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:

Caesar, 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 Pompee, 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 suffic