Prindts-Christian-Frederic, out of a complement on board of 576 men and boys, had 55 killed and 88 wounded; a loss sufficient to prove, that her commander did not surrender his ship earlier than was consistent with the honour of the Danish flag.

On the 23d of April the British 20-gun ship Daphne, Captain Francis Mason, 18-gun ship-sloop Tartarus, Captain William Russel, and 12-gun brig Forward, Lieutenant David Sheils, cruising off the coast of Denmark, destroyed a Danish sloop laden with provisions, part of a convoy lying at Flodstrand, and destined for the relief of Norway. It being an important object to attempt getting hold of these vessels, Captain Mason, on the evening of the 25th, detached three boats from the Daphne and two from the Tartarus, under the direction of Lieutenant William Elliott, first of the former; accompanied by Mr. Hugh Stewart, master, Lieutenant Richard Boger, of the royal marines, and midshipmen George Beazeley, James Durell, Thomas Elliott, John Moore, and George H. Ayton, belonging to the Daphne, and Lieutenants Richard Gittens and William Love Patterson, and midshipmen John Septford, Charles Lutman, and Francis Andrews, belonging to the Tartarus.

The five boats, towed near the shore by the Forward, proceeded to the attack. Lieutenant Elliott and his party found the vessels, consisting of seven brigs, averaging about 160 tons, three galliots of about 110 tons each, and one schooner and one sloop of about 90 tons each, all of which, except two of the brigs, were deeply laden with grain and provisions, moored close under the fort of a castle mounting 10 guns, and made fast to the shore by hawsers; but, the moment the alarm was given by some of the Danish boats, the Danes abandoned their vessels and fled. No sooner, however, had the British set foot in the vessels, than a heavy fire of round, grape, and musketry, opened upon them from the castle and from another battery of three guns, as well as from the crews of the vessels assembled on the beach. Many of the shots struck the hulls and went through the sails of the vessels; but the British maintained their footing, and the five boats, with the 10 laden vessels, cleared the harbour with so slight a loss as five wounded, including Lieutenant Elliott and the Daphne's master; one of the seamen "of a punctured wound in the neck by one of the Daphne's crew, having mistaken him for a Dane."

A Danish boat, with five men in her, having the temerity to persist in endeavouring to retake one of the vessels, although repeatedly warned by Lieutenant Elliott, the latter was obliged with his people to fire in self-defence. The consequence was, that three of the five Danes, whose determined conduct in so laudable a cause deserved a better fate, fell to rise no more. The enterprise, upon the whole, was skilfully planned and gallantly executed, and did credit to all who were engaged in it.

On the 29th of April the British 16-gun ship-sloop Falcon,

acting commander Lieutenant John Price, being off the island of Endelau, discovered nine large boats on the beach. Observing some troops near them, Lieutenant Price detached three boats, and succeeded in burning and destroying eight of the Danish boats, the soldiers on the island making a poor attempt to defend them. At the island of Thunoe six other small-craft were destroyed by the Falcon's boats without any resistance. On the 3d of May a large man-of-war schooner attempted to escape from Arbures; but, after a long and circuitous chase by the Falcon, she was forced back into her port, where lay three other armed vessels.

Learning from a market-boat he had taken, that the entrance of the harbour of Kyeholm on the island of Samsoe was being strongly fortified; that 50 pieces of heavy cannon had already been mounted on the batteries, and that vessels were expected from Callundborg with mortars for the same purpose, Lieutenant Price detached the boats of the Falcon in-shore every night, in the hope to intercept them. On the 7th the boats, which were under the command of Mr. James Ellerton, the master of the Falcon, discovered the two vessels they were seeking at anchor close under the batteries of Lundholm. The vessels were boarded and carried in an instant, under a heavy but ill-directed fire of great guns and musketry. One of the boats, which contained a 13-inch mortar with all its equipment, and 400 shells, grounded in the way out; and, as she lay within range of the batteries, Mr. Ellerton found it necessary to destroy her. The other vessel, similarly laden, was brought safe out; and the whole service was performed with so trifling a loss to the British as one seaman slightly wounded with a musket-ball in the arm. One Dane, who being the artillery officer placed in charge of the mortars and mortar stores, felt it incumbent upon him to persevere in resisting after all resistance was vain, was unfortunately killed.

