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Naval History of Great Britain - Vol II
1798 Fisgard and Immortalité 143

besides, lost her captain and first lieutenant, hauled down her colours.

The Fisgard had her masts, rigging, and sails a good deal injured, and was struck so low in the hull by some of the Immortalité's 24-pound shot, as to oblige her to keep one pump constantly going. Her loss out of a crew of 281 men and boys, and who, the more to their credit, were quite a young ship's company, amounted to 10 seamen killed, one lieutenant of marines (Mark A. Gerrard), 23 seamen and two marines wounded. The Immortalité, out of a crew, including soldier-passengers, of 580 (in which number both Captain Martin and the French officers agree), lost, including her brave commander, and first lieutenant, also a general of the army (Monge), and seven other naval and military officers, 54 officers, seamen, and soldiers killed, and 61 wounded.

The Fisgard mounted 46 guns, the same as those of the Révolutionnaire, described at vol. i., p. 322. The Immortalité, as a French frigate, was of a class by herself. It is probable that she was intended, while building, to carry 26 long 18-pounders ; but the Immortalité was afterwards constructed with one port less of a side, and fitted with 24 long French 24-pounders, making, with 14 long 8-pounders and four brass 36-pounder carronades on her quarterdeck and forecastle, a total of 42 guns. In comparing the force of these ships, we shall, for the reason given at a former page, not reckon the troops that were on board the French frigate:

COMPARATIVE FORCE OF THE COMBATANTS.
    FISGARD. IMMORTALITE.
Broadside-guns No. 23 21
lbs. 425 450
Crew No. 284 330
Size tons. 1182 1010

Here we come again, after a long interval, to a well-matched pair of combatants ; an action ably contested on both sides, doing credit to the vanquished as well as to the victor. No obtrusive vessel became a spectator of, much less a participator in, the long and arduous struggle. Considering the numerous cruisers, British in particular, that are usually roaming about the chops of the Channel, a fair single combat, from first to last, is rare, and therefore deserves to be prized.

This is the proper place to notice a paragraph that appeared in the Moniteur of the 27th of November, 1798: "Lorsque le capitaine Legrand a abandonné la frégate anglaise, après l'avoir mise hors d'état de le poursuivre, il était chassé par trois vaisseaux, tous â sa vue."' There is always a ready way of confuting assertions like these. Had any British ship of war, much less "three ships of the line," hove in sight during the chase or at the capture of the Immortalité, she would have been

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