I am, sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
James Saumarez.
Rear-admiral Linois, &c. &c. &c.
No answer having been given to this application, the correspondence ended, to be resumed under more favourable circumstances.
Sir James now added to the duplicates of his despatches (which had been sent in charge of Lieutenant Janvarin, by way of Tangier,) the following letter to his brother:
Cæsar, Gibraltar, 10th July 1801.
You will, I hope, receive the letters I have written to you on the subject of the enterprise of our squadron against three ships of the line and a frigate, at anchor in Algeziras Bay, last Monday; for a more particular account of which I must refer you to my public letter. But as my friends, with their usual anxiety on my account, will naturally wish further information from me, I must assure them in justice to myself and for their satisfaction, that everything was done that depended on myself, both in the planning and executing the business; but I cannot be accountable for the accidents that prevented its success. Even within an hour from our first engaging, and before any of our ships had sustained much injury, the Pompée, which was remarkably well placed against the inner ship, which proved to be the French Admiral, had at one time nearly silenced her, and must have done so in less than ten minutes, had not an unfortunate flaw of wind broke her sheer; and from that moment she was unable to bring one of her guns to bear on the enemy's ship.
A short time after, the Hannibal got a fine breeze of wind, and was lying up in the handsomest manner for the French ship; but unfortunately, wishing to go between her and the shore, got aground. Surely in either of these instances I was not concerned.
I had, before this, cut our cables, to profit by a favourable breeze to close the other two ships; but before we got near them it failed us, as well as the Audacious, and with the current we drove close to the island battery, where we remained a considerable time before either of the ships could clear a shoal close to it. At length a fine breeze sprung up, which gave the most favourable hope of carrying us close to the enemy's ships, and, by silencing them, to extricate the unfortunate Hannibal.
But here, again, it most unhappily failed us; and although we had, at different times, opened a heavy fire upon them, we were still not sufficiently near to silence them effectually; and, the wind all the time leading us farther off, I was constrained to abandon all hopes of success, and proceeded with the squadron to this anchorage.