1808	Pitt and Semillante	63

revolutions so frequent in Turkey, peace between England and the Sublime Porte was signed on the 5th of January, 1809.

We left the French frigate Sémillante just as her voyage to Mexico had been rendered impracticable, m consequence of the attack made upon her at St.-Jacinta by the British frigate Phaëton and brig-sloop Harrier. * This was the more unfortunate for the Sémillante, as the south-west monsoon then blew with extreme violence. Greatly, however, to his credit, Captain Motard persevered against contrary winds and currents, and amidst a very dangerous navigation, until he cleared the sea of Celebes by the narrow and difficult strait of Aloo. The Sémillante then steered direct for the Isle of France, and anchored, on or about the 5th of November, in the harbour of Port-Louis.

In the midst of her refit, the Sémillante was joined by the French frigate-privateer Bellone, of 34 guns, Captain Péroud, whose capture a few months afterwards has already been related ; � and, towards the close of the year, the port, with these two ships within it, became blockaded, by the British 18-pounder teak-built 36-gun frigate Pitt (afterwards Salsette), Captain Walter Bathurst, and 12-pounder 32-gun frigate Terpsichore, Captain William Jones Lye. On the 5th of January, 1806, having got on shore in watering at Flat island, and thrown several of her guns overboard, and being in a very leaky state, the Terpsichore parted company for Ceylon; and the Pitt, whose effective crew were reduced by sickness to less than one half, cruised alone off the Isle of France. Here Captain Bathurst took several prizes ; and on the 26th, in chase of a vessel to windward, the Pitt got so near to the fort upon Pointe Canonnière, situated about eight miles to the northward of Port Louis, as to have one seaman killed, and her starboard night head shot away, Nor was the frigate, although she lay for nearly 20 minutes within gun-shot of the fort, able, owing to the direction of the wind, to bring a single gun to bear in return.

No sooner did M. Motard, as he tells us, ascertain that the Pitt was cruising alone off the port ; no sooner did the French captain, as he does not tell us, learn from a countryman of his, who had recently been liberated from her, that the Pitt, having 90 men sick (chiefly with scurvy and contracted limbs), and a great many absent in prizes, had scarcely a sloop of war's complement on board, than he determined to go out and engage her. For this purpose Captain Motard hastened the repairs of his ship, and in three days the Sémillante was ready for sea. But, it appears, so disproportionate in point of force were the two frigates still considered ; not by the French captain, who, we are to believe him, was all fire to engage, but by General

� See vol. iv., p.153

� Ibid., p. 246.

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