journals, they were very near to the division of Rear-admiral Bouvet ; but each admiral was concealed from the other's view by the thick fog that prevailed. The violent wind, which dispersed that fog, separated those four ships in spite of all their endeavours to keep together ; and on the next day, the 21st, when nearly in sight of the coast of Ireland, the Fraternité found herself almost under the guns of an English frigate (described as "un vaisseau rase"), which she at first took for the Romaine. As soon as the mistake was discovered, the Fraternité made all sail, closely pursued by the frigate; and from whom her escape appeared doubtful, until darkness enabled her to alter her course.

This chase had carried the Fraternité to a great distance from the Irish coast ; and, now that the admiral wished to return, the wind blew violently from the eastward. After beating about until the morning of the 29th, the Fraternité obtained a shift of wind in her favour, and stood towards Bantry bay. In her way thither, the frigate met the Révolution, in company with the Scévola rasé ; whose crew and passengers the 74 was occupied in removing, to save them from perishing in the vessel, which, unable from age and weakness to withstand the violence of the gale, was then in a sinking state. The two mortified commanders-in-chief now learnt that not a ship of their fleet remained in the bay : they persevered, however, in steering towards it, until, on the second day, Captain Dumanoir sent to inform the admiral that, with so many hands as he now had on board (upwards of 1600), his provisions would not hold out much longer. This determined the two chiefs, on board of whose frigate a part of the Scévola's crew had also been received, to return home.

On the 8th of January, at 7 a.m., in latitude 51° north, longitude 13° 11' west from Greenwich, the wind at north-east, the Fraternité and her consort fell in with, and immediately tacked away from, the British 32-gun frigate Unicorn, Captain Sir Thomas Williams, and 36-gun frigate Doris, Captain the Honourable Charles Jones ; from whom the 32-gun frigate Druid, Captain Richard King, had just parted company, along with the French transport Ville-de-Lorient, captured the preceding evening. This precipitate flight of the French 74 and frigate brought with it an evil little suspected by the two commanders-in-chief on board the latter. Eleven ships belonging to their fleet were at that very time to windward, chasing the Unicorn and Doris ; and which ships the Revolution and Fraternité might also have discovered, had the latter continued a short time longer upon the course they had been steering.

On the next morning, the 9th, the Unicorn and Doris again fell in with the two French ships, who again tacked to the westward ; at which time the Unicorn was within two miles of them. Having escaped this imaginary danger, the French 74 and frigate, on the morning of the 10th, had a real cause for their fears, finding themselves chased by Lord Bridport's fleet ;

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