HISTORY 6E MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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the seamen's phrase, considerably fore-reached tho$e of the British. The losseswhich are imputable to accident, and those dangers to which all vessels at sea areliable, no less forcibly proves the superiority of that construction or form given tovessels, under 1 the load water-line, which was then adopted by the French. Thosewhich perished were entirely of English construction, while the remainder,buitf in the ports of France, being better enabled to hold their wind, to work off alee shore, and to endure the assaults of an heavy head-sea, were capable of succes-fully combating and effectually resisting it

they weighed, a flag at the main-top-mast-head on board of one of their ships. They stand from us,and we after them with all the sail we can.”

In a second letter Sir George states, “ We chased the enemy to the northward of Buccaness, some-times with reasonable hopes of coming up with them. The Dover and Ludlow Castle being the onlyclean sailing ships we had, they were the first which came up with part of the enemy’s squadron, theypassed by some of the smaller to engage some of the larger ships, and stopped them till they could berelieved. They attacked two or three of the enemy’s ships, among which was the Salisbury : they didnot part with them till more of our ships arrived, but worked the ships in a handsome manner tocut them off from the rest of the fleet; but, in the darkness of the night, they all got out of sight, exceptthe Salisbury, which falling in amongst our head-most ships, the Leopard entered men on board.We were informed by the officers who were taken, that there were 12 battalions on board theirsquadron, commanded by the Count de Gace, a Marshal of France; the pretended Prince ofWales, Lord Middleton, Lord Perth, the Macdonalds, Trevanion, and several other officers andgentlemen, on hoard the Mars, in which also was Monsieur Fourbin, who commanded thesquadron. The number and strength of their ships are very near the account we lately received fromDunkirk ; nor were they joined by the Brest men of war : and they further assure us, that the ships,our out-scouts saw off Calais, were privateers and their prizes going into Dunkirk. The morningafter this chace, we saw but 18 of the enemies ships, as far as we could perceive them from the mast-head, in the E. N. E. of us. Having no prospect of coming up with them, we lay off and onBuccaness all day yesterday to gather our ships together; and this day, blowing hard at N. E. with agreat sea, judging the enemy could not seize the shore to make any attempt, we bore up for this place,which was thought most reasonable, not only to secure, but to give countenance and spirit to herMajesty’s faithful subjects, and discourage those that could have thoughts of being our enemies.”

It is no less worthy of remark, that very few ships captured by the enemy, fiom the British, haveever continued long the property of their new possessors. If it has so happened, that one of them,being in company with others of French construction, has ever fallen-in with any English squadron,that ship, almost without exception, has been among those captured, and most frequently thefirst which has fallen. Exclusive of the Salisbury already noticed, the Pembroke, re-taken inthe same war, the Warwick, the Ardent, and the Alexander, besides a number of other vessels ofinferior rate, in times much more modern, are additional proofs of the same principle.—On the otherhand, the re-capture of any ship, frigate, or vessel of inferior rate, from the British, which wasoriginally French, is a circumstance extremely uncommon.

The