private one) with which he had been intrusted. Shortly afterwards, taking his measures from the Dragon's information, Sir Robert ordered the latter ship to cruise for a certain period, and then, with the remainder of the squadron, proceed to join the commander-in-chief off Ushant. This the vice-admiral effected as already mentioned, on the 14th ; * but the Æolus, having for some cause or other parted company, did not join Admiral Cornwallis until the forenoon of the 20th.

To view the case of the Æolus in the most favourable light we must suppose that Lord William, as in reply to our former remarks on his conduct he has since stated, did really imagine that he was the bearer, not of a letter which, comparatively, was of no consequence at all, but, of secret despatches of the utmost importance to the nation. We can readily conceive why a document, containing the rendezvous of a particular squadron, is inscribed on the envelope " Secret. " It is that the captain may not communicate the contents to any of his officers, nor then to the crew. Otherwise, in case of capture, should even the despatch itself be thrown overboard, the enemy might gain oral intelligence of the exact spot at which he could pounce upon an inferior force. Why not " Rendezvous, " with an understanding that it is to be kept within the captain's breast, substituted for the awfully mysterious word " Secret " ? And why should a common letter from one admiral to another, with one or more of which almost every vessel is charged that travels from station to station, be dignified with the name of " despatch " ?

It is not improbable that the Niobe had one of those " despatches " in her letter-bag ; and yet, what does her captain do? Why, according to the frigate's log (for we have had no communication with a single officer belonging to her), on the 5th of August, in latitude 47° 6' north, longitude 14° 24` west, the Niobe fell in with a strange ship, which Captain Scott pursued for three days and nights. At length the strange frigate, or whatever she was, escaped from the Niobe ; and Captain Scott, instead of joining Sir Robert Calder agreeably to the express tenour of his orders, joined Lord Nelson, and returned with the latter to the Channel fleet. With whatever private censure the Niobe's captain may have been visited for this deviation from his orders, a few months only elapsed ere Captain Scott received a public approval of his conduct in being appointed, as the lists inform us, to the Goliath 74.

Since the publication by Lord William Fitz-Roy, with so much seeming triumph, of the orders under which he sailed, we are still more surprised that he should have considered his junction with Sir Robert Calder as the only object worthy of his serious attention. Was he not directed to watch and attend

*  See p. 15

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