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something grand and interesting in the thing, for as soon as they had pulled him into the wreck, he was received with three vast cheers by the people on board, and these were immediately echoed by those who lined the shore, the garrison walls, and lower batteries. The first thing he did was to rig out two other ropes like the first, which I saw him most active in doing with his own hands. This quickened the matter a good deal; and by this time two large open row-boats were arrived from the dock-yard, and a sloop had with difficulty worked out from Plymouth Pool. He then became active in getting out the women and the sick, who were with difficulty got into the open boats, and by them carried off to the sloop, which kept off for fear of being stove against the ship, or thrown upon the rocks.

'He suffered but one boat to approach the ship at a time, and stood with his drawn sword to prevent too many rushing into the boats. After he had seen all the people out of the ship, to about ten or fifteen, he fixed himself to the rope as before, and was drawn on shore, where he was again received with shouts. Upon my inquiring who this gallant officer was, I was informed it was Sir Edward Pellew.*

On the 9th of March, Pellew and his squadron again put to sea, and on the 21st the Indefatigable fell in with and chased three corvettes, one of which she destroyed. On the 13th April, Captain Cole in the Revolutionnaire took L'Unité French frigate, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Linois, after a short fight; and Pellew had the satisfaction of putting in its fullest light the merit of his early friend-too soon lost to the public service; for he died at Plymouth in 1799, almost under Pellew's eyes. A few days after, the Indefatigable engaged and disabled the Virginie, Captain Bergeret, who fought his ship with great skill and gallantry, and did not surrender till another of the British squadron came up. No one could do more justice to Bergeret than Pellew; the prisoner became his guest; and the British Government paid this brave Frenchman the compliment of offering him in exchange for Sir Sydney Smith, lately made prisoner at Havre. Bergeret was sent to France on parole to effect this object; but not having succeeded, he honourably returned to England. Sir Sydney, however, in about two years after, having made his escape, the British Government set Bergeret immediately at liberty. We shall meet him again.

The probability of the invasion of Ireland from Brest now induced

* At a public dinner given to Sir Edward at Plymouth, immediately after the event, were recited some stanzas which are now inscribed on Lord Exmouth's tomb. For the occasion which produced them, the verses were very well-but they are hardly deserving of monumental preservation-except, indeed, the concluding line, which is remarkable for its appropriate vigour and piety:

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May thy Redeemer with triumphant arm

From the vast wreck of all things-rescue THEE!' The author (not named by Mr. Osler) is, we have heard, Mr. George Eastlake of Plymouth.

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the Government to watch that port with peculiar attention, and a large share of this important duty was intrusted to Sir Edward Pellew. We can find room for but two extracts concerning that long and arduous blockade, every day and hour of which was an exertion of naval skill and moral perseverance.

Knowing how much depended on his vigilance, Sir Edward had watched Brest with the most anxious attention. The wind blew generally from the eastward, at times so strong that the line-of-battle ships would be under a close-reefed maintop-sail and reefed fore-sail; and the weather was intensely cold: yet he went every morning to the mast-head, where he would remain making his observations for a considerable part of the day, one of the older midshipmen being usually with him. "Well I remember," writes one of his officers, "that on being one day relieved to go down to my dinner, I was obliged to have some of the maintop-men to help me down the rigging, I was so benumbed with the intense cold: yet the captain was there six or seven hours at a time, without complaining, or taking any refreshment."— pp. 136, 37.

At last, in December, 1796, the French fleet made its celebrated attempt on Ireland. Its sortie was so mismanaged, that if an extraordinary series of accidents had not prevented a meeting, the British arms would probably have had a more decisive and less difficult victory than any they have ever gained.

Sir E. Pellew had stood in that morning [Dec. 16,] with the Indefatigable and Revolutionnaire, and at noon came in sight of the enemy. At a quarter before five, when they had all got under way, he sent off Captain Cole to the admiral, and remained with his own ship to observe and embarrass their movements. With a boldness which must have astonished them, accustomed though they had been to the daring manner in which he had watched their port-under easy sail, but with studding-sails ready for a start, if necessary-he kept as close as possible to the French admiral, often within half-gun shot; and as that officer made signals to his fleet, he falsified them by additional guns, lights, and rockets. At half-past eight, when the French ships were observed coming round the Saintes, he made sail to the north-west, with a light at each mast-head, constantly making signals for Sir J. Colpoys, by firing a gun every quarter of an hour, throwing up rockets and burning blue-lights. At midnight, having received no answer, he tacked, and stood to the southward until six o'clock. Still seeing nothing of the admiral, and reflecting on the importance of conveying the information quickly to England, he gave up the hope of distinction to a sense of duty, and made sail for Falmouth. He arrived late in the evening of the 20th.'-p. 138-140.

