At 5 P.M., having destroyed the Turkish squadron, and left the Active, in conjunction with the prize-corvette, gun-boat, and a division of the Pomp�e's boats to effect the total destruction of the battery, Sir Sidney with the remainder of his division got under way ; and, Sir John having also weighed, the whole squadron pursued its course up the channel, with a strong breeze from the south by west, which was as fair as it could blow. At 8 P.M., the ships passed Galipoli, and, entering the sea of Marmora, stood for Constantinople. The British admiral carried little sail during the night ; and on the following day, the 20th, the wind lessened considerably. The delay caused by this double misfortune a made it nearly 10 P.M. before the squadron came to anchor and then, not off the town of Constantinople, but off the Prince's islands, about eight miles from it.

On the 21st, at daybreak, the wind blew moderately from the south-east ; and every one in the squadron, except the admiral and the ambassador, expected probably that the ships would weigh, and, in the letter as well as spirit of Sir John's instructions, proceed off the town, to be ready to bombard it the instant Mr. Arbuthnot should give the word. In fact it would appear that, as the ambassador, his suite, and the British residents of Constantinople were completely out of the hands of the Turks, and as hostilities had actually commenced between the latter and the British, the whole of the contingencies referred to in Sir John's instructions were got rid of, and that therefore the admiral was now at liberty to act upon his own responsibility. Sir John, however, thought otherwise, and preferred consulting the ambassador, whose pacific disposition he must by this time have known. The British squadron, consequently, remained at anchor ; and the Endymion was the only vessel that moved, or that made an attempt to move, towards Constantinople.

The frigate, with the ambassador's despatches, anchored at about 11 h. 30 m. A.M., within four miles of the town, that being as near as, according to Sir John's letter, the lightness of the wind and the strength of the current would permit her to approach. In these despatches Mr. Arbuthnot declares, " that the British fleet will avail itself of the first favourable wind to proceed towards Constantinople ; " tells the Turks, that " the arrival of the fleet ought to convince them that, when orders have been given to British officers, no difficulties, no dangers, can retard their execution a single moment ; " and promises that, " in case a favourable answer arrives on the day following at sunset, all hostile demonstration shall cease. "

On the 21st, at daybreak, " Sir John Thomas Duckworth, vice-admiral of the white and knight of the bath, " * as he very

*  This honour was conferred upon him on the 6th of June, 1801, on his return from taking quiet possession of the Danish West-India islands, and probably as a compensation for his loss of prize-money to the almost immediate restoration of the captured colonies.

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