the 8th, 9th, and 10th ; except that, on the latter day, the mutineers permitted the necessary water and provisions to be got up from below. On the 11th, Captain the Honourable Thomas Pakenham went on board, and succeeded, at last, in persuading the men to return to their duty. The ship's company were then mustered, and the ringleaders, ten in number, seized and sent on board different ships, there to await their trial. It was discovered that the mutineers had broken into the magazine, raised a barricade of hammocks across the deck between the bits, had loaded with grape and canister shot the two second guns from forward, and pointed them towards the hatchway, and had collected upwards of 50 muskets and several tomahawks. On the 15th of December a court-martial sat on the ten mutineers ; two of whom were acquitted, and eight sentenced to be hanged. On the 13th of January five of the eight suffered on board the Culloden at Spithead, and the remaining three received the king's pardon.

The proceedings of the British Mediterranean fleet, which was still commanded by Admiral Lord Hood, now demand our attention. Lord Hood, who soon after the evacuation of Toulon, the more conveniently to take on board provisions and wine from Gibraltar, Alicant, and Minorca, had remained with his fleet in the bay of Hyères, an anchorage formed by a small group of islands of that name, situated in the vicinity of Toulon, having received intelligence that the republican forces at Corsica were much straitened for provisions, detached several cruisers, with orders to prevent any succours from being thrown into the island. Among the detached ships, was the Ardent 64, Captain Robert Manners Sutton ; who was stationed off the harbour of Villa-Franca, for the chief purpose of watching two French frigates, which, according to intelligence received, were preparing to conduct to Corsica a convoy of vessels, having on board a supply of troops and stores. While employed on this service, the Ardent unfortunately caught fire, blew up, and left not a soul alive to relate the origin of the catastrophe. The quarterdeck of the ship, with some of the gunlocks sticking in the beams, and the marks of the splinter-netting deeply impressed on the planks of the deck, was found floating not very far from the spot, and thus left no doubt of the manner in which the Ardent had been lost.

The great importance of Corsica to France in the present state of her ships and arsenals at Toulon, and the no less importance of the harbour of San Fiorenzo to Great Britain, as a point of rendezvous for her Mediterranean fleets, suggested to Lord Hood and Major-general Dundas the propriety, with the troops then on board the fleet, of assisting the loyal part of the inhabitants in an attempt to expel the French from the island. Accordingly,

* See page 87.