1815	Buonaparte's Surrender to the English	353

amidst the greetings of at least 200,000 of the inhabitants. The battle of Waterloo was fought, as need scarcely be stated, on the 18th of June; and on the 15th of July, finding he could not evade the British cruisers and get to the United States, Buonaparte surrendered himself to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, of the Bellerophon 74, lying in Basque roads. The latter ship immediately conveyed her important charge to Torbay, and then to Plymouth ; where the Bellerophon arrived on the 26th. On the 7th of August the ex-emperor was removed to the 74-gun ship Northumberland, Captain Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross, bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Sir George Cockburn, K.C.B. On the 8th the Northumberland sailed for the island of St.-Helena, and, on the 16th of October there safely disembarked the " general " and his few attendants. Europe being thus freed, all parties felt seriously inclined for peace ; and on the 20th of November treaties were entered into at Paris between the different powers.

During the short interval of renewed war, that had preceded the execution of these treaties, one or two naval occurrences happened, which require our notice. On the 30th of April, a few miles to the northward of the island of Ischia, the British 74-gun ship Rivoli, Captain Edward Sterling Dickson, after a running fight and brave defence of 15 minutes, captured the French 40-gun frigate Melpomène, Captain Joseph Collet, from Porto-Ferrajo to Naples, to take on board Napoleon's mother. The frigate was very much cut up in hull, masts, and rigging, and had six men killed and 28 wounded. The Rivoli, on the other hand, had only one man mortally, and a few others slightly wounded.

On the 17th of June, at daylight, the British brig-sloop Pilot, of 16 carronades, 32-pounders, and two sixes, Captain John Toup Nicolas, being about 50 miles to the westward of Cape Corse, observed and chased a ship in the east-north-east. This proved to be the French Buonapartean corvette Légère, of 20 carronades, 24-pounders, and two 12-pounders on the main deck, with four or six light guns, probably brass 6-pounders on the quarterdeck, Capitaine de frégate Nicolas Touffet. At 2 p.m. the Légère hauled towards the Pilot, and, hoisting a tri-coloured pendant and ensign, fired a gun to windward. At 2 h. 30 m., after some manœuvring on both sides to get the weathergage, the Pilot placed herself close on the Légère's weather beam, and hoisted her colours. Observing that the corvette was preparing to make sail to pass ahead, and being at the same moment hailed, " Keep further from us," the Pilot fired a shot through the Légère's foresail. A broadside from the French ship immediately followed, and the action commenced within pistol-range. The brig's shot, being from her lee guns and directed low, evidently struck the hull of her opponent in quick succession, while the Légère's shot passed high, and chiefly disabled the Pilot's rigging and sails.

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