request that he would aid him to the best of his abilities, by selecting
officers and men from his corps. Sir Richard displayed on this occasion
all the activity and judgment to be expected from his character, and
Lord Exmouth acknowledged his services after the glorious result of the
expedition, in the following words:--"I should be very ungrateful, my
dear friend, if I neglected to thank you for the care and pains you took
in selecting, for the service I was ordered upon, the best officers and
men I ever saw during my service. I assure you that all the officers did
you full justice: they not only knew their duty well, but they performed
it well."

In addition to the five line-of-battle ships, two of which were
three-deckers, the force included three heavy frigates, and two smaller
ones; four bomb vessels, and five gun-brigs. Four of the line-of-battle
ships were to destroy the fortifications on the Mole; while the fifth
covered them from the batteries south of the town, and the heavy
frigates, from those on the town wall. The bomb-vessels were to fire on
the arsenal and town, assisted by a flotilla of the ships' launches,
&c., fitted as gun, rocket, and mortar-boats. The smaller frigates and
the brigs were to assist as circumstances might require.

The fleet left Portsmouth on the 25th of July. On the 28th it sailed
from Plymouth Sound, and the same afternoon was off Falmouth. Twenty
three years before, Lord Exmouth had gone from the house of his brother,
who now took leave of him, and sailed to fight the first battle of the
war from the port whence he was proceeding on the service which was to
close and crown it. From this place the _Minded_, 74, was sent on to
Gibraltar, that the necessary supplies might be ready when the fleet
arrived. Through all the passage the utmost care was taken to train the
crews. Every day, Sunday excepted, they were exercised at the guns; and
on Tuesdays and Fridays the fleet cleared for action, when each ship
fired six broadsides. On board the _Queen Charlotte_ a twelve-pounder
was secured at the after part of the quarter-deck, with which the first
and second captains of the guns practised daily at a small target, hung
at the fore topmast studding-sail boom. The target was a frame of laths,
three feet square, crossed with rope-yarns so close that a twelve-pound
shot could not go through without cutting one, and with a piece of wood,
the size and shape of a bottle, for a bull's-eye. After