ascertained that the brig could be cannonaded with effect where she was then lying. Accordingly the Belle-Poule, followed closely by the Alceste, stood in within a cable's length of the rocks at the entrance of the harbour, and opened an animated fire, as well upon the brig as upon a battery under which she lay ; and, after an hour's cannonade, compelled the brig to haul on shore under the town, out of gun-shot. In this attack the two frigates had been frequently hulled, but sustained no other damage than could be immediately repaired, and no greater loss than the Belle-Poule one, and the Alceste two, seamen slightly wounded.

All further efforts on the part of the ships being useless, the Belle-Poule and Alceste, after the close of the day, anchored about five miles from the shore ; and Captain Brisbane determined to take possession of an island that lay in the mouth of the harbour, and was within musket-shot of the town. Accordingly at 11 p.m. the boats of the two frigates, containing 200 seamen and the whole of the marines (about 100 in number), under the orders of the Belle-Poule's senior Lieutenant John M'Curdy, assisted by Lieutenants Richard Ball Boardman, Edward A. Chartres, and Alexander Morrison, and midshipmen, Hamilton Blair, Charles Matthew Chapman, Edward Finlay, Henry Maxwell, John Hall, and Arthur Grose, of the Belle-Poule, and Lieutenants John Collman Hickman and Richard Lloyd, Mr. Howard Moore the master, and Messieurs James Adair, Charles Croker, and Thomas Redding, midshipmen, of the Alceste, proceeded and took quiet possession of the island. By 5 a.m. on the 5th, with incessant labour, and the most extraordinary exertions, a defence was thrown up, and a battery of four pieces, two howitzers and two 9-pounders, mounted on a commanding position. A field-piece was also placed at some distance on the left, to divide the attention of the enemy ; who, aware of the operations of the British, had been busily employed during the night in planting guns in various parts of the harbour. Soon after 5 a.m. the French opened a cross fire from four different positions which was immediately returned ; and the mutual cannonade continued, with great vigour, during five hours. At the end of that time, the French brig being cut to pieces and sunk, and of course the object of making the attack accomplished, the British re-embarked with their guns and ammunition ; after having sustained a loss of four men, the gunner and one seaman of the Belle-Poule, and two marines of the Alceste, killed, and one man slightly wounded ; making the total loss to the British on the occasion four killed and four wounded.

On the 26th of May, at daybreak, the British 18-gun brig-sloop Alacrity (sixteen 32-pounder carronades and two sixes), Captain Nesbit Palmer, cruising off Cape St.-André, Island of Corsica, with the wind a moderate breeze from the eastward

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