The fate of that fleet-its good fortune in escaping the British, and its disastrous contest with the elements-is well known. One of the two-deckers, Les Droits de l'Homme, after having been blown out of Bantry Bay, had arrived, on the 18th of January,

within a few leagues of her own coast, when-late in the evening -Sir Edward Pellew, with the Indefatigable and Amazon, fell in with and immediately attacked her. It was blowing a gale, with a heavy sea this was in favour of the frigates, as it impeded the line-of-battle ship in the use of her lower-deck guns. The Indefatigable fought her single-handed for more than an hour before the Amazon could come up. The gale and the battle lasted all night. The damage done to the frigates by the heavier metal of the ship, made more serious by the violence of the weather, required all the resources of seamanship to enable them to keep close to the enemy. The action had now lasted eleven hours, when-about five in the morning-the officer and men who were on the look out in the Indefatigable descried the land through the gloom; her course was immediately altered, and the nightsignal of danger was made to the Amazon, which with equal promptitude wore to the northward. The enemy did not yet see the danger in which he had, on his own coast, involved himself and his pursuers, and fancying that he had beaten off the frigates, poured into the Indefatigable, as she passed him quite close in the new direction, the most destructive broadside she had yet received; seven shot struck the hull, all the three lower masts were wounded, and an infinity of damage was done to the other spars and rigging. Mr. Gaze,* a master's-mate, and Mr. Thompson,† the actingmaster, by great courage and exertion saved the main-top-mast, and very probably the ship.

'None at this time knew how desperate was their situation. The ships were in the Bay of Audierne, [a little to the southward of Brest,] close in with the surf, with the wind blowing a heavy gale dead on the shore, and a tremendous sea rolling in. To beat off the land would have been a difficult and doubtful undertaking for the best and most perfect ship. The Indefatigable had four feet water in the hold, and her safety depended on her wounded spars and damaged rigging bearing the press of sail she was obliged to carry; while the crew, thus summoned to renewed exertion, were already quite worn out 'with fatigue. The fate of the other ships was certain; for the Amazon had all her principal sails disabled, and the Droits de l'Homme was unmanageable.

The Indefatigable continued standing to the southward until the captain of the mizen-top gave the alarm of breakers on the lee bow. The ship was immediately wore in eighteen fathom, and she stood to

* Mr. Gaze is now master-attendant at Sheerness. That able officer was rewarded for his conduct on this occasion with a master's warrant, and continued with Lord Exmouth to the last day of his public life. It was he who carried the Queen Charlotte in such admirable style to her position off Algiers. Lord Exmouth knew how to choose his friends, and never deserted them.

Mr. Thompson afterwards rose to the rank of post-captain, and married, we believe, a lady of Lord Exmouth's family.

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the northward till half-past six, when land was again seen close a-head on the weather-bow, with breakers under the lee. Running again to the southward, she passed the Droits de l'Homme, lying on her broadside in the surf, at the distance of about a mile, but without the possibility of giving the smallest assistance. Her own situation, indeed, was almost hopeless; and Sir Edward Pellew himself was deeply affected when, all having been done which seamanship could accomplish, he could only commit to a merciful Providence the lives of his gallant crew, all now depending upon one of the many accidents to the masts and rigging which there was so much reason to apprehend. Happily the sails stood well; the Indefatigable continued to gain by every tack; and at eleven o'clock, with six feet water in her hold, she passed about three-quarters of a mile to windward of the Penmarcks; enabling her officers and men, after a day and night of incessant exertion, at length to rest from their toil, and to bless God for their deliverance.

