[4] After the action, Mr. Norway requested permission to keep the body of Mr. Pearse for interment by his friends. Captain Pellew for answer desired Mr. N. to read the contents of a paper which he drew from his pocket. It was a direction that if he, Capt. P., should foil, his body should at once be thrown overboard. Of course Mr. N. immediately withdrew his request.
CHAPTER IV.
THE WESTERN SQUADRONS.
The capture of the first frigate in a war is always an object of much interest; and the circumstances of the late action, the merit of which was enhanced by the skill and gallantry of the enemy, gave additional importance to Captain Pellew's success. "I never doubted," said Lord Howe, "that you would take a French frigate; but the manner in which you have done it, will establish an example for the war."
The brothers were introduced to the King on the 29th of June, by the Earl of Chatham, First Lord of the Admiralty; when Captain Pellew received the honour of knighthood, and his brother was made a post-captain. Besides the usual promotions, the master, Mr. Thomson, received a lieutenant's commission. As Mr. Thomson was a master of considerable standing, the captain supposed that he would decline the change to be a junior lieutenant; but the master preferred to get into the line for promotion, and as the result showed, he decided wisely, for he followed Sir Edward to the Arethusa and Indefatigable; and as he had the singular fortune to fight four brilliant actions in three years and a-half, each of which obtained promotion for his first lieutenant, Mr. Thomson thus rose rapidly to seniority, and was made a commander for the action with the Droits de l'Homme.
Captain Mullon was buried at Portsmouth, with all the honours due to his gallantry. One of Sir Edward's first acts was to write a letter of condolence to the widow; and as he learnt that she was left in narrow circumstances, he sent, with her husband's property, what assistance his then very limited means enabled him to offer. Madame Mullon acknowledged his attention and kindness in a most grateful letter. He received also the warm acknowledgments of the Cleopatra's surviving officers, the senior of whom requested and received from him testimonials of the skill and gallantry with which they had defended their ship, without which their defeat, in the bloody councils which then prevailed, would probably have brought them to the scaffold. What was scarcely to be expected at such a time, and after a first defeat, it was admitted in the Moniteur that the "superb frigate" the Cleopatra had been taken by a frigate of equal force.
The action between the Nymphe and Cleopatra is interesting as the first in which a ship had substituted carronades for her quarter-deck guns of small calibre, making them a material part of her force. This gun had been invented about three years before the close of the former war, and the Admiralty had allowed it to be introduced generally into the navy; but except in one ship, the Rainbow, 44, which was armed entirely with heavy carronades, it was considered as supplementary to the regular armament, being mounted only where long guns could not be placed, and not affecting the ship's rating. The Flora, when she took the Nymphe, in 1780, thus carried six 18-pounder carronades, in addition to her proper number of long guns; and the Artois, when Sir Edward commanded her, was armed in the same manner. The carronade was at first very unpopular with the sailors, generally prejudiced as they are against innovations, and who, not understanding how to use it, attributed failures which arose from their own mismanagement to defects in the invention. Sir Edward, who had no prejudices to contend with in training his crew, obtained permission, when he fitted the Nymphe, to exchange the six-pounders on her quarter-deck for 24-pounder carronades; and the result of the battle confirmed his favourable opinion of them. His next ship, the Arethusa, was armed precisely as the forty-four gun frigates at a later period of the war, with eighteen-pounders on the main-deck, and 32-pounder carronades on the quarter-deck and forecastle. He joined her in January 1794.
Towards the end of 1793, the enemy fitted out a number of frigates, which cruised at the entrance of the Channel, chiefly in small squadrons, and committed the most serious depredations. Sir Edward formed the idea of checking them by an independent cruising squadron; but, expecting that a measure so unusual as to create a distinct command within the limits of an Admiral's station would be very strongly opposed, he would not, as an officer without influence, venture to recommend it himself; but he explained his views to Sir J. Borlase Warren, whose interest was great, and urged him to apply for such a command. The Admiralty, whose attention had already been anxiously directed to the successes of the enemy, approved of the proposal, and gave Sir John a small squadron of frigates, of which the Arethusa was one, and which were to rendezvous at Falmouth. Such was the origin of the Western squadrons, which, from the number of their successes, and their character of dashing enterprise, became the most popular service in the navy. As a school for officers and seamen, they were never surpassed. Almost all their captains rose to high distinction, and a list of well-known flag-officers may be traced in connection with them, such as, perhaps, was never formed by any other service of the same extent. It may suffice to mention such names as Sir Richard Strachan, Sir Israel Pellew, Sir Edmund Nagle, Sir Sidney Smith, Sir Richard Keats, Sir James Saumarez, Sir Philip Durham, Sir Charles V. Penrose, Admirals Barlow, and Reynolds. Nothing equals the animating duties of a cruizing frigate squadron. The vigilance in hovering on the enemy's coast, or sweeping over the seas around it; the chase, by a single ship detached to observe a suspicious stranger, or by the whole squadron to overtake an enemy; the occasional action; the boat-attack;—service like this gives constant life to a sailor. In a line-of-battle ship, with the perfection of discipline, there is less demand for individual enterprise, and fewer of the opportunities which fit crews for exploits where all depends on rapidity and daring. On the other hand, a single cruizer wants the stimulus supplied by constant emulation. But in a squadron, all the ships vie with one another; and the smartest of them, herself always improving, gives an example, and a character to the whole.