n, and eight others, captured by the frigates,
laden with wine and brandy. A good many small vessels, however, escaped
us by plying to windward under the land, to gain the anchorage in Palais
Roads.

The next day it was calm, so that the enemy could not, even if they had
had a mind to do so, come out and attack us, and in the evening a breeze
springing up, we took the prizes in tow, and stood away for the Channel.

Sighting Scilly, Admiral Cornwallis ordered the _Kingfisher_ to convoy
the prizes into port, while we stood back to the southward and eastward
to look after the French squadron. Several days had passed when the
_Phaeton_, our look-out frigate, made the signal of a French fleet in
sight; but as nothing was said about the enemy being of superior force,
and as she did not haul her wind and return to us, Admiral Cornwallis
must have concluded, as did our captain, that the signal had reference
to the number rather than to the apparent strength of the French ships,
and we accordingly stood on nearer than we should otherwise have done.
It was not indeed until an hour afterwards that we got a sufficiently
clear sight of the French fleet to make out that it consisted of one
very large one-hundred-and-twenty gun ship, eleven seventy-fours, and
the same number of frigates, besides smaller craft. Dick Hagger, who
had been sent aloft, told me that he had counted thirty at least.

"Never mind! If we can't out-sail them, we'll fight them, and show the
mounseers that `hearts of oak are our ships, British tars are our men,'"
he exclaimed with a gay laugh, humming the tune.

All hands on board our ship were in the same humour, and so were the
crews of the rest of the squadron. We knew that we could trust our
stout old admiral, for if he was at times somewhat grumpy, he was as
gallant a man and as good an officer as any in the service. I heard it
said, many years after, that when some of the Government gentlemen
offered to make a lord of him, he declined, saying, "It won't cure the
gout."

The admiral now threw out the signal to the squadron to haul to the wind
on the starboard tack under all sail, and form in line ahead, the
_Brunswick_ leading, and we in the _Mars_ being last. Thus we stood on
for about three hours, when we saw the French fleet on the same tack
separate into two divisions, one of which tacked and stood to the
northward, evidently to take advantage of the land wind, while the other
continued its co