On the 20th of December, at 10 a.m., the British 18-pounder 36-gun frigate Phœbe, Captain Robert Barlow, being in latitude 48° 58' north, longitude 8° 4' west, observed a strange ship standing towards her. At 11 h. 30 m. a.m. the stranger, which eventually proved to be the French 36-gun frigate Néréide, Captain Antoine Canon, hoisted a Dutch jack, and hauled to the wind. The Phœbe immediately tacked and stood after the Néréide, which ship was then on her weather bow. The chase continued during the day, with very little advantage on either side. At 4 p.m. the Néréide bore west-south-west, distant about five miles. At 6 p.m. both ships being taken aback, bore up. At 8 p.m. the Phœbe was drawing up fast with the enemy; who, at 9 p.m., burnt two blue lights, and commenced firing her stern-chasers, which did considerable damage to the Phœbe's masts, sails, and rigging.

At 9 h. 10 m. p.m., just as the Phœbe was in a situation to commence the attack, the Néréide hove in stays ; and, owing to the crowd of sail carried by the Phœbe, and the extreme darkness of the night, the preparations for tacking on board the Néréide were unperceived by Captain Barlow, so as to enable him to make the necessary dispositions for adopting, with promptitude, his adversary's manœuvre. The delay this occasioned exposed the sails and rigging of the Phœbe to additional injury from the Néréide's fire ; but, in a few minutes, the Phœbe came round, and the two frigates, in passing on opposite tacks, exchanged broadsides.

At 10 p.m. the Phœbe got fairly alongside her opponent ; when both ships backed their main topsails, and commenced the action in earnest, the Néréide placing herself at about four ships' length to windward of the Phœbe. In a short time the Néréide, having received considerable injury in her masts, rigging, and sails, fell on board the Phœbe a little ahead of the main chains. The latter immediately bore up, and got clear of her ; then hauled to the wind, and again approached ; when, at 10 h. 45 m. p.m., just as the Phœbe was preparing to renew the attack, the Néréide hauled down the light which she had been carrying, and hailed that she surrendered. Neither ship appears to have had any mast shot away, but both had suffered much, particularly the Néréide, in their rigging and sails. The hull of the latter was also a good deal shattered, and her stern windows were entirely beaten in.

The Phœbe, whose force in guns was exactly that of the Phœnix, * sustained, out of a crew of 261 men and boys, a loss of three men killed and 10 wounded. The loss of the Néréide, whose force was less, by two 6-pounders and two 36-pounder carronades (taken from her forecastle), than that of the frigate of her class in the table at p. 54, vol. i., with a complement, as

* See Vol. i., p. 327.

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