixes), Captain Jeremiah Coghlan, being about 10 miles north-northeast of the island of Mona, standing to the northward, with a light wind at east-south-east, saw and chased a strange sail under the island of Zacheo, bearing south-east. The pursuit continued all night; and daylight on the 26th discovered the stranger to be a brig, and apparently a cruiser. All this day and night passed in chase, each vessel still on the starboard tack, the Renard gaining. On the 27th, at 8 A. M., owing to the calm state of the weather, the Renard took to her sweeps, and continued plying them until 8 P. M., when a light breeze sprang up. That night passed, and at noon on the 28th the Renard, being in latitude 20° 30' north, longitude 68° west, and having got almost near enough to the stranger to open her fire, was saved that trouble by the French brig-corvette Diligent, Lieutenant Vincent Thevenard, hauling down her colours; and this, notwithstanding the brig mounted 14 long 6-pounders and two brass 36-pounder carronades, and had on board a crew of 125 men. The Diligent had sailed from Pointe-à-Pitre seven days before, and was bound to Lorient.

What could have possessed M. Thevenard, that he should have so disgraced the flag under which he served as to haul it down without making the slightest resistance? As the bearer of despatches from Guadaloupe to France, he was justified in speaking no one. That excused his flight, but not his surrender. The moment he saw that he could not escape, and that the ship approaching him was of about equal size to his own (the Renard was of 348, the Diligent of 317 tons), he, should have fought her. Not a 10-gun schooner-privateer from the island he had quitted, but would have done so. What had he to fear, with the weathergage and a battery of seven French 6-pounders and one 36-pounder carronade, opposed to eight 18-pounder carronades and one 6-pounder? The only difference in force between the Renard and a common English gun-brig, or one of the large armed schooners, was in number, not in caliber of guns. On coming to close quarters, and beginning to feel the weight of his opponent's heavier shot, what was to hinder the French captain from boarding?

To call the conduct of M. Thevenard by any softer name than cowardice, would be acting more leniently towards a Frenchman

than we are accustomed to act towards an Englishman. To the honour of both navies, cases of the kind are rare, very rare; and if M. Thevenard continued to belong to the French navy, as it appears he did, until the reduction that took place in the year 1817, it must have been because he misrepresented the circumstances under which he had been captured in 1806. What would Napoléon have done, had he known that the commander of one of his brig-corvettes had struck to a vessel of equal force without firing a shot?

On the 17th of February, 1805, the honourable East India company's ship Warren-Hastings, Captain Thomas Larkins, mounting 44 guns, with a complement of 196 men and boys, sailed from Portsmouth on a voyage to China. As extraordinary pains had been taken in the equipment of this ship, to enable her to defend herself against a French frigate should she chance to fall in with one, we will give a more particular account of her

armament.

The Warren-Hastings mounted 26 medium 18-pounders on her main or lower deck, 14 carronades, 18-pounders, on her upper deck, and four carronades, 12-pounders, on her poop. The medium gun was six feet long, and weighed about 26 cwt.; whereas the common 18-pounder of the British navy is nine feet long, and weighs about 423 cwt. The former, when run out, did not reach above a foot beyond the ship's side, and, in traversing, wooded, or touched the side of the port, at an angle of less than three points from the beam. The 18-pounder carronade was five feet long, and weighed about 15 cwt.; the 12-pounder was three feet and a quarter long, and weighed about 83 cwt. A navy carronade of each caliber is in length and weight as follows: the 18-pounder, three feet four inches, and about 10 cwt.; the 12-pounder, two feet eight inches, and about 63 cwt. The carronades of the Warren-Hastings were mounted upon a carriage resembling Gover's in every particular but the only essential one, the having of rollers adapted to a groove in the slide. The consequence of this silly evasion of an ingenious man's patent was, that the whole of the ship's quarterdeck and poop guns became utterly useless, after only a few rounds had been fired from them. The first discovery of any imperfection in the new carriage occurred at exercise; but a plentiful supply of black lead upon the upper surface of the slide lessened the friction, and, with the aid of an additional hand, enabled the gun to be run out. On account, however, of the rain, and the salt water in washing the deck, the application of black lead was obliged to be repeated every time of exercise.

The Warren-Hastings arrived out without meeting any opponent to try her powers upon, and sailed again on her return, but not quite so strongly armed. Four of her maindeck ports had been calked up, to afford space for a store-room, and the four guns transferred to the hold; and, on account of a reduc