boarding. In the course of
the action, when locked in a deadly embrace with their grappling-irons,
another English ship threw into the _Cordelier_ a quantity of
combustibles, or fire-works, as they were called, and set her on fire.
In vain the crew of the _Regent_ endeavoured to free their ship from her
perilous position. The magazine of the _Cordelier_ was reached, and she
and the _Regent_ went up into the air together. In the _Regent_, Sir
William Knevet and 700 men were lost, and in the _Cordelier_, Sir Pierce
Morgan, her captain, and 900 of her crew are supposed to have perished.
After this dreadful catastrophe the action ceased; the French,
horror-stricken, hurriedly making their way into Brest. The ships,
also, of both parties, had received considerable damage.

Although cannon had been employed on board ships since the time of
Edward the Third, this was probably one of the first sea-fights in which
they were used by both parties on board all the ships engaged. Even on
this occasion the combatants seem to have trusted more to their
battle-axes and swords than to their artillery. The French give a
different account of this battle. They say that an English ship having
discharged a quantity of fire-works into the _Cordelier_, she caught
fire, when her Breton commander, finding that the conflagration could
not be extinguished, and determined not to perish alone, made up to the
English admiral and grappled her, when they blew up into the air
together. On this the two fleets separated by mutual consent.

The following year another fleet of forty-two men-of-war, under the
command of the Lord High Admiral, sailed for Brest, when the French
squadron was found at anchor, protected by batteries on shore, and a
line of twenty-four hulks chained together across the harbour's mouth.
The admiral, however, making a feint with his boats, drew the enemy down
to the shore, when he ran up past the batteries, and ravaged the country
round the town. The French had been waiting the arrival of six galleys
from the Mediterranean, under Monsieur Pregent.

I cannot refrain from giving the first account I have met with of what
may properly be called a cutting-out expedition. While the English
fleet were at Brest, Monsieur Pregent arrived on the coast with six
galleys and four foists, and, apprehensive of being attacked by the
enemy, he entered the Bay of Conquet, which was the nearest place to
Brest. He here placed his squadron