1808	Light Squadrons and Single Ships	34

of 20 minutes, her antagonist blew up. As the Swan now lay nearly becalmed under the land, and as the batteries were still firing, and several boats approaching from the shore, Lieutenant Lucas was under the necessity of quitting the wreck without saving the life of a single individual of the crew. The Danish cutter appeared to be a vessel of about 120 tons, mounted eight or 10 guns, and was apparently full of men. Neither the Swan nor a man on board of her sustained the slightest injury.

In transmitting to the secretary of the admiralty the letter of Lieutenant Lucas detailing this action, Sir James Saumarez begins by stating, that the lieutenant was the bearer of despatches from himself to Sir Samuel Hood ; and yet the vice-admiral concludes his letter thus : " Great praise is due to Lieutenant Lucas for his spirited attack of a vessel of superior force under the protection of the enemy's batteries. " Here then, upon an important point of service, is an opinion at complete variance with that which, it is pretended, would have been expressed by Admiral Cornwallis, had the Æolus, when bearing her despatches, such as they were, pursued and engaged the Didon. Much as we have reason to be satisfied, as regards both weight and number, with the private opinions, which the complaints against us, for dragging into the light that hitherto concealed case, have elicited, the few words just quoted from the letter of Sir James Saumarez, in reference to an exactly similar case, are all that we are at liberty to publish.

On the 10th of May the British 18-pounder 32-gun frigate Tartar, Captain George Edmund Byron Bettesworth, sailed from Leith roads, to cruise off North Bergen and endeavour to intercept a frigate stated to be lying in that harbour. This was the Dutch frigate Guelderland, Captain Pool, of 36-guns, 12 and 6 pounders ; which, with a convoy of three or four ships in charge, had sailed from the Texel on the 8th of March, bound to Batavia, but, having sprung a leak, had since put into Bergen to get it stopped.

On the 12th the Tartar arrived off the coast of Norway, but, on account of a very thick fog, could not stand in until the 15th. On that day the frigate made the islands to the westward of Bergen ; and, on hoisting Dutch colours, was boarded by some Norwegians, who came off in two boats, and informed the officers, that the Guelderland, with her small convoy, had sailed for the East Indies eight days before. By the aid of these men as pilots, the Tartar steered through a most intricate and rocky passage, until she arrived within five or six miles of Bergen, when the Norwegians refused to take the ship any further.

It being Captain Bettesworth's intention, now that the frigate had escaped him, to proceed off the town, and bring away the shipping in the harbour, among which were three privateers, the Tartar anchored in the straits ; and in the evening Captain Bettesworth, accompanied by his first and third lieutenants,

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