Wolfe Tone, the story goes, was on board the _Hoche_, and refused at the outset a chance that was offered him to get away by a boat to the _Biche_, a fast-sailing schooner then about to make off, or to one of the French frigates, by which means alone it was possible for him to escape. “The action is hopeless,” said the French officers to him on the quarter-deck; “with the odds against us it can only have one end. We shall be prisoners of war; but what will become of you?” “No!” replied Tone. “Shall it be said that I fled when the French were fighting the battle of my country? No; I shall stand by the ship.” He went below and took charge of a division of guns in one of the batteries. The end, as the watchers on land soon see, comes swiftly. Further resistance would be murder. Beaten to a standstill, riddled like a sieve, with twenty-five guns disabled, more than half her men put _hors de combat_, her lower masts shot through and every moment threatening to go over the side, her rudder smashed to splinters, with five feet of water in the hold—down perforce has to come the _Hoche’s_ tricolor. So the battle ends. [Illustration: OUR FIRST _DONEGAL_ _The captured French line of battle ship “Hoche,” being towed by the “Doris,” 36, Lord Ranelagh, into Lough Swilly. Drawn by N. Pocock, from a sketch made from the “Robust” by Captain R. Williams of the Marines._] It is just twenty minutes past eleven. Three other French ships, overtaken at their first attempt at flight, have already surrendered. The rest are making off, scattering over the horizon with British frigates in pursuit, to be run down and taken in the end—all of them except two.[11] The fourth tableau rings down on the piece. The last scene closes some weeks later in the quiet waters of the Hamoaze off Devonport Dockyard, whither the _Hoche_ was taken round, with the arrival of an Admiralty messenger at the Port Admiral’s office. He brings in his dispatch wallet an official memorandum that “My Lords have been pleased to direct Sir J. B. Warren’s prize to be registered in the List of the Navy by the name of the _Donegal_.” In this way it was that the name Donegal came originally into the Royal Navy for a man-of-war, and the battle of October, ’98, off the coast of Donegal is our present cruiser’s principal bond of connection with the county. * * * * *