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incontestably shows that they had not fallen off in their discipline. * On the 4th of October, at daybreak, the island of Barbadoes bearing west four or five leagues, the British 6-gun schooner Alexandrian, still commanded by lieutenant William Wood Senhouse, descried a schooner on her quarter, in chase of an American brig to leeward. No sooner did the strange schooner discover the Alexandrian to be an armed vessel, than she hauled her wind to the northward, and was immediately pursued by the latter. At 9 a.m. the Alexandrian overtook the schooner, and, after a close action of 50 minutes, compelled her to haul down her colours. The prize proved to be the French privateer Epicharis, mounting eight carriage-guns (probably 4-pounders), with a complement, as counted, of 74 men. The Alexandrian, in this contest, lost one seaman killed and four wounded ; the Epicharis, four killed and 12 severely wounded. On the 25th of October, near the island of Teneriffe, the French ship-privateer Hyène, of 24 long 8-pounders and 230 men, from Bayonne, mistaking the British 44-gun frigate Indefatigable, Captain Sir Edward Pellew, for a Portuguese Indiaman, bore down to capture her. As soon as she was undeceived, the Hyène made all sail to escape, and would have succeeded, had she not carried away her fore topmast. Even with this accident, the Hyène led the Indefatigable, who was herself a good sailer, a chase of eight hours before she brought to and surrendered. The account of the capture, in May, 1793, of the British 24-gun ship Hyæna, by the French 40-gun frigate Concorde, has already appeared. Thinking to improve the Hyæna's sailing, a quality in which she was remarkably deficient, the Frenchman, who purchased the vessel of the captors, cut away her quarterdeck and forecastle, and thus made her a flush ship. The plan completely succeeded, as was manifest, both during her chase by the Indefatigable, and on her restoration to the British service ; in which, armed with twenty 32-pounder carronades and two long 9-pounders, the Hyæna, although built as long ago as 1778, continued for some years to be a useful cruiser. On the 12th of November, latitude 49° 48' north, and longitude * It appears that an omission not at all attributable to Mr. James but to Captain White, has occurred in the relation of the action between the Pelican and the Trompeur. It is this : The Trompeur was joined in the early part of the day, during the time she was engaged with the Pelican, by a schooner. This vessel had sixty men on board, trained and intended to board the Drake, a vessel which had greatly annoyed the enemy's small-craft along the Island of St.-Domingo. She might now have turned the scale against the Pelican had not Captain White to avoid their united attack, kept to windward of the Trornpeur, and thus prevented being boarded, which seemed the object of his opponents. As the Trompeur and schooner were a little distant from each other, Captain White depressed his guns, ran alongside the Trompeur, and, after three broadsides, she sank. The humanity of Captain White in rescuing the crew, afforded time for the schooner to effect her escape by running into Jean Rabet.-Editor. ^ back to top ^ |