es not possess either the intriguing character of Truguet or
the valorous one of Villeneuve.

Before the Revolution he was a mate of a merchantman, but when most of
the officers of the former royal navy had emigrated or perished, he was,
in 1793, made a captain of the republican navy, and in 1796 an admiral.
During the battle of Aboukir he was the chief of the staff, under Admiral
Brueys, and saved himself by swimming, when l'Orient took fire and blew
up. Bonaparte wrote to him on this occasion: "The picture you have sent
me of the disaster of l'Orient, and of your own dreadful situation, is
horrible; but be assured that, having such a miraculous escape, DESTINY
intends you to avenge one day our navy and our friends." This note was
written in August, 1798, shortly after Bonaparte had professed himself a
Mussulman.

When, in the summer of 1799, our general-in-chief had determined to leave
his army of Egypt to its destiny, Ganteaume equipped and commanded the
squadron of frigates which brought him to Europe, and was, after his
consulate, appointed a Counsellor of State and commander at Brest. In
1800 he escaped with a division of the Brest fleet to Toulon, and, in the
summer of 1801, when he was ordered to carry succours to Egypt, your ship
Skitsure fell in with him, and was captured. As he did not, however,
succeed in landing in Egypt the troops on board his ships, a temporary
disgrace was incurred, and he was deprived of the command, but made a
maritime prefect. Last year favour was restored him, with the command of
our naval forces at Brest. All officers who have served under Ganteaume
agree that, let his fleet be ever so superior, he will never fight if he
can avoid it, and that, in orderly times, his capacity would, at the
utmost, make him regarded as a good master of a merchantman, and nothing
else.

Of the present commander of our, flotilla at Boulogne, Lacrosse, I will
also say some few words. A lieutenant before the Revolution, he became,
in 1789, one of the most ardent and violent Jacobins, and in 1792 was
employed by the friend of the Blacks, and our Minister, Monge, as an
emissary in the West Indies, to preach there to the negroes the rights of
man and insurrection against the whites, their masters. In 1800,
Bonaparte advanced him to a captain-general at Guadeloupe, an island
which his plots, eight years before, had involved in all the horrors of
anarchy, and where, when he now attempted to restore order, hi