action, out of a crew of 180 men and boys (she being 18 men short), amounted to no more than one seaman killed, and three seamen and one marine wounded. The damages of the Castor, on the other hand, were tolerably severe; having had her main topgallantmast shot away, her mainmast badly wounded, and her hull struck in several places. Her loss, out of a crew of 200 men, consisted of 16 officers, seamen, and marines killed, and nine wounded.

This statement shows, that great credit was due to Captain Laforey, his two lieutenants (Richard Worsley and George Sayer), remaining officers, and a very new ship's company, for having captured the Castor. It is also due to the French officers and crew to state, that the latter consisted of men very recently draughted from all the ships of Rear-admiral Nielly's squadron; and who, of course, did not find on board the Castor a rope, or an article of any sort, arranged in the manner to which they had been accustomed.

This recapture effected the release of one master's mate and 18 seamen, part of the Castor's original crew. The remainder, with Captain Troubridge, had, as already has appeared, been removed on board the 80-gun ship Sans-Pareil.

Upon the arrival in port of the Carysfort and her prize, the principal officers and commissioners of the British navy claimed to have the latter restored to the service, on payment of the customary salvage, upon the principal that, as the Castor had not been into an enemy's port for adjudication, she was not, in the contemplation of the act of parliament, a complete prize. This claim Captain Laforey and his officers resisted ; and the cause came on to be heard before Sir James Marriot, the judge of the high court of admiralty. The French captain having deposed, in answer to the fourth standing interrogatory, that the admiral of the French squadron, by which the Castor had been taken, possessed full power and authority to condemn, arm, fit out, and equip, all such prizes as he might think calculated for the service of the French republic, and that the Castor was so armed and equipped, and himself duly appointed to the command of her, Sir James Marriot held, that this was a sufficient "setting forth as a ship of war," according to the meaning of the prize-act, and thereupon adjudged, that the whole value of his majesty's ship Castor, recaptured under the above circumstances, was lawful prize to the officers and crew of the Carysfort. The Castor was accordingly purchased by government,

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