were so great, that the privateer was compelled to break up her cruise and return to Bordeaux to refit. Such a result did great credit to the skill, as well as gallantry, of the packet's crew ; nor must we omit to state that, when all the 4-pound cartridges were consumed, Captain Skinner's sister. and her maid employed themselves in the bread-room in making new ones.

On the 26th of June, at 4 p.m., the British 38-gun frigate Seahorse, Captain Edward James Foote, cruising off the coast of Sicily, fell in with the French 36-gun frigate Sensible, Captain Bourdé. Being charged with despatches, and having the general of division Baraguay-d'Hilliers, and his suite, with a quantity of valuables on board, which she had brought from Malta and was carrying to Toulon, the Sensible crowded sail to escape. The chase, the latter part of it a running fight, continued until 4 a.m. on the 27th ; when, the island of Pantellaria bearing west-north-west distant 12 leagues, the Seahorse came up with the Sensible. A close action now commenced, and continued for eight minutes ; when the Sensible, having, besides much damage in her masts and rigging, received several shot in her hull, 36 of them between wind and water, and sustained a severe loss in killed and wounded, hauled down her colours.

The Seahorse, out of a complement, including some seamen belonging to the Culloden, of 292 men and boys, had one seaman and one drummer killed, her first lieutenant (David Wilmot, slightly), 13 seamen, one corporal, and one private of marines wounded. According to the British official account, the Sensible, out of a crew, including a few passengers, of 300, had 18 men killed, her first and second captains, and 35 men wounded ; but, according to the French accounts, the Sensible's loss amounted to 25 killed, and 55 wounded.

The fact that the Seahorse mounted 46 guns, consisting of long 18 and 9 pounders, and (14 it appears) 32-pounder carronades, and the Sensible, 36 guns, consisting of long 12 and 6 pounders, and (four, we believe) brass 36-pounder carronades, renders it tolerably certain that, even had the French frigate been quite free to act on the offensive, the superiority of her opponent's force would have led to a defeat. The Sensible's heavy loss, too, proves that she did not surrender until she had felt the effects of that superiority ; and yet the French minister of marine thus publicly notices the capture of the Sensible : "It is time that the navy should know, that it is not enough to justify the loss of a ship, that it surrenders only to superior force ; it is necessary that a long, an obstinate, and a terrible resistance should alleviate the sorrow of a defeat, and soften the regret of the republic. The executive directory will not suffer themselves to be seduced by any consideration repugnant to this determination, which I now communicate to you. It will give its confidence only to officers who shall deserve it by their talents

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