To Philip Stephens, Esq. Admiralty.

P.S.--The Reunion was accompanied by a cutter, which did not
attempt to come into action, but made for Cherbourg.

Captain Saumarez was now on his passage to Portsmouth, where he had
left his wife and infant children only two days before, in pursuit of
an implacable enemy known to be not many leagues distant! It was the
first battle he had fought since he became a husband and a father; and
his feelings, as he returned triumphantly to the bosom of his family,
can be easier imagined than described.

The anxiety and excitement inseparable from the day of battle had
subsided, the prisoners had been removed, the captive Frenchmen with
whom he had been sympathizing had retired, and he was at length left
alone to meditate on that remarkable dispensation of Divine favour
which had been so fully and especially manifested towards him: he had
gloriously wrested from an enemy, fighting under the proud banner of
liberty, a ship equal to his own in weight of metal and superior by
seventy men in numbers, after a furious contest of above two hours,
without a man being hurt by his opponent, who lost one hundred and
twenty men killed and wounded: a fact unparalleled in the page of
history. With the generality of mankind, such circumstances were well
calculated to raise feelings of proud exultation; but these were never
cherished in the breast of Saumarez. Having done all in his power to
soothe the affliction of his vanquished enemy, his first impulse was
to offer up his thanksgivings and acknowledgments to the great GIVER
of all victory, and to implore that his mind might not be too highly
elevated by his glorious success. After despatching his unpresuming
letter to the Admiralty, which has been already given, he wrote to his
brother, in London, the following letter:

Crescent, 21st Oct. 1793.

MY DEAR RICHARD,

You will rejoice with me at the success that has attended our
short cruise. On Saturday evening we sailed from Spithead; and
the next morning, being about three leagues from Cape Barfleur,
we saw two sail standing towards us from under Cherbourg, which
I soon discovered to be a French frigate and a cutter. We were
on the larboard tack with the wind off shore; I was happy in
being able to keep between them and the land. When about two
miles from us, the frigate tacked with all her sail set, and the
cutter made sail to windward: we edged down to h