The object of this fleet being in part the same as that of the detachment which had quitted Rochefort, its course was nearly similar. It is a singular fact that, during the dense fog of the following day, the 17th, the French fleet passed so near to the British fleet, as to hear the latter's fog-signals, of ringing bells and beating drums; and yet, when the fog cleared away on the morning of the 18th, the two fleets had separated sufficiently to be out of each other's sight.

On the 19th M. Villaret was joined by the Patriote from M. Nielly's squadron, with information that he had been so lucky as to fall in with and capture the British 32-gun frigate Castor, Captain Thomas Troubridge, along with the chief part of a convoy from Newfoundland, which the frigate had in charge. On the same day M. Villaret himself had the good fortune to fall in with the Lisbon convoy, of 53 sail, chiefly Dutch vessels, under the care of the Dutch frigate Alliance and corvette Waakzaamheid. The ships of war effected their escape, but 18 or 20 vessels of the fleet were captured. We will now quit M. Villaret for a while, and attend to the proceedings of the British admiral, who was so strenuously endeavouring to fall in with him.

On the 19th, in the evening, the Venus frigate, from Rear-admiral Montagu's squadron, joined Lord Howe. The rear-admiral, having on the 11th parted from the East-India fleet, cruised, as he had been directed, between Cape Ortugal and the latitude of Belle-Isle, for the purpose of endeavouring to intercept the French convoy daily expected from North America. On the 15th his squadron captured the French 20-gun ship-corvette Maire-Guiton, one of M. Nielly's squadron, and recaptured 10 sail of the Newfoundland convoy, recently taken by the latter, and which the corvette was escorting to a port of France. It was the intelligence obtained from the prisoners in the recaptured vessels, as well respecting the squadron of Rear-admiral Nielly, as respecting that on its way from the Chesapeake under Rear-admiral Vanstabel, consisting, it now appeared, of four, instead of two sail of the line, and thus making, should the two squadrons unite, a force of nine sail of the line and

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