[269] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. 359.
[270] Cobbett's Parl. Debates, March 15, 1804, p. 921.
[271] Naval Chronicle, vol. xvii. p. 369.
[272] Norman gives the total number of captures, 1793-1800, as 5,158 against Lloyd's 3,639. Through the kindness of Captain H. M. Hozier, Secretary of Lloyd's, the author has received a list of British ships taken, annually, 1793-1814. This list makes the numbers considerably less than the earlier one used in the text. By it, between 1793 and 1800, both inclusive, only 3,466 British ships were captured.
[273] Moniteur, 16 Pluviôse, An 7 (Feb. 5, 1799), pp. 582, 583.
[274] Guérin gives the total number of captures by France from Great Britain, from 1793 to the Peace of Amiens, March 25, 1802, including both ships of war and merchant vessels, as 2,172; while the French lost in all, from ships-of-the-line to fishing-boats, between 1,520 and 1,550. Of this total, 27 were ships-of-the-line and 70 frigates,—a number considerably below that given by James, the painstaking English naval historian. Allowing 150 as the number of smaller naval vessels taken, there would remain, by Guérin's estimate, about 1,300 French trading vessels which fell into British hands. Of these a large proportion must have been the chasse-marées that carried on the coasting trade (as their expressive name implies); attacks on which formed so frequent and lucrative a diversion from the monotony of blockade service. (Hist. Mar de la France, vol. iii. p. 674.)
Guérin claims great carefulness, but the author owns to much distrust of his accuracy. It is evident, however, from all the quotations, that Fox's statement, May 24, 1795, that in the second year of the war France had taken 860 ships, was much exaggerated. (Speeches, vol. v. p. 419. Longman's, 1815.)
[275] In this period of twenty-two years there were eighteen months of maritime peace.
[276] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv.
[277] Thus it is told of one of the most active of French privateersmen, sailing out of Dunkirk, that "the trade from London to Berwick, in the smacks, was his favorite object; not only from the value of the cargoes, but because they required few hands to man them, and from their good sailing were almost sure to escape British cruisers and get safely into ports of France or Holland." Between 1793 and 1801 this one man had taken thirty-four prizes. (Nav. Chron., vol. xii. p. 454.)