intention of bringing this French 80 and 74 and two heavy frigates to action, and, if possible, of retarding their progress until some of her friends should come to her assistance ; or, at all events, in the hope of so crippling one of the French ships, as to disable her at least from working out of the bay. The Zealous weathered the four fugitives within musket-shot, and obliged them to bear away to avoid being raked ; but received in return a very destructive fire to her rigging and sails. Through her mainsail alone upwards of 40 round shot had passed; and yet no other loss was sustained by her, than one man, who had been slightly wounded by the Guerrier, killed, and one wounded. While the Zealous was endeavouring to get about in time to cut off the rearmost frigate, the former's signal of recal was made ; and the French ships stretching on, effected their escape. For his gallantry upon this occasion, Captain Hood received the warm acknowledgments of the commander-in-chief.

Of the 13 French ships of the line, one had perished in the flames, eight had surrendered, and two had escaped ; and of the remaining two, one, the Timoléon, was on shore with her colours flying, the other, the Tonnant, having had her second cable cut by the fire of the Alexander, lay about two miles from the Timoléon, a mere wreck, but also with her colours up, which were flying on the stump of her mainmast. Things remained in this state until the morning of the following day, the 3d ; when the Theseus and Leander approached, and stationed themselves near the Tonnant. All further resistance being utterly hopeless, the latter hauled down her ensign: and, on replacing it with a flag of truce, was taken possession of by a boat from the Theseus. The principal part of the crew of the Timoléon had, during the preceding night, escaped on shore. The remainder, at about noon on the 3d, set fire to their ship ; which, exploding soon afterwards, made the eleventh line-of-battle ship lost to the French by, in their nomenclature, the Battle of Aboukir, "le combat d'Aboukir," but as the conquerors have named it, the Battle of the Nile.

The damages sustained by the British ships were chiefly confined to their masts and rigging. The Bellerophon was the only ship entirely dismasted, and the Majestic the only one, besides her, that had lost any lower mast. The Defence had lost her fore topmast, and the Alexander her mizen topmast, and her fore and main topgallantmasts ; and on the 3d, at 6 p.m., the latter's main topmast, from the wounds it had received, fell over the top, as on the same morning, had the main topmast of the Goliath. The lower masts, yards, and bowsprits of all the ships that had been engaged, were more or less damaged by shot. The Vanguard, it will be recollected, went into action with a jury foremast. The Bellerophon's hull was in a very shattered state. One of the carronades on her poop was broken to pieces. Seven of the quarterdeck guns were entirely disabled ; as were six of the

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