1808	Bacchante and Griffon	51

all she dreads, and that only until she has trimmed her sails to meet it. This points out another advantage, and no slight one either, which the Requin possessed over the Wizard.

It must have been peculiarly annoying to the tars on board the Wizard, to see a vessel, that had cost them so many hours of toil and anxiety, so many sleepless nights and tantalizing prospects of reward, moored close to the muzzles of their guns, and yet not be allowed to spring on board of, nor even to snap a trigger at her. So it was ; and the Wizard had no alternative but to leave the French captain to enjoy, with the possession of his fine brig, his reflections upon the degrading circumstances under which he had preserved her.

The Wizard was obliged to put into Malta, to get herself new lower masts and a new main yard. In 15 days she was again at sea, keeping, no doubt, a sharp look-out for her old antagonist ; but the latter fell to the share of another British vessel of war, the 22-gun ship Volage, Captain Philip L. J. Rosenhagen, who captured her on the 28th of July, to the northward of the island of Corsica, after a nine hours' chase. It was confirmed, that the Requin was the brig that had been engaged by the Wizard ; but the particulars of her loss were not communicated.

Vice-admiral Lord Collingwood, to evince his opinion of the conduct of Captain Ferris in the arduous and persevering chase and gallant defeat of the Requin, appointed him, on the first vacancy, to the command of the 100-gun ship Royal-Sovereign ; but, Captain Ferris's commission as post not being dated until two years afterwards, we may conjecture that the board of admiralty did not sanction the promotion, with which the Mediterranean commander-in-chief had thought fit to reward the Wizard's commander.

On the 11th of May, in the forenoon, the British 20-gun ship Bacchante (18 carronades, 32-pounders, and two nines), Captain Samuel Hood Inglefield, cruising off Cape Antonio, island of Cuba, chased, and at 3 p.m. brought to action, the French brig-corvette Griffon, of 14 carronades, 24-pounders, and two sixes, Lieutenant Jacques Gautier. After sustaining and returning the heavy fire of her superior antagonist for 32 minutes, and persisting in her endeavours to escape until she was within 200 yards of the breakers off the Cape, the Griffon hauled down her colours.

The Bacchante had no man hurt on board ; and the Griffon, out of a crew of 105 men and boys, only five men wounded. The brig was afterwards added to the British navy under the same name. The crowd of canvass, under which, owing to the lightness of the breeze, this action was fought by the Bacchante, is somewhat remarkable. She carried sky-sails with the wind abeam, and above the main sky-sail, a lateen " moon-raker," which hoisted 14 feet above the mast-head. It was the

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