efforts to concentrate it. In pursuance of this project three sail of the line, including the Romulus, Captain Rolland, and three frigates, including the Adrienne, quitted Toulon on February 12th, 1814, to meet and escort into port a new French 74 which was expected from Genoa. Sir Edward Pellew had by that time returned from Minorca, and at daybreak on the 13th he sighted the enemy, under Rear-Admiral Baron Cosmao-Kerjulien, steering south. The French soon tacked in order to return, and, with a strong E. wind, headed for Porquerolles, subsequently passing through Hyères Bay. Pellew's fifteen sail of the line endeavoured to cut them off; and the Boyne, 98, Captain George Burlton, and Caledonia, 120 (flag), pressed the rear ship, the Romulus, so closely and so hotly that, only by a magnificent display of seamanship on the part of her commander, was she enabled to get back to her anchorage. The Adrienne also had a narrow escape. She lost eleven, and the Romulus no fewer than seventy, killed and badly wounded. The ship from Genoa, in spite of the failure of her escort, seems to have safely got into Toulon on the following day. In this skirmish, in which the French shore batteries took part, the Boyne suffered severely aloft and had two guns disabled, besides losing two, including Midshipman George Terry, killed, and forty wounded. The flagship had but one person injured.1

2

In the meantime, on January 5th, Cattaro, in the Adriatic, had surrendered, after a ten days' cannonade, to the Bacchante, 38, Captain William Hoste, and Saracen, 18, Commander John Harper. The ships lost only one seaman killed and Lieutenant of Marines William Haig wounded. On January 28th, Ragusa surrendered to the same vessels, assisted by detachments of British and Austrian troops; and on February 13th the island of Paxo was taken without resistance by the Apollo, 38, Captain Bridges Watkinson Taylor, and troops under Lieutenant Colonel Church. All these operations were carried out under the direction of Rear-Admiral Thomas Francis Fremantle, who, ere the beginning of March, with the co-operation of Austrian troops, had reduced every remaining French possession in the Adriatic.3 In March and April Spezzia and Genoa fell to a squadron under Captain Sir Josias Rowley, who had with him British troops and two Sicilian vessels. At Genoa there was

1 Pellew's dispatch of Feb. 13th, enclosing Burlton's return.

2 Hoste to Fremantle, Jan. 3rd and 29th.

3 Fremantle to Pellew, Feb. 16th.

1814.]

THE NAVY IN THE GIRONDE.

307

found a 74, the Brillant, ready for launching. She was ultimately launched, and added to the Navy as the Genoa. There were also found another 74 in frame, and four corvettes, the Coureur, 18, Renard, 16, Endymion, 16, and Sphinx, 18.1

The British advance from Spain, which resulted, on March 31st, in the entry of the Allies into Paris, and the signature, on April 24th, of the preliminary treaty between Great Britain and France, was materially assisted by the co-operation of a naval squadron under Rear-Admiral Charles Vinicombe Penrose. The passage of the Adour, on February 23rd, was greatly facilitated by the exertions and excellent dispositions of Captain John Coode of the Porcupine, 24, Commander Dowell O'Reilly (commanding the force in the river), of the Lyra, 10, and Lieutenants George Cheyne, commanding the Woodlark, John Cheshire, commanding a gunboat, and John Debenham, transport officer. The losses on the occasion included Commander George Elliott, of the Martial, 14, Mr. Henry Bloye, Master's Mate of the Lyra, and eleven British seamen, besides numerous soldiers and others drowned, and Surgeon Charles Norman, of the Martial, killed.2 Simultaneously with Marshal Beresford's approach to Bordeaux, Penrose, with his flag in the Egmont, 74, entered the Gironde. Lieutenant Robert Graham Dunlop, with the boats of the Porcupine, captured or destroyed a number of French craft, which, protected by troops from Blaye, had run ashore near Tallemont. This service, which was performed on April 2nd, cost the Navy fourteen seamen and Royal Marines wounded, and two missing. Four days later, after preparations had been made by the Egmont and the Centaur, 74, Captain John Chambers White, to attack the Regulus, 74, three corvettes, and other vessels which lay under batteries in the river, the French burnt the whole flotilla. At or about the same time, the various works commanding the river were entered and destroyed by a force under Captain George Harris, of the Belle Poule, 38.3

In April Louis XVIII. embarked at Dover in the Royal Sovereign yacht, and, escorted by the Jason, 32, on board of which was Admiral of the Fleet the Duke of Clarence, and by the French frigate Polonais, landed at Calais on the 24th. On the 28th of the

same month, Napoleon embarked at Fréjus in the Undaunted, 38,

1 Rowley's dispatches of Mar. 31st and Apr. 18th.

2 Penrose to Keith, Feb. 25th, and O'Reilly's return of casualties.

3 Penrose to Keith, Apr. 6th and 9th. Coode to Penrose, Apr. 2nd.

Captain Thomas Ussher; and on May 4th he was landed at Porto Ferrajo in Elba, the sovereignty of which little island had been assigned to him by the Powers. The definitive treaty with France was signed at Paris on May 30th.

But definitive peace was not yet. On February 26th, 1815, after the British fleet in commission had been nearly everywhere reduced, Napoleon suddenly left Elba in an armed brig, and, accompanied by about a thousand men in pinks and feluccas, landed in Golf Juan, near Cannes, on March 1st. On March 21st he entered Paris. Pellew, who since May 14th, 1814, had been deservedly raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Exmouth, was at once reappointed Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, with his brother, Sir Israel Pellew, as Captain of the Fleet. Lord Keith was given

command in the Channel, and measures were promptly taken to strengthen the Navy on all stations. But ere many of these measures could be completely carried out, the decisive battle of Waterloo, on June 18th, put an end for ever to Napoleon's active career. On July 15th, finding that he had no chance of escaping, as he had hoped, to the United States, the ex-Emperor surrendered himself to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland (2), of the Bellerophon, 74, in Basque road, and was conveyed, first to Torquay, and then to Plymouth, where he arrived on July 26th. On August 7th, he was transferred to the Northumberland, 74, Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn, Captain Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross; on the following day the ship sailed; and on October 16th Napoleon was disembarked at his final place of detention, the island of St. Helena. A general peace was again signed at Paris on November 20th.