described as old and unserviceable: their destruction or capture, therefore, was not of any material consequence to either party. Of the fifteen ships brought off by the English, few were worth much to their new masters. The Perle and Aréthuse were fine frigates ; and so was the Topaze. Scarcely any of the smaller vessels reached a British port but to be condemned or laid up. Even the Puissant 74 did not quit Portsmouth after she arrived there; and that superb and powerful ship, the Cornmerce-de-Marseille, never sailed forth as a cruiser in the service of England.

This ship measured 2747 tons. As the Commerce-de-Marseille was the largest, so was she the most beautiful ship that had hitherto been seen, and, notwithstanding her immense size, sailed and worked like a frigate. Her force was precisely that of the 120-gun ship in the table at p. 54, except that none of the ships at Toulon appear to have yet received any carronades. Captain Brenton (vol. Ill., p. 153) is therefore decidedly wrong in giving the Commerce-de-Marseille long 18-pounders on the upper deck, and long 12s on the quarterdeck and forecastle: her upper works, indeed, were almost too flimsy to bear 12s and 18s, the establishment of her class.

The Pompée 74 was a remarkably fine ship, of 1901 tons, and long remained (she was not broken up until 1817) an ornament to the British navy. The Scipion, also, would have been an acquisition; but, in November, while lying at anchor in Leghorn roads, she caught fire and blew up: happily, however, no lives were lost. Most of the French ships brought off from Toulon were manned wholly (except as to having one British lieutenant) by French royalists. M. Farrand, who commanded the Puissant, received from the British government, for his gallant behaviour in defending his ship against the republican batteries, a pension of £200 a year.

The following recapitulary table exhibits an amended account of the manner in which the 58 French vessels, which Lord Hood, in his despatch, states to have been in the road and harbour of Toulon, when he arrived there in August, were disposed of at the evacuation of the port in the succeeding December:

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