appear : "Growler, gun-vessel, taken off Dungeness by two French row-boats." Nor, singularly enough, have we ever been able to discover, until a French account met our eye, a contradiction to so humiliating a statement.

On the night of the 29th of December, off the coast of France, the British 44-gun frigate Anson, Captain Philip Charles Durham, having a few hours before parted in chase from the 38-gun frigate Phaëton, Captain the Honourable Robert Stopford, fell in with, and after the exchange of a few shot captured, the French ship-corvette Daphne, late the British 20-gun ship of the same name ; * or, as Captain Durham, imitating the French, describes a ship of only 429 tons, " late his majesty's frigate Daphne, mounting 30 guns."

Out of a crew, as represented, of 276, including 30 passengers of various descriptions, the Daphne, before she could be induced to surrender, lost five men killed and several wounded. The Anson had no one hurt. Two of the French passengers were the civil commissioners Jacquelin and Lacaize, charged with despatches (thrown overboard) for Guadeloupe ; whither the Daphne was bound.

Colonial Expeditions.-NORTH AMERICA

The melancholy loss on this station of the British 12-pounder 36-gun frigate Tribune, Captain Scory Barker, is of too interesting a nature to be passed summarily over. The ship had quitted England in September, with a convoy for Quebec and Newfoundland ; from which convoy, early in November, bad weather had compelled her to part company. On the 16th, at about 8 a.m., the harbour of Halifax, Nova-Scotia, was discovered ; and as, owing to a strong wind from east-south-east, the ship fast approached the land, Captain Barker proposed to the master, Mr. James Clubb, to lie to until a pilot came on board. The master has been represented to have replied, that he had beat a 44-gun ship into the harbour, and had frequently been there ; and that there was no necessity for a pilot, as the wind was favourable. Confiding in these assurances, Captain Barker went below, and busied himself in arranging some papers that he wished to take on shore. The master, in the mean time, had undertaken the pilotage of the ship, placing great confidence in the judgment of a negro-man on board, who had formerly belonged to Halifax. At about noon the ship had approached so near to the Thrum-cap shoals, that Mr. Clubb became alarmed, and sent for Mr. Galvin, one of the master's mates, who was sick below. Just as the latter stepped upon the deck, the man in the chains, with the lead, sang out, " By the mark five." At the same instant the black man forward called out "Steady." Mr. Galvin, then got upon one of the carronades, to observe the

* See vol. i., p. 236.

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