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The Amazon struck the ground about ten minutes after she ceased firing. Her crew displayed the admirable discipline which British seamen are accustomed to maintain under such circumstances; more creditable to them, if possible, than the seamanship which saved the Indefatigable. From half-past five until nine o'clock they were employed in making rafts, and not a man was lost, or attempted to leave the ship, except six, who stole away the cutter from the stern, and were drowned. Captain Reynolds* and his officers remained by the ship until they had safely landed, first the wounded, and afterwards every man of the crew. Of course they were made prisoners, but they were treated well, and exchanged not many months after.'pp. 154-157.

The fate of the Droits de l'Homme was an awful contrast indeed to that of the Amazon. Four dreadful days and nights of cold, thirst, hunger, and—the main cause and greatest scourge of all-indiscipline and confusion, tortured her miserable crew. When the danger was first seen they gave the alarm to fifty-five English prisoners, officers and men, the crew and passengers of a letter-of-marque taken a few days before: these seem to have preserved their senses, and to have been mainly instrumental in saving such as were saved. By the close of the third day, 900 had perished; on the fourth morning a consultation was held to sacrifice some one to be food for the remainder-the cannibal-die was about to be cast when two vessels approached, and rescued the survivors of a total number of between 1500 and 1600-crew,

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* Captain Reynolds, one of the earliest and closest friends of Lord Exmouth, perished by a not less distressing shipwreck, that of the St. George, on her return from the Baltic, in the disastrous winter of 1811. She and the Defence which attended to assist her, were wrecked on Christmas-day, and only eighteen men of the two ships were saved. Rear-Admiral Reynolds and his captain remained at their posts till they sunk from the inclemency of the weather-stretched on the quarterdeck, hand-in-hand, they were frozen to death together.

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troops, and prisoners-it would seem that not so many as 400 were saved. Commodore Lacrosse, captain of the ship, General Humbert, commander of the troops, and three British Infantry officers* (prisoners), remained on the wreck till the last:-they were taken off on the fifth morning, exhausted to the last extreme, but all recovered.

The years 1797 and 1798 were passed in the blockade of Brest and other Channel services, with great perseverance and so much success, that in the course of 1798 alone Sir Edward's squadron took no fewer than fifteen of the enemy's cruizers. One of the captures was of more than common interest. It was La Vaillante, a national corvette, taken by the Indefatigable after a chase of twenty-four hours. She was bound to Cayenne with prisoners, amongst whom were twenty-five priests; and, as passengers, the wife and family of an exiled deputy, M. Rovère, who were proceeding to join him, with all they possessed-about 3000l. ` Sir Edward and his officers vied in attention to the poor ecclesiastics, and, on landing them in England, he gave them a supply for their immediate wants; to Madame Rovère he restored the whole of her property, and paid out of his own pocket the proportion which was the prize of the crew.

Sir Edward's standing now required-according to the wise, and indeed necessary, gradation of service-his removal (no active captain ever considers it an advancement) into a line-of-battle ship, and he was complimented with the command of the Impétueux, the most beautiful, and probably the finest, ship of her class.' But Mr. Osler tells us that, before he relinquished his frigate command, he had proposed to the First Lord of the Admiralty to run with his little squadron into Brest harbour, and destroy the dismantled fleet. If Sir Edward made such a proposition, we agree with Mr. Osler (p. 175), that it affords a strong presumption that he would have succeeded; but the conception is, as he admits, daring in so high a degree,' and so near to impossibility,' that we think he ought to have indicated at least the authority on which he has made the statement.

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One of those, Lieutenant Pipon, published, in the Naval Chronicle, vol. vii. p. 465, a most horribly interesting account of this shipwreck. See also James, vol. ii. p. 16, &c., for a detailed account of this remarkable fight and its consequences.

We must take this occasion, once for all, to remark Mr. Osler's repeated negligence in omitting to state the force of the ships he has occasion to mention. A common reader has no means of supplying the deficiency-we have had some little trouble in ascertaining that the Impétueux was a third-rate, taken on the 1st of June, but she cannot be properly said to have belonged to a class, for she bore the singular denomination of a 78. Mr. Osler is also occasionally negligent of his dates. It seems to us surprising that historians and biographers so often neglect to favour their readers with a running, date, instead of, or in addition to the running title, which latter in such works is quite superfluous.

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