On the 24th of May, at noon, the British hired cutter Swan, of ten 12-pounder carronades, and 40 men and boys, Lieutenant Mark Robinson Lucas, being off the island of Bornholm, on her way to Rear-admiral Sir Samuel Hood with despatches from the commander-in-chief, observed a cutter-rigged vessel standing from the land towards her. The Swan immediately hove to, and hoisted a Dutch jack for a pilot. This decoyed the strange cutter so far from the shore, that, at 2 P. M., the Swan found herself in a situation to chase with a prospect of overtaking the vessel before she could get back.

At 4 P. M. the Swan got within gun-shot; when the strange cutter opened her fire. The battery of Bornholm also commenced firing at the Swan, then about a mile from the beach. Attempting now to get a long gun in her stern to bear upon her pursuer, the strange cutter was caught in the wind. This accident enabled the Swan to get within musket-shot; and, after an action

of 20 minutes, her antagonist blew up. As the Swan now lay nearly becalmed under the land, and as the batteries were still firing, and several boats approaching from the shore, Lieutenant Lucas was under the necessity of quitting the wreck without saving the life of a single individual of the crew. The Danish cutter appeared to be a vessel of about 120 tons, mounted eight or 10 guns, and was apparently full of men. Neither the Swan nor a man on board of her sustained the slightest injury.

In transmitting to the secretary of the admiralty the letter of Lieutenant Lucas detailing this action, Sir James Saumarez begins by stating, that the lieutenant was the bearer of despatches from himself to Sir Samuel Hood; and yet the viceadmiral concludes his letter thus: "Great praise is due to Lieutenant Lucas for his spirited attack of a vessel of superior force under the protection of the enemy's batteries." Here then, upon an important point of service, is an opinion at complete variance with that which, it is pretended, would have been expressed by Admiral Cornwallis, had the Æolus, when bearing her despatches, such as they were, pursued and engaged the Didon. Much as we have reason to be satisfied, as regards both weight and number, with the private opinions, which the complaints against us, for dragging into the light that hitherto concealed case, have elicited, the few words just quoted from the letter of Sir James Saumarez, in reference to an exactly similar case, are all that we are at liberty to publish.

On the 10th of May the British 18-pounder 32-gun frigate Tartar, Captain George Edmund Byron Bettesworth, sailed from Leith roads, to cruise off North Bergen and endeavour to intercept a frigate stated to be lying in that harbour. This was the Dutch frigate Guelderland, Captain Pool, of 36-guns, 12 and 6 pounders; which, with a convoy of three or four ships in charge, had sailed from the Texel on the 8th of March, bound to Batavia, but, having sprung a leak, had since put into Bergen to get it stopped.

On the 12th the Tartar arrived off the coast of Norway, but, on account of a very thick fog, could not stand in until the 15th. On that day the frigate made the islands to the westward of Bergen; and, on hoisting Dutch colours, was boarded by some Norwegians, who came off in two boats, and informed the officers, that the Guelderland, with her small convoy, had sailed for the East Indies eight days before. By the aid of these men as pilots, the Tartar steered through a most intricate and rocky passage, until she arrived within five or six miles of Bergen, when the Norwegians refused to take the ship any further.

It being Captain Bettesworth's intention, now that the frigate had escaped him, to proceed off the town, and bring away the shipping in the harbour, among which were three privateers, the Tartar anchored in the straits; and in the evening Captain Bettesworth, accompanied by his first and third lieutenants,

Herbert Caiger and Thomas Sykes, and Mr. John Jervis White the master, went up to the town in the frigate's boats. An Indiaman lying under the battery would now probably have been cut out, had not the guard-boat, which was without her, fallen in with and fired upon the launch commanded by Lieutenant Sykes. The launch's crew returned the fire, and, after wounding all the men in the guard-boat severely, took her. This proceeding alarmed the towns_people, who, sounding their bugles, flew to the batteries. Finding that the shipping was protected by a chain, Captain Bettesworth, with all his boats. except the launch left to watch the enemy's motions, pulled back to the frigate.

