On the 8th Vice-admiral Hotham, who with the British fleet composed of the:

Frigates, Pilade and Minerva, Neapolitan, and Inconstant, Lowestoffe, Meleager, and Romulus, also two sloops, and one cutter, British.

Was lying in Leghorn roads, received intelligence, by express from Genoa, that the French fleet, composed of fifteen sail of the line, besides frigates, had, two days before, been seen off the islands of Sainte-Marguerite. Shortly afterwards the British ship-sloop Moselle appeared in the offing, with the signal for a fleet in the north-west ; which fleet, according to the report of the Moselle when she entered the road, was steering to the southward. The British fleet instantly unmoored ; and at daybreak on the following day, the 9th, weighed and put to sea with a strong breeze from the east-north-east.

Having no doubt that the strange fleet was from Toulon, and judging, from its alleged course when seen by the Moselle on the 6th, its destination to be Corsica, Vice-admiral Hotham shaped his course for that island ; having previously despatched the Tarleton brig to San-Fiorenzo, with orders for the Berwick to join him off Cape Corse. In the course, of the night the brig returned to the fleet with the unwelcome intelligence of the Berwick's capture ; and, as we conjecture, with some information that led the vice-admiral to steer to the north-west, instead of towards Corsica as he had at first intended. This alteration in the course soon began to show its beneficial effects ; for on. the very next day, the 10th, the advanced British frigates gained a distant sight of the French fleet, standing towards the land in the direction of Cape Noli ; that is, working its way back to Toulon against a south-west wind, to avoid an encounter with the British fleet, which, the Berwick's people had doubtless informed the French admiral and deputy, was likely to have put to sea from Leghorn road. Yet the "committee of public safety,"

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