and the minister of marine invariably published that despatch in the columns of the Moniteur.

On the 13th, while the British fleet was getting under way in very light winds, the Téméraire drifted near to the battery at Pointe-des Mèdes. Instantly the battery opened a fire upon her ; which was returned by the Téméraire as well as by the Caledonia, who was also within gun-shot. By the aid of their boats, both ships got out of reach of the battery ; but not until some shots had struck them, particularly the Téméraire who had one of her maindeck gun-carriages disabled, and her master, Mr. Robert Duncan, severely, and three seamen slightly wounded. A shot from her, or from the Caledonia, had also wounded two men in the French battery. The noise of the firing brought out M. Emeriau with 14 sail of the line, and furnished the Moniteur with another paragraph, to prove the fearlessness with which the French fleet could manoeuvre within a league or two of its own port.

Almost every day that the British fleet remained at the Hyères, or cruised off Cape San-Sebastian, the French fleet, or a division of it, sailed out and in, to exercise the crews, the principal part of which were conscripts. On the 20th of November, when the only British force off Toulon were the two 38-gun frigates Volontaire, Captain the Honourable Granville George Waldegrave, and Perlen, acting Captain Joseph Swabey Tetley, and these had been blown to some distance from the coast, a fleet of 14 French ships of the line and several frigates sailed upon a cruise between the capes of Sicie and Sepet ; intending to extend it a little beyond them, if wind and weather should permit, and if Sir Edward Pellew should approach no nearer than his present cruising ground, off Cape San-Sebastian. The French admiral remained out all that night, and all the following day and night, without being crossed by a hostile sail.

At daylight on the 22d, however, as the Volontaire and Perlen were lying to, at the distance of from two to three leagues west-south-west from Cape Sicie, the French advanced division, consisting of three line-of-battle ships and two frigates, made its appearance in the south-east. Both parties were soon under a crowd of sail. At 9 a.m. Captain Tetley exchanged several shot with a French frigate upon his lee quarter ; and, owing to the Perlen being able from the peculiar construction of her after-body (she was a Danish-built ship) to bring six guns, three on each deck, to bear upon what is usually termed the point of impunity, he so cut up the French frigate forward, that, at 10 a.m. the latter bore away out of gun-shot. The Trident 74 and Amélie frigate, in the mean time, had exchanged a few distant shot with the Volontaire. The French 74 and frigate then stood for the Perlen; at whom they began firing at 11 a.m., and upon whom they gained gradually in the chase. At noon Cape Sicie bore

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