A warm engagement, during which the Vestale made several skilful man�uvres, now ensued, and continued, without intermission, for one hour and fifty minutes ; when the French frigate, having had all three masts badly wounded, her rigging and sails cut to pieces, and her hull, both above and below her water-line, pierced with shot in several places, hauled down her flag to the Clyde ; whose principal damages were confined to her rigging and sails. The Vestale's consort, which was the French 20-gun corvette Sagesse, was in sight in-shore during the whole of the action.

The Clyde, out of her net complement of 281 men and boys, had a quartermaster and one private marine killed, and three seamen wounded. The Vestale, although her established complement was at least 275, had on board, when the action commenced, no more than 230 men. Of these the French frigate lost 10 seamen and marines killed, and two officers and 20 seamen and marines wounded ; one officer and several seamen afterwards died of their wounds.

If the Sagesse withdrew owing, not to the defection of her own, but to the command of the Vestale's captain, the latter must have formed a very erroneous judgment of the relative strength of himself and his opponent. The Clyde would not have been overmatched, nor would Captain Cunningham have declined fighting, had the two French ships united their strength against him.

The comparative force of the two combatants has already appeared in that of the Révolutionnaire and Unite.* The Seahorse and Sensible were also similarly matched. Circumstanced therefore as he was, Captain Gaspard behaved with commendable gallantry, and, as well as his officers and crew, merited the, most honourable acquittal for the loss of the Vestale. Nor Could the French captain have a better witness in his favour than Captain Cunningham ; who, in his modestly-written official letter, passes a very high encomium on the behaviour of his antagonist.

Having secured his prize, Captain Cunningham directed his attention towards her late consort ; but, availing herself, of the vicinity of the Gironde, the Sagesse had already effected her escape. Although a fine frigate of 946 tons, the Vestale, in her two rough encounters, first with the Terpsichore, and now with the Clyde, had received too much injury to be repaired with advantage. The captured frigate, therefore, was not purchased for the use of the British navy. Since the capture of the Réunion by the Crescent, and of the Unite by the Révolutionnaire, it had not been customary to knight the captains of 12-pounder frigates for their success over the 12-pounder frigates of the enemy. Hence Captain Cunningham was not so

* See vol. i., P. 322.

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