Captain Sir Roger Curtis. That sketch of the action may be comprised in three or four pages; while the details I have given fill 80 pages. Look, also, at the mistatements in Lord Collingwood's letter respecting the battle of Trafalgar. Compare that brief letter with my account, which occupies 120 pages. I might refer, in a similar way, to every other general action of the two wars.

With respect to single-ship actions, the official accounts of them are also very imperfect. The letters are generally written an hour or so after the termination of the contest, and of course before the captain has well recovered from the fatigue and flurry it occasioned. Many captains are far more expert at the sword than at the pen, and would sooner fight an action than write the particulars of one. I know a case where, after an officer had written a clear and explicit account of an important operation he had been engaged in, his commander-in-chief sent him back his letter to shorten. In consequence of this, the gazette-letter was not only brief, but unintelligible. If you are informed how long the action lasted, you seldom can learn at what hour it began or ended. As to the state of the wind, that is scarcely ever noticed. The name of the captured ship is given, and, now and then, the name of her commander; her numerical force in guns ; also their calibers, generally when equal or superior, but less frequently when inferior, to those of the captor. The force of the British ship, being known to the Board of Admiralty, is left to be guessed at by the public, or partially gathered from Steel. Moreover, whatever may have been the mistakes or omissions in an official account, no supplementary account, unless it relates to a return of loss, is put forth to rectify or supply them.*

But even the minuteness of my accounts has given rise to objections. That trite maxim of expediency, "Truth is not at all times to be spoken," has been held up against me; and I

* Two exceptions occur to me: one, Captain Blackwood's letter, amending Lord Collingwood's respecting the prizes made at the battle of Trafalgar ; the other, a letter from Vice-admiral Bertie, supplying the omission of the name of the Menelaus among the ships stated as present at the capture of the Isle of France.

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