and distributed, thus insuring by
co-operation more thorough results. At the suggestion of Sir Edward
Pellew, the British Admiralty determined to oppose to these organized
depredators a similar system. Groups of crack frigates were constituted,
and sent to cruise within the limits of the Channel Fleet, but
independent of its admiral. In these Pellew served for the next five
years, much of the time as squadron commander; to him a period of
incessant, untiring activity, and illustrated by many brilliant and
exciting incidents, for which the limits of this sketch afford no space.

There are, however, two episodes in which he was so distinctly the
central figure that they demand at least a brief narration. In January,
1796, while his ship was repairing, a large East Indiaman, the _Dutton_,
carrying some six hundred troops and passengers, was by a series of
mishaps driven ashore on the beach of Plymouth, then an unprotected
sound. As she struck, all her masts went overboard, and she lay
broadside to the waves, pounding heavily as they broke over her. Pellew
was at this moment driving to a dinner with his wife. Seeing crowds
running from various directions towards the same quarter, he asked the
reason. Upon learning it, he left his carriage and hurried to the scene.
When he arrived, he recognized, by the confusion on board, by the way
the ship was laboring, by the poverty of the means that had been
contrived for landing the imperilled souls,--only a single hawser having
been run to the shore,--that the loss of nearly all on board was
imminent. Night, too, was falling, as well as the destruction of the
vessel impending. After vainly offering rewards to the hardy boatmen
standing by, if they would board the wreck with a message from him, he
said, "Then I must go myself." Though then close to forty years of age,
his immense personal strength and activity enabled him, though sorely
bruised thereby, to be hauled on board through the breakers by the
hawser, which alternately slacked and then tightened with a jerk as the
doomed ship rolled to and fro in the seas. Once on board, he assumed
command, the want of which, through the absence of the proper captain,
had until then hampered and well-nigh paralyzed all effectual effort.
When his well-known name was spoken, three hearty cheers arose from the
troops on board, echoed by the thousands of spectators on shore; and the
hope that revived with the presence of a born leader of men showe