s
particularly strict in enforcing regulations for constant exercise at
the great guns and small arms.

How perfect was the discipline of the fleet may be inferred from the
fact, that with so many ships, and on a station where the enemy had the
chief part of his naval force, he lost, in three years that he held the
command, not a single vessel by capture: and only one, a small gun-brig,
by shipwreck. It may be added, that through almost twenty years of
command in war, as Commodore and Admiral, no vessel under his orders was
ever taken. Something of this may be ascribed to fortune; but more must
be referred to the excellence of the officers and crews; which, when the
results are so uniform, is in fact also the praise of the commander.
Indeed, the superiority of the Mediterranean fleet under his command was
well known, and James, in his Naval History, complaining of the dearth
of good seamen on other stations, laments that "so many thousands of the
very best of seamen, who, under the wise regulations of Sir Edward
Pellew, were daily improving themselves in the neglected art of gunnery,
should be denied the power of showing their proficiency where it was the
most wanted."

He was particularly anxious to keep down the expense of the fleet, and
indefatigable in his exertions to economize stores of every description,
which at this time were procured from home with much difficulty. When it
was found that fresh water could be obtained at the mouths of the Rhone,
the fleet went there, and usually completed in forty-eight hours. He was
thus enabled to discharge several transports. From the size and force of
that river, the fresh water floats for a considerable distance over the
sea; and at first, some of the cruisers completed their water by dipping
it carefully from the surface. But on the fleet anchoring in the bay,
the launches, with the armed boats to protect them, were sent up the
river, where the water was not at all brackish. An arrangement was
eventually made with the French General, who agreed not to molest the
boats, the Admiral on his part promising that none of his people should
be suffered to land on the marshes, or in any way to disturb the cattle
grazing there, of which there were many thousands. In the strong
north-west gales, so common in the Gulf of Lyons, the ships were in the
practice of furling sails every night, and driving off from Toulon,
standing in-shore again under easy sail when the gale moderated. Du