o
deliver it to the admiral if they should be so fortunate as to
escape.[5]

The following daring exploit is related of Lieutenant Bainbridge in
James's _Naval History_. We transcribe it as affording a striking
example of the union of undaunted courage with endurance in the
character of a British sailor.

"On the evening of the 21st of December, the British hired 10 gun
cutter, Lady Nelson, while off Carbareta Point, was surrounded and
engaged by two or three French privateers, and some gun vessels, in
sight of the 100 gun ship, Queen Charlotte, and the 36 gun frigate
Emerald, lying in Gibraltar Bay. Vice-Admiral Lord Keith, whose flag
was flying on board the former ship, immediately ordered the boats of
the two to row towards the combatants, in the hope that it might
encourage the Lady Nelson to resist, until she could approach near
enough to be covered by the guns of the ships. Before the boats could
get up, however, the Lady Nelson had been captured, and was in tow by
two of the privateers.

"Notwithstanding this, Lieutenant Bainbridge, in the Queen Charlotte's
barge, with sixteen men, ran alongside, and boarded with the greatest
impetuosity; and after a sharp conflict, carried the Lady Nelson,
taking as prisoners seven French officers and twenty-seven men.--six
or seven others having been killed or knocked overboard in the
scuffle. Lieutenant Bainbridge was severely wounded in the head by the
stroke of a sabre, and slightly in other places."

We have seen how, a few months afterwards, this brave officer
patiently anticipated death in a more terrible form on board the Queen
Charlotte.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] _Naval Chronicle_, vol. iii. p. 302.

THE INVINCIBLE.

The Invincible, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Totty,
and commanded by Captain Rennie, sailed from Yarmouth on the morning
of the 16th of March, 1801, to join the fleet of Admiral Sir Hyde
Parker in the Baltic.

The master and the pilot were both considered very skilful mariners of
those seas, and their orders were to navigate the ship into the North
Sea, and to put her in the way of joining the fleet to the northward,
as soon as she had cleared all the shoals.

About half-past two o'clock, P.M., of the same day, the Invincible,
going at the rate of nine knots an hour, struck violently upon a
sand-bank, and before the sails could be furled, she was fast aground
in little more than three fathoms water.

The pilot and master assu