The Tartar now got under way, with the intention of cannonading the town and batteries. Owing, however, to the intricacy of the passage and the lightness of the wind, the ship, although with a strong current in her favour, had only been able to reach half the distance, when, lying quite becalmed in a narrow rocky strait without any anchorage, she was attacked by an armed schooner and five gun-boats, each of the latter carrying two long 24-pounders, along with a detachment of troops. Having taken their station under a rocky point within half gun-shot of the Tartar, who by the set of the current kept gradually nearing them, these vessels maintained, with entire impunity, a welldirected fire; hulling the frigate in 10 or 11 places, and greatly damaging her rigging and sails. Among the first shots was one that killed Captain Bettesworth, while he was in the act of pointing a gun; and Mr. Henry Fitzburgh, a fine and promising young midshipman, fell dead nearly at the same instant.

The command of the Tartar, thus critically circumstanced, devolved upon Lieutenant Caiger. By great exertions, the broadside of the frigate was at length brought momentarily to bear, and one of the gun-boats was sunk by its discharge. The action continued in this partial manner for an hour and a half; when, a light air springing up, the Tartar wore and stood towards the gun-boats, and, getting her bow-guns to bear, compelled them to retreat and pull up under the batteries of Bergen. Considering it unadvisable, in the present state of general alarm, to attack the town, Lieutenant Caiger obliged the natives on board to attempt a passage with the ship to the northward. In her way through this channel, the Tartar picked up her launch; and, after passing many difficult spots, where it became necessary to boom the frigate off with spars, and occasionally to tow her by the boats, the Tartar, at 3 P. M., got clear of the islands and stood out to sea. The whole of the frigate's loss by this perilous enterprise consisted of her captain and one midshipman killed, one man with the loss of his right arm, another man severely, and several slightly wounded. Most of the shot-holes were between wind and water, and one shot had struck the ship two feet under water. On the 20th the Tartar returned to Leith

roads, with the body of her late gallant and much lamented captain on board.

On the 19th of May, at 4 P. M., in latitude 46° north, longitude 14° west, the British 38-gun frigate Virginie, Captain Edward Brace, standing on the starboard tack with the wind at north-east, saw and chased a sail in the north-north-west. At 4 h. 30 m. P. M. the strange sail, which was the Dutch frigate Guelderland, already named as the object of the Tartar's search, bore away. At 7 h. 40 m. P. M. the Virginie, coming up fast, fired a gun to leeward: on which the Guelderland fired one to windward, and hoisted French colours. At 9 h. 45 m. P. M., the Virginie hailed the Guelderland; who, shifting her colours, replied that she was a Dutch ship of war.

Being now called upon to strike, and refusing, the Guelderland was fired into by the Virginie, and an action forthwith commenced. During its continuance the Dutch frigate wore three times, and, in attempting to do so the fourth time, fell on board her opponent; but the night was so dark, and the swell so great, that the British could not act as on such occasions they are wont. After an hour and a half's contest, in which she had her bowsprit and all three masts shot away by the board, and sustained a very heavy loss in killed and wounded, the Guelderland struck her colours to the Virginie; whose principal damage was that caused by the former's running foul of her. The Guelderland, soon after she had struck, caught fire, but, "through the firm discipline of the enemy," says Captain Brace, "the fire was extinguished" before the Virginie's boats could get on board to rescue the prisoners.

The Virginie came out of the action with so trifling a loss as one man killed and two men wounded; while that of the Guelderland, whose crew numbered 253, exclusive of 23 passengers, amounted to 25 officers and men killed, and 50, including her commander, severely wounded.

Against such a superiority as existed in this action, to delay surrendering until the ship was wholly dismasted, and three tenths of her crew killed or disabled, showed that there was no want of bravery in the Dutch frigate. There appears, however, to have been one exception among the persons on board; and that, shame to say, the captain himself. On the 28th of November, 1810, Colonel de mer Pool, late captain of the Guelderland frigate, was tried by a court-martial at Amsterdam, for having, during that ship's action with the Virginie, quitted his quarters after receiving two slight wounds, one in the face, the other in the hand. By the sentence that followed, he was dismissed the service, declared perjured and infamous, and banished for life.*

In the art of gunnery, the Dutchmen appear to have been mi

* Moniteur, December 14, 1810.