1814	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	294

how many shot the Peacock placed in her antagonist's hull, and how free from any she escaped in her own.

At the time she engaged the Peacock, the Epervier had but three men in a watch, exclusively of petty officers, able to take helm or lead ; and two of her men were each 70 years of age ! She had some blacks, several other foreigners, lots of disaffected, and few even of ordinary stature : in short, the crew of the Epervier was a disgrace to the deck of a British man of war. Had, instead of this, the Epervier been manned with a crew of choice seamen, equal in personal appearance to those received out of the Chesapeake and Argus, after they had been respectively carried by boarding, we might have some faith in Captain Porter's assertion, that British seamen were not so brave as they had been represented. But, shall we take the Epervier's crew as a sample of British seamen ? As well might we judge of the moral character of a nation by the inmates of her jails, or take the first deformed object we meet, as the standard of the size and shape of her people.

We must be allowed to say that, had the Epervier's carronades been previously fired in exercise, for any length of time together, the defect in the clinching of her breeching-bolts, a defect common to the vessels of this and the smaller classes, nearly all of them being contract-built, would have been discovered, and perhaps remedied. Even one or two discharges would have shown the insufficiency of the fighting-bolts. We doubt, however, if any teaching at the guns could have amended the Epervier's crew : the men wanted, what nature alone could give them, the hearts of Britons.

On the 28th of June, at daylight, latitude 48� 36' north, longitude 11� 15' west, the British 18-gun brig-sloop Reindeer, Captain William Manners, steering with a light breeze from the north-east, discovered and chased in the west-south-west the United States' ship-sloop Wasp, Captain Johnston Blakeley. The latter was the sister-ship to the Peacock and armed every way the same. The Reindeer, built of fir in 1804, was a sister-brig to the Epervier, but not so heavily armed, having, on account of her age and weakness, exchanged her 32-pounder carronades for 24-pounders ; 16 of which, with two sixes and a 12-pounder boat-carronade, formed her present armament.

By 1 p.m. the two vessels had approximated near enough to ascertain that each was an enemy ; and, while one man�uvred to gain, the other man�uvred to keep, the weathergage. At 2 p.m. the Wasp hoisted her colours, and fired a gun to windward; and immediately the Reindeer, whose colours had been previously hoisted, fired a gun also to windward, as an answer to the challenge. At 3 h. 15 m. p.m., being distant about 60 yards on the Wasp's starboard and weather quarter, the Reindeer opened a fire from her boat-carronade mounted upon the top

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