The consequence we have ventured to attach to the carronade, as a standard gun in the British navy, imposes upon us the task of watching its progress through the several classes of ships. During the year 1793, no order issued directing its general use; but several captains obtained leave for their ships to be fitted with carronades on the quarterdeck, forecastle, and poop. One ship, too, the Redoubt, fitted up as a floating battery, was armed wholly with carronades, and those of the highest caliber, 68-pounders.

The number of commissioned officers and masters, belonging to the British navy at the commencement of this year, was,

and the number of seamen and marines, for which supplies were voted, was 85,000. *

Soon after the return of the Brest fleet from Belle-Isle, those officers and seamen who belonged, or were suspected to belong, to the disaffected party, were sacrificed to the jacobinical rage of Robespierre and his agents. The captain and two of the lieutenants of the Cote-d'Or, and the captain of the Jean-Bart, were condemned to suffer death. Rear-admiral Kerguelen and some other commanders were imprisoned. The captain of the Tourville was tried, and, for a wonder, acquitted. ‡ Several petty-officers and seamen suffered by the guillotine, and a great many others were imprisoned, or sent away, in small detachments, to the armies. The loss which the fleet thus sustained was supplied, partly by the 5000 men that had just arrived from Toulon, and partly by levies of landmen dragged from the interior. With respect to officers, youth and ardour in the cause

* See Appendix, No. 11.

† See p. 59.

‡ A writer in the Victoires et Conquêtes (tome iii., p. 8) states, that the second in command to Vice-admiral Morard-de-Galles, "Contre-amiral Linois" (the name repeated two or three times, and proved to mean that able and enterprising officer), escaped the fate of Captain Coetnempren by affecting fatuity. Of the two rear-admirals, second and third in command, one was named Lelarge and the other Landais. M. Linois, or Durand Linois (as his name stands in the Etat de la Marine), at this time commanded the Atalante frigate, on her way from Isle-de-France, and, in the month of February, accompanied by the Fidelle, of the same force brought safe to Lorient, in defiance of the English fleets and cruisers, ten richly-laden East Indiamen ; a service for which France, in the then exigency of her affairs, was greatly indebted to him.

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