roads, with the body of her late gallant and much lamented captain on board.

On the 19th of May, at 4 P. M., in latitude 46° north, longitude 14° west, the British 38-gun frigate Virginie, Captain Edward Brace, standing on the starboard tack with the wind at north-east, saw and chased a sail in the north-north-west. At 4 h. 30 m. P. M. the strange sail, which was the Dutch frigate Guelderland, already named as the object of the Tartar's search, bore away. At 7 h. 40 m. P. M. the Virginie, coming up fast, fired a gun to leeward: on which the Guelderland fired one to windward, and hoisted French colours. At 9 h. 45 m. P. M., the Virginie hailed the Guelderland; who, shifting her colours, replied that she was a Dutch ship of war.

Being now called upon to strike, and refusing, the Guelderland was fired into by the Virginie, and an action forthwith commenced. During its continuance the Dutch frigate wore three times, and, in attempting to do so the fourth time, fell on board her opponent; but the night was so dark, and the swell so great, that the British could not act as on such occasions they are wont. After an hour and a half's contest, in which she had her bowsprit and all three masts shot away by the board, and sustained a very heavy loss in killed and wounded, the Guelderland struck her colours to the Virginie; whose principal damage was that caused by the former's running foul of her. The Guelderland, soon after she had struck, caught fire, but, "through the firm discipline of the enemy," says Captain Brace, "the fire was extinguished" before the Virginie's boats could get on board to rescue the prisoners.

The Virginie came out of the action with so trifling a loss as one man killed and two men wounded; while that of the Guelderland, whose crew numbered 253, exclusive of 23 passengers, amounted to 25 officers and men killed, and 50, including her commander, severely wounded.

Against such a superiority as existed in this action, to delay surrendering until the ship was wholly dismasted, and three tenths of her crew killed or disabled, showed that there was no want of bravery in the Dutch frigate. There appears, however, to have been one exception among the persons on board; and that, shame to say, the captain himself. On the 28th of November, 1810, Colonel de mer Pool, late captain of the Guelderland frigate, was tried by a court-martial at Amsterdam, for having, during that ship's action with the Virginie, quitted his quarters after receiving two slight wounds, one in the face, the other in the hand. By the sentence that followed, he was dismissed the service, declared perjured and infamous, and banished for life.*

In the art of gunnery, the Dutchmen appear to have been mi

* Moniteur, December 14, 1810.

11

serably deficient. Many a 10-gun privateer, in a running fight, has inflicted a greater loss upon a British frigate, than the Virginie sustained in her one hour and a half's conflict with the Guelderland. On the other hand, great credit is due to the Virginie's officers and crew for the skill they exhibited; especially when it is considered, that the 18-pounders of the Virginie, on account of her age and weakness, were of a shorter and lighter description than those usually established upon frigates of her class.

The British captain, in his official letter, calls the defence of his opponent a gallant one, and adds: "If any credit is due to this transaction, I entreat you to bestow it on the officers and men." Here is another instance of that liberal feeling which is ever the characteristic of the truly brave. Captain Brace's recommendation of his officers produced its effect, Lieutenant John Davis, first of the ship, being made a commander, and master's mate Nathaniel Norton, who had passed for one, a lieutenant. Dutch ships of war are seldom any great acquisition to the British navy; but the Guelderland served, for a few years, as a cruising 12-pounder 36.

On the 4th of April, while the British 38-gun frigate Alceste, Captain Murray Maxwell, 28-gun frigate Mercury, Captain James Alexander Gordon, and 18-gun brig-sloop Grasshopper (16 carronades, 32-pounders, and two long sixes), Captain Thomas Searle, lay at anchor about three miles to the north-west of the lighthouse of San-Sebastian, near Cadiz, a large convoy, under the protection of about 20 gun-boats and a numerous train of flying artillery on the beach, was observed coming down close along-shore from the northward. At 3 P. M., the Spanish convoy being then abreast of the town of Rota, the Alceste and squadron weighed, with the wind at west-south-west, and stood in for the body of the enemy's vessels.

At 4 P. M., the shot and shells from the gun-boats and batte ries passing over them, the British ships opened their fire. The Alceste and Mercury devoted their principal attention to the gunboats; while the Grasshopper, drawing much less water, stationed herself upon the shoal to the southward of the town, and so close to the batteries, that by the grape from her carronades she drove the Spaniards from their guns, and at the same time. kept in check a division of gun-boats, which had come out from Cadiz to assist those engaged by the two frigates. Captain Maxwell in his official letter, alluding to this gallant conduct on the part of Captain Searle, says: "It was a general cry in both ships, Only look how nobly the brig behaves."" The situation of the Alceste and Mercury was also rather critical, they having, in the state of the wind, to tack every fifteen minutes close to the end of the shoal.

In the heat of the action the first Lieutenant of the Alceste, Allen Stewart, volunteered to board the convoy with the boats.

Accordingly the boats of the Alceste pushed off, under Lieutenant Stewart, accompanied by Lieutenant Philip Pipon, Lieutenant of Marines Richard Hawkey, master's mates James Arscott and Thomas Day, midshipmen J. Stevens Parker, James Adair, Charles Croker, Abraham M'Caul, and Thomas Henry M'Lean; and the boats of the Mercury, under Lieutenant Watkin Owen Pell,* accompanied by Lieutenant Robert James Gordon, Lieutenant of Marines James Whylock, master's mates Charles Du Cane and Maurice Keating Comyn, quickly followed. Dashing in among the convoy, the two divisions of boats, led by Lieutenant Stewart, soon boarded and brought out seven tartans, from under the very muzzles of the enemy's guns, and from under the protection of the barges and pinnaces of the Franco-Spanish squadron of seven sail of the line; which barges and pinnaces had also by that time effected their junction with the gun-boats.

Exclusive of the seven tartans captured, two of the gun-boats were destroyed, and several compelled to run on shore, by the fire from the two British frigates and brig, which did not entirely cease until 6 h. 30 m. P. M. All this was effected with so slight a loss to the British, as one man mortally and two slightly wounded on board the Grasshopper. The damages of the latter, however, were extremely severe, as well in hull, as in masts, rigging, and sails. With the exception of an anchor shot away from the Mercury, the damages of the two frigates were confined to their sails and rigging, and that not to any material extent.

In the month of April, while the British 12-pounder 36-gun frigate Nymphe, Captain Conway Shipley, and 18-gun shipsloop Blossom, Captain George Pigot, were cruising off the port of Lisbon, information was received, that a large brig-corvette, the Garrota, of 20 guns and 150 men, late belonging to the Portuguese navy, but since fitted out by the French, was lying at anchor in a bight above Belem castle, waiting for an opportunity to escape to sea. Having rowed up the Tagus at night in his gig, and reconnoitred the position of the brig, Captain Shipley resolved to attempt cutting her out. For this For this purpose the boats of both ships were detached, and upon a principle highly honourable to him, were placed by Captain Shipley under the command of Captain Pigot; the former merely accompanying the expedition to point out the situation of the vessel. Owing to some cause with which we are unacquainted, the boats returned without effecting their object, or even, we believe, getting within gun-shot of the French brig. A second attempt ended much in the same way.

Captain Shipley now resolved to head the boats himself; and accordingly, on the 23d, at 9 P. M., eight boats, containing about

* In mentioning the wound of this officer when a midshipman of the Loire in February 1800 (see vol. iii., p. 31), we should have stated that he lost his left leg, and was then under 12 years of age.