1813	Eurotas and Clorinde	277

to teach his men how to point their guns with effect, and we have seen in what a short space of time those guns, thus skilfully directed, tore to pieces an equal antagonist.

Knowing that it is customary to minute down in the log when the men are exercised at great guns and small arms, we naturally turn for information to the log of the Eurotas, and find that, from the 13th of August to the 25th of February, the crew were so exercised, including thrice in firing at a mark, 24 times ; which is at the rate of about once in eight days, or, admitting we may have overlooked an entry or two, once a week. It is evident, however, from the statement we have already given, that when the day of trial came, the English crew failed in accomplishing as much as might have been expected of them. But, that the men wanted neither zeal nor capacity, has already appeared in the quickness with which they refitted their ship, to go again in pursuit of their enemy. Some persons have urged as an excuse for the crew of the Eurotas, that a heavy sea was raging, which prevented them from pointing their guns with precision ; forgetting, that the crew of the Clorinde laboured under precisely the same inconvenience. We need not refer to many pages back, to show what was performed, about a month afterwards, by a British frigate with 18-pounders, and two guns less of a side than the Eurotas, against a French frigate equal in force to the Clorinde; and the Hebrus was not put in commission until five months after the Eurotas, and was not by any means so well manned, the principal part of the latter's crew having been draughted from the Quebec, Arethusa, and Cornelia frigates.

We trust, that we have now completely established the accuracy of our former statement, that the guns of the Eurotas, in her action with the Clorinde, did not perform so well as they ought ; and that the fault lay, not in the guns themselves, but in the manner in which they were handled. In conclusion, we beg to observe, that, if the slight superiority in execution which the Eurotas's 24-pounders proved themselves to possess over the 18-pounders of the Clorinde, were not clearly shown to have arisen from adventitious circumstances, with what face could we, as we so strenuously have done, deny to the Americans the greater part of the credit which they take to themselves, for having, with their 24-pounder frigates, so completely beaten the 18-pounder frigates of England ? Why was the armament of the Eurotas changed from 18 to 24-pounders, if not to give the ship an increase of force ?

On the 12th of March, at 2 p.m., latitude 43° 16' north, longitude 10° 56' west, the British 18-gun brig-sloop Primrose, Captain Charles George Rodney Phillott, while lying to on the larboard tack with the wind from the north-east by east, discovered, and at 2 h. 30 m. made sail after, a vessel on the lee bow, standing to the south-west. This vessel was the British brig

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