1813	Sir Edward Pellew and Comte Emeriau	153

Owing to a deficiency of seamen and the disaffected state of those that remained, the Scheldt fleet, numerically strong as it was, gave, during this year, very little trouble to those that blockaded it ; nor did the Brest squadron, or fleet, as it now might almost be called, make any attempt to put to sea. On the 27th of August the newly-formed port of Cherbourg was opened, with great pomp, under the eyes of the empress Marie-Louise ; and on the 12th of October the 80-gun ship Zélandais, the first line-of-battle ship constructed at Cherbourg, was launched : another was also getting ready with all possible despatch. Since the 28th of May the French 74-gun ship Régulus, from Rochefort, had anchored in the river of Bordeaux ; and, according to the French accounts, she was the first ship of her class, that had ever entered the Gironde.

Toulon was now the only French port to be looked to for any operations of importance between the fleets of England and France. The British Mediterranean fleet remained in the able hands of Vice-admiral Sir Edward Pellew, and the fleet in Toulon was still under the command of Vice-admiral the Comte Emeriau. The flag of the latter was flying on board the 130-gun ship Impérial, and the flag of the second in command, the Baron Cosmao-Kerjulien, on board the Wagram, of the same force. On the 15th of August the 130-gun ship Héros was launched ; making the sixth three-decker in the port. Not being able to discover the launching of any three-decker in Toulon named Impérial, we consider that the Austerlitz had recently changed her name ; especially as, at the latter end of 1812, the flag of Vice-admiral Emeriau was flying on board of her. The addition of the Héros makes the total number of line-of-battle ships 21 ; all, except the Héros and Montebello, at anchor in the inner and outer roads, in company with ten 40-gun frigates and one 20-gun corvette. On the stocks there were two 80s, and one 74, the latter in a very forward state.

Although a dearth of seamen, owing to the draughts sent away to the army, prevented the Toulon fleet, as a body, from making any serious attempt to put to sea during the year 1813, large divisions of it, when the wind would serve also for returning, frequently weighed from the road, and exercised in man�uvring between the Capes Brun and Carquaranne. In the latter part of October the British fleet was blown off its station by a succession of hard gales, which lasted eight days ; and it was only on the evening of the 4th of November, that the inshore squadron, consisting of the 74-gun ships Scipion, Mulgrave, Pembroke, and Armada, Captains Henry Heathcote Thomas James Maling, James Brisbane, and Charles Grant arrived off Cape Sicie. The main body of the British fleet at this tune consisted of the

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