allow her opponent to come up had previously shortened sail, hove to. At 9 p.m. the Wilhelmina filled, and, lowering her topgallantsails and driver, continued under easy sail, discovering the Psyché at intervals through the flashes of lightning, which were extremely vivid.

On the 11th, at 3 h. 30 m. a.m., a heavy squall from the north-north-west obliged the Wilhelmina to hand her topgallant sails and lower her topsails, and for the present shut out the Psyché from her view. At daylight, however, the latter reappeared, still in the north-east; and the British frigate immediately tacked, and, with colours flying, stood toward her. The gallantry of this step will be better appreciated when it is known, that the Wilhelmina mounted only 14 long 9-pounders, and one 12-pounder carronade fitted upon trucks and used as a shifting gun, on her main deck, and four long 9-pounders (which had been left by the Victorious at Madras) and two sixes on her quarterdeck and forecastle, with a complement of 134 men and boys, 10 of the men received out of the 50-gun ship Grampus, to work the four extra nines ; * whereas the Psyché, formerly a French national frigate, of the class and size of the Railleuse, or Egyptienne as subsequently named, mounted 24 long French 12-pounders on the main deck, and 10 (English, we believe) 18 pounder carronades and two French sixes on the quarterdeck and forecastle, with a crew of 250 men and boys.

At 5 h. 30 m. A.M. being on the larboard tack, with the wind still from the north-north-west, but moderate, the Wilhelmina passed about 50 yards to windward of the Psyché, then, with French colours flying, close hauled on the opposite tack. After a mutual broadside, accompanied on the part of the French ship by a hail to surrender, the Psyché tacked, and the Wilhelmina wore; each ship continuing to fire as her guns could be brought to bear. The plan adopted by the Psyché, of pointing every alternate gun upon the broadside at her opponent's rigging, occasioned the Wilhelmina, from the loss of bowlines and braces, to come to the wind on the starboard tack with every sail aback. While the British ship lay in this unmanageable state, the French ship passed under her stern ; and, raking the Wilhelmina knocked away the main topmast, badly wounded the main yard, and did considerable damage to her rigging and sails.

Having at length paid off and got before the wind, the Wilhelmina

* A letter from Captain Lambert to Vice-admiral Rainier, giving a short account of this action, and copied into all the London papers, contains, in the manner of a postscript, the following paragraph: " N.B. His majesty's ship Wilhelmina carries 18 6-pounders and 100 men. " It is probable that this " N. B." was added by the copyist or first publisher, and not by the writer of the letter ; for the account in the text is not only taken from one of the officers who was present in the action, but, with the exception of the four supernumerary guns, agrees with the navy-office establishment upon all frigate-flûtes of the Wilhelmina's